The Global Land Cover Facility

Presentation for WGISS-25February 26, 2008

University of Maryland, Department of Geography

What is the GLCF?A Non-Governmental Science Information Center• Making quality Earth science data easily available to researchers• Developing tools for data access and data sharing• Innovating visualizations for spatial data• Land cover research & production

A research facility sponsored by NASA & University of Maryland • Joint activity between the University of Maryland Institute for

Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS) and Geography Department• John Townshend = Director• NASA MEaSUREs, REASoN, ESIP, ACCESS, EOS, ESDS programs

Data Collections Available

Data Collections• Earth observation imagery and land cover products• Landsat scenes• MODIS composites• ASTER• IKONOS, QuickBird• SRTM

• AVHRR – derived land cover products• MODIS – derived land cover products• Landsat – derived land cover products• special collections

Data Access Policies

Data Access Policies• All data is free to any user via anonymous FTP• Registration is not required to access 95% of archive• Archive is reliable• Archive is available 24/7• Customer support provided

Collections Policies

Collections are:• Earth observation imagery useful to generating land cover products Or• land cover products derived from Earth observation imagery

• peer reviewed and/or supported by extensive methodology, calibration and validation documentation.• accompanied online by helpful web pages with standardized, brief overview information• supported through GLCF customer service

Formats & Interoperability

Format Policies:• Formats make a big difference to users – make it easy• GeoTIFF, WGS84, UTM/Geographic

• Reformat of SRTM & MODIS layers to community need

• Consider Earth science community format needs, but also:– Earth scientists in GIS community– other GIS users– conservation scientists– land managers (planners, local govt)– academics (teaching materials)– commercial users (realtors, graphic artists, insurance, utilities, news media, transportation planners.

Simple, Effective Visualization Application

A primary application was developed at GLCF for accessing spatial data collections visually: the Earth Science Data Interface (ESDI).

Goal to provide easy access:• registration not required• minimal clicks to actual data• improved previews• reliable• ESDI can be bypassed to FTP• no fees = quick access

Application and Data Discovery Development

Goal of making data easy for user to access:

• Continue to enhance ESDI, often per user requests

• A suite of applications designed for online processing of imagery into land products: the Land Cover Change Community-based Processing and Analysis System (LC-ComPS) (J.Masek PI). Also designed for free reuse.

• data grids (SRB, Globus), OPeNDAP, “sister” sites

• The GLCF has developed applications for the collection of performance metrics and success stories so that government or business managers can better recognize their project activities.

Distribution of Spatial Data

15 TB available807 TB distributed57 million hits(Jan 31, 2008)

Of the last 2.5 million visits,GLCF logs only identified 51% of domains.Of those domains, the following were recognized:

Since 2003,downloads have shiftedfrom 90% US domains to 65% non-US domains

GLCF Land Cover Activities

Land Cover Focus• Regional and global forest cover and forest cover change products

Deforestation Mapping Group• semi-automated techniques for processing 30 meter resolution Landsat imagery into FCC products• products for Central Africa, the non-Brazilian Amazon, Paraguay

Development of land cover automation techniques• Current research and development of Support Vector Machine (SVM) processing of Landsat and ASTER imagery into FCC products.

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FCC ProductFCC Product

GLCF Achievements: UNEP Distribution

• US Government policy to distribute Landsat GeoCover collection for free through UNEP

• Each developing world nation received a free subset of the collection covering their area on hard drives

NASA/USGSGeoCover data

UMD GLCFformatting, packaging

UNEPdistribution

Nationsdata used

GLCF & IGSNRR Cooperative

Since 2005, the GLCF has cooperated in an agreement with a sister institution at the Institute of Geographical Science and Natural Resources Research (IGSNRR) in Beijing whereby:

http://glcf.geodata.cn

John Townshend from the University of Maryland signed a data exchange agreement with Liu Jiyuan, Director General of the Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research in the People's Republic of China, on September 3, 2005.

• GLCF provided a copy of the 3.5 TB, 3-epoch, global coverage, Landsat GeoCover collection to IGSNRR on hard drives – free. • IGSNRR put the data online in Chinese, on their country’s Internet. • GLCF receives volume metrics• GLCF will receive collections of non-NASA data and products from the sister group to provide in English via GLCF systems.

http://glcf.geodata.cn

Future GLCF Directions

• Updated collections access• Continuing work in online LC application development• Continuing work in data discovery research: Lattice Grid, Sisters, OGC• Continuing work with collaborators in Earth science & Conservation• Continuing research in LC modeling and production, including

–ASTER program products to include 2005 NA FCC & composites–MEaSUREs program products will include:

•Global fine resolution (< 100 m) surface reflectance ESDR for three epochs centered around 1990, 2000, and 2005; •Fine resolution (< 100 m) forest cover change (FCC) ESDR between the three epochs; •Fragmentation products derived from the fine resolution FCC products; •Global 250-m vegetation continuous field (VCF) based FCC ESDR for 2000 to 2005; •FCC products to 250 m, 500 m, 1 km, and 0.05° grids for use by carbon, biogeochemical and hydrological modelers; •Subsets of the above products for protected areas of the world and their buffer zones.

–All will be made available online with free access

Visit the GLCF

www.landcover.org

Earth observation data & products: • Available 24 hours per day, 7 days per week• Free• No registration required

GLCF Collaborators