Annual Woody Vegetation Cover for Western Australia Since 1988

1988 to present annual state-wide datasets classify perennial woody vegetation from Landsat imagery at 30-meter resolution. The data provides two structural classes: forest meeting 20% cover density and 2m height, and sparse woody vegetation with 5-20% cover. Produced by Landgate, the series supports long-term land monitoring.

Use Cases

• Analyze long-term trends in the forest class to monitor deforestation or regrowth across Western Australia.
• Model habitat connectivity using the sparse woody vegetation category as a corridor indicator.
• Validate remote sensing algorithms by comparing annual classifications against the 30m ground pixel standard.
• Assess land cover change by tracking shifts between the two structural vegetation classes over time.

Strengths

• Provides annual data continuity from 1988 to the present, enabling long-term trend analysis.
• Uses consistent 30-meter resolution Landsat imagery for statewide spatial coverage.
• Classification is based on concrete structural thresholds: 20% cover and 2m height for forest, and 5-20% cover for sparse vegetation.

Limitations

• Limited to two broad vegetation structure classes, lacking species-level or finer compositional detail.
• Relies on satellite imagery interpretation, which may have errors in complex terrain or mixed land covers.
• The custom_other license may impose specific usage restrictions not detailed in the input.

Provenance

Source

Landgate

Collection Method

Derived from Landsat satellite imagery (30m ground pixel) and classified annually.

Time Range

1988 to present

Freshness

Updated annually, with metadata last updated March 2026.

Geography

State-wide coverage of Western Australia