SAFARI 2000: Southern Africa Tree Cover and Vegetation Layers

Southern Africa's 1-km resolution vegetation data from 1992-93 estimates percent tree cover, leaf longevity, and leaf type as continuous fields, not discrete classes. Created by the University of Maryland's LGRSS using NOAA AVHRR data, this prototype dataset provides parameters for carbon cycle and land cover models. Each pixel value represents a percentage between 10 and 80 for five distinct vegetation characteristics.

Use Cases

• Parameterizing terrestrial carbon cycle models based on continuous percent tree cover.
• Deriving custom land cover classification maps aggregated from leaf type (broadleaf/needleleaf) and longevity (evergreen/deciduous) layers.
• Analyzing vegetation transition zones and variability within land cover classes.
• Integrating with climate and soil datasets for consistent ecological assessments.

Strengths

• Provides five continuous vegetation layers at 1-km spatial resolution.
• Based on NOAA AVHRR data from 1992-93 processed under IGBP guidance.
• Cross-platform presence on datagov and nasa_earthdata signals established use.

Limitations

• Metadata conflict: last updated date is 2026-04-09 on datagov but 1993-12-31 on nasa_earthdata, suggesting inconsistent maintenance.
• Column names and exact row/size counts are unspecified across all sources.
• Data is a prototype from 1992-93, limiting temporal freshness for contemporary analysis.

Provenance

Source

Laboratory for Global Remote Sensing Studies (LGRSS), University of Maryland.

Collection Method

Derived from NOAA's Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) data using a linear mixture model approach.

Time Range

1992-1993

Freshness

1993-12-31

Geography

Southern Africa