Global Land Cover Datasets
This page offers access to a number of datasets which describe land cover characteristics at 1°×1° resolution and to some sample data product images. The datasets were assembled by Inez Fung, Elaine Matthews, and associates during 1984-1991.
The land cover datasets use a common format throughout, with the exception of the Country Codes dataset. Please read the descriptions on Explanation of Arrays.
The following datasets are available:
- Country codes
- Cultivation intensity
- Fractional inundation
- Normalized difference vegetation index
- Population density
- Soil units
- Vegetation
- Wetland ecosystems
References
Papers and reports which describe the datasets include:
- Fung, I., J. John, J. Lerner, E. Matthews, M. Prather, L.P. Steele, and P.J. Fraser 1991. Three-dimensional model synthesis of the global methane cycle. J. Geophys. Res. 96, 13003-13065.
- Lerner, J., E. Matthews and I. Fung 1988. Methane emission from animals: A global high-resolution database. Global Biogeochem. Cycles 2, 139-156.
- Matthews, E. 1983. Global vegetation and land cover: New high-resolution data bases for climate studies. J. Clim. Appl. Meteor. 22, 474-487.
- Matthews, E. 1984. Prescription of Land-surface Boundary Conditions in GISS GCM II: A Simple Method Based on High-resolution Vegetation Data Sets. NASA TM-86096. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Washington, D.C.
- Matthews, E. 1989. Global Data Bases on Distribution, Characteristics and Methane Emission of Natural Wetlands: Documentation of Archived Data Tape. NASA TM-4153. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Washington, D.C.
- Matthews, E., and I. Fung 1987. Methane emission from natural wetlands: Global distribution, area, and environmental characteristics of sources. Global Biogeochem. Cycles 1, 61-86.
- Zobler, L. 1986. A world soil file for global climate modeling. NASA TM-87802. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Washington, D.C.