New high-resolution global map provides detailed land-cover classification at 30 meters
In short: Researchers have developed a new global land-cover product, GLC_FCS30-2015, that combines high spatial resolution with a fine classification system. By utilizing time-series Landsat imagery and the Google Earth Engine platform, the team produced a map for the year 2015 that categorizes the Earth's surface into 30 distinct land-cover types at a 30-meter resolution.
This new dataset addresses the historical difficulty of creating global maps that are simultaneously high-resolution and highly detailed. The researchers used a local adaptive random forest model applied to geographical tiles, utilizing multi-temporal Landsat spectral and texture features.
The study's accuracy was validated against three different systems, showing that while detail increases, overall accuracy decreases as the classification becomes more granular. The model was validated using 44,043 samples.
Why it matters: This dataset provides a highly detailed and spatially precise view of global land cover.
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