Australian Landsat Fractional Cover Percentiles 1987-Present

1987 to present annual percentiles for green vegetation, non-green vegetation, and bare soil fractions across Australia at 30-meter resolution. The data provides 10th, 50th, and 90th percentile values for each cover type per calendar year, derived from Landsat 5, 7, 8, and 9 satellite imagery. Statistics are calculated per 3200x3200 pixel tile in the EPSG:3577 coordinate system.

Use Cases

• Model land cover dynamics by analyzing annual changes in the 50th percentile (median) for green vegetation (PV), non-green vegetation (NPV), and bare soil (BS) fractions.
• Identify areas of high intra-annual variability by calculating the difference between the 10th and 90th percentiles for the bare soil fraction within a single year.
• Classify land use by comparing the range of values between the 10th and 90th percentiles across all three cover types, where agricultural land shows a large range and forest shows a small range with high green cover.
• Assess data quality for analysis by filtering pixels using the provided Quality Assurance breakdown of sufficient observations, insufficient observations dry, and insufficient observations wet.

Strengths

• Long temporal coverage from 1987 to present, spanning over 35 years of annual observations.
• High spatial resolution of 30 meters x 30 meters across the entire continent of Australia.
• Provides three analytically distinct percentiles (10th, 50th, 90th) for each of the three land cover fractions (PV, NPV, BS).
• Clear documentation of satellite sources (Landsat 5, 7, 8, 9) used for specific time periods between 1987 and 2022 onwards.

Limitations

• Pixel-level data may be masked as 'insufficient observations' (dry or wet) and excluded from percentile results, potentially creating data gaps.
• The product relies on the availability of corresponding DEA Water Observations for clear pixel identification; fractional cover observations without this data are discarded.
• Data is divided into large tiles of 3200x3200 pixels, which may require significant computational resources for continental-scale analysis.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia Data

Collection Method

Calculated from Landsat satellite imagery, with percentiles derived for each pixel from annual fractional cover observations and masked using DEA Water Observations.

Time Range

1987 to present

Freshness

Updated to 2026-03-26.

Geography

Australia