1992-1993 global land cover classifications derived from 1-kilometer AVHRR satellite data, resampled to 0.25, 0.5, and 1.0-degree grids. The data set provides the geographic distribution of 13 vegetation classes plus water and unclassified classes, based on a modified IGBP legend. It was produced by Ruth DeFries for the ISLSCP II project and was used as an at-launch map for the MODIS instrument.
Use Cases
- Modeling global biogeochemical cycles based on the 13-class vegetation cover and land/water mask.
- Validating modern land cover products based on the historical 1992-1993 baseline derived from AVHRR and NDVI.
- Analyzing vegetation fraction distributions at multiple spatial resolutions (0.25, 0.5, 1.0 degrees).
Strengths
- Provides land cover data at three spatial resolutions (0.25, 0.5, and 1.0 degrees).
- Includes fractional coverage for 15 land cover classes within each grid cell.
- Data was adjusted to match the ISLSCP II land/water mask for internal consistency.
Limitations
- Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
- Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.
- Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
Provenance
- Source
- ORNL DAAC (Oak Ridge National Laboratory Distributed Active Archive Center)
- Collection Method
- Derived from 1 km AVHRR data using all bands, NDVI, and a full year of data (April 1992-March 1993), then resampled.
- Time Range
- 1992-1993
- Freshness
- null
- Geography
- Global