Global Potential Natural Vegetation Cover for Climate Models

Global land cover data describes the world's vegetation in terms of 15 major types plus water, as it would likely exist under present-day climate without human influence. The dataset was developed by the ISLSCP Initiative II and complements historical cropland data. It consists of four files, including two representing the core land cover types and two modified to match a specific land/water mask.

Use Cases

• Overlaying with historical cropland data to quantify the extent of natural vegetation cleared for cultivation.
• Providing baseline vegetation inputs for spatially-explicit climate and biogeochemical models.
• Analyzing the equilibrium state of global vegetation cover under current climate and natural disturbance regimes.

Strengths

• Defines 15 distinct major vegetation types plus water, providing a detailed classification.
• Cross-platform presence on NASA EarthData and Data.gov signals established use and importance.
• Specifically designed for integration with the complementary historical croplands dataset by Ramankutty and Foley (1999).

Limitations

• Key technical details are missing, including column names, row counts, and exact file sizes.
• Conflicting last updated dates exist between sources (1993-04-01 and 2026-03-13), creating uncertainty about version currency.
• The license is ambiguously listed as 'other-license-specified' without clear terms.

Provenance

Source

ISLSCP Initiative II

Collection Method

Modeled representation of vegetation in equilibrium with present-day climate and natural disturbance, absent human activities.

Freshness

2026-03-13 01:32:17.701951

Geography

global