IMAGE 3.0: Global Land Cover Fractions Under SSP Scenarios, 1970-2100

Grid-level data from the IMAGE 3.0 ecological-environmental model framework simulates global land cover changes. The dataset provides the fraction of six detailed land cover types for the period 1970 to 2100 in 5-year increments under multiple Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSP) scenarios. It is produced by the IMAGE team and published by the Dutch Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations under a CC-BY license.

Use Cases

• Projecting future land-use change for biodiversity impact assessments based on detailed land cover fractions.
• Calibrating or validating other global environmental models using the SSP scenario outputs.
• Analyzing the effects of different climate mitigation policies (SPA0 vs. SPA2) on agricultural and bioenergy crop areas.
• Studying long-term trends in protected areas and deforestation under various socioeconomic pathways.

Strengths

• Provides long-term projections from 1970 to 2100 with a 5-year temporal resolution.
• Includes data for six specific land cover types: rain-fed crops, irrigated crops, rain-fed bioenergy crops, irrigated bioenergy crops, additional deforestation, and protected areas.
• Covers multiple standardized SSP and RCP scenarios for comparative analysis.
• Data is available at a 30-arcminute grid resolution for global coverage.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count and total dataset size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Provenance

Source

IMAGE team, PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency.

Collection Method

Output from the IMAGE 3.0 integrated assessment model.

Time Range

1970 to 2100

Freshness

Model version is from 2014; scenario data publication date is unknown.

Geography

Global