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ISLSCP Initiative II Home General Data Overview Vegetation Data Overview |
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Vegetation Data
The DISCover data set was developed under the auspices of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP). DISCover development was co-ordinated by the IGBP-Data and Information System's (IGBP-DIS) Land Cover Working Group (LCWG). A number of IGBP initiatives required global land cover data that improved on the existing databases. The IGBP's Data and Information System began the 1 km DISCover land cover project to obtain data from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) for all terrestrial surfaces and then derive land cover data sets from this archive for the IGBP's core science elements. The development of this dataset was endorsed by the Committee on Earth Observations Satellites, and implemented by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), NASA, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, United Nations Environment Programme, and the European Commission's Joint Research Centre. Over 4.4 Terabytes of 1 km resolution AVHRR data from 23 receiving stations were collected, assembled and processed to create the 1 km resolution DISCover global land cover product. DISCover, based on IGBP requirements and the known limitations of the AVHRR data concerning separation of cover types, was created from these data. The specifications for DISCover included a consistent and validated global characterization of global land cover using the 17 category DISCover land cover classification legend. This legend was designed to represent the general structural elements of land cover and vegetation, be consistent with previous global data sets, provide categories suited for use in a wide range of models, and represent broad categories of land use. The DISCover legend was intended for use in global-scale modelling of climate, biogeochemistry and other Earth system processes. The original 1km resolution data set was aggregated to spatial resolutions of 1/4, 1/2 and 1 degree as a contribution to the ISLSCP Initiative II data collection.
Data Provider: Tom Loveland, Jess Brown, Don Ohlen, Brad Reed, Zhiliang Zhu, Limin Yang, Stephen Howard
 Data Files (ISLSCP II Disc #1) |
 Data Set Documentation |
 Image Viewing Tutorial |
The data set describes the geographic distributions of 17 classes of land cover based on the International Geosphere-Biosphere DISCover land cover legend (Loveland and Belward 1997) and the 15 classes of the SiB model. There are also "fractional" files that contain the percentage (0-100) of each land cover class in that gird-pixel. All of the files are in the ASCII, or text format. The file format consists of numerical fields which are delimited by a single space and arranged in columns and rows. The files at different spatial resolutions each contain the following numbers of column and rows:
One degree: 360 columns by 180 rows
1/2 degree: 720 columns by 360 rows
1/4 degree: 1440 columns by 720 rows
All files are gridded to a common equal-angle lat/long grid, where the coordinates of the upper left corner of the files are located at 180°W, 90°N and the lower right corner coordinates are located at 180°E, 90°S. Data in the files are ordered from North to South and from West to East beginning at 180 degrees West and 90 degrees North. The data files are PKZip compressed.
IGBP = International Geosphere Biosphere Program
SiB = Simple Biosphere model
class = land cover class occupying majority of the cell
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Related Pages:
ISLSCP Initiative II Home
General Data Overview
Vegetation Data Overview
EDC Land Cover Data
Revision Date: October 8, 2004