GLanCE: Global Annual Land Cover Maps at 30-Meter Resolution

NASA's MEaSUREs GLanCE Version 1 data product provides global land cover and land cover change data derived from Landsat 5, 7, and 8 satellites. The dataset includes seven layers per pixel, such as land cover class, change day of year, and Enhanced Vegetation Index metrics, and is currently available for North America, South America, Europe, and Oceania. It is designed for applications in ecosystem modeling, climate change monitoring, carbon accounting, and land management.

Use Cases

• Modeling ecosystem responses to climate change based on annual land cover type and change data.
• Carbon accounting and sequestration estimation based on vegetation greenness metrics and land cover transitions.
• Monitoring land management and agricultural indicators based on the classification of land cover types.
• Analyzing seasonal vegetation dynamics based on the median and amplitude of the Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI2).
• Detecting and characterizing land cover change events based on the estimated day of year of change and rate of change in EVI2.

Strengths

• Provides seven distinct data layers per pixel, including land cover class and multiple vegetation index metrics.
• Offers 30-meter spatial resolution derived from Landsat satellite imagery.
• Covers multiple continents (North America, South America, Europe, Oceania) using continent-specific map projections.
• Annual time-series data enables tracking of land cover change over time.

Limitations

• Accuracy is lower for shrub, herbaceous, and bare cover classes, especially at high latitudes and in arid regions.
• Data quality may be lower in years when land cover change occurs, and at high latitudes or in topographically complex regions.
• Version 1.0 lacks Quality Assurance, Leaf Type, and Leaf Phenology layers, which are populated with fill values.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) MEaSUREs program.

Collection Method

Derived from Landsat 5 TM, Landsat 7 ETM+, and Landsat 8 OLI satellite imagery using Continuous Change Detection and Classification (CCDC).

Time Range

Annual data; specific year range not provided in input.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 01:52:37.470069; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Global, with data currently available for North America, South America, Europe, and Oceania.