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The GLOBAL LAND COVER FACILITY: OVERVIEW John Townshend Department of Geography and Institute for Advanced Computer Studies University of Maryland http://glcf.umiacs.umd.edu. Who are we?. The GLCF…. is a resource of information and data to researchers interested in land cover change.
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The GLOBAL LAND COVER FACILITY: OVERVIEW John Townshend Department of Geography and Institute for Advanced Computer Studies University of Maryland http://glcf.umiacs.umd.edu
Who are we? The GLCF… • is a resource of information and data to researchers interested in land cover change. • offers an increasingly comprehensive range of data products facilitating further land cover research. • is a partnership between the Earth science and computer science communities – Earth sciences benefiting from advances in high performance computing. • has in-house expertise in the analysis of remote sensing data making us a science data center not simply a purveyor of data.
The GLCF Mission “Provide value-added Earth science products to the widest possible user base…” The GLCF emphasis has been: 1) supplying data to the science community ASAP, 2) providing a ‘one-stop-shop’ for finding land cover data, 3) developing novel tools for exploring and manipulating these data
The GLCF Staff • Currently the GLCF operates with a staff of 15-20 employees, representing a mixture of full-time, part-time and student staff. • The GLCF is an end-to-end shop -- GLCF positions include full-time Earth science faculty, programmers, network developers, customer service representatives, data ingestion staff, data base developers, etc.
GLCF Collaborators A global network of science and technology partners
Global Land Cover Facility (G LCF) Creation and distribution of enhanced Earth Science Products: • MODIS: Process, store and distribute 250m data and derived products • User-defined custom products: from AVHRR GAC data archive • Land cover data sets and related remotely sensed data: archive and distribute Landsat TM & ETM, MODIS, GAC products. • Provide access to GOES derived products: Satellite Estimates of Radiative Fluxes • Serving specific science groups: archive and distribute data sets for global modeling communities, EOS Validation sites for EOS scientists. Research activities: • Advanced land cover products - global deforestation, global land cover classified data sets, continuous fields tree cover data, coastal marsh health data. • Computer Science technologies – interoperability (MOCHA), data mining, high performance computing. Expanding user communities: • RESAC - Broker and facilitate the acquisition of data for the Mid-Atlantic RESAC • Field campaigns Support (data and RS expertise) for LBA-E, CARPE, and Safari2000 • Products and services for UN Organizations, NGOs and Government Departments (e.g. FAO, UNEP, UNDP, UNDCP, CEOS, GOFC, USDA, USFS, WRI).
GLCF: Project Lessons Learned • Increased collaborations will lead to advances in the quality and quantity of earth science research and projects that the GLCF can support. • Challenges remain when using and distributing very large amounts of remote sensing data. • The needs of user groups vary and one must be engaged with these communities to adequately support their data needs. • Ensure that the project ‘knowledge base’ can be easily transferred in and among GLCF staff. • Not every technology or implementation strategy we use works as expected.
Carbon related activities John Townshend
What is a forest? • FAO 1990: tree canopy cover > 20% in developed countries and > 10% in developing countries • FAO 2000: tree canopy cover > 10% • IGBP: tree canopy cover > 60% • Forestry agencies: harvestable lands, actually or potentially
Methodology for Global % Tree Cover • Use continuous training data from high-resolution data sets scaled to MODIS resolutions • Create temporal metrics describing vegetation phenology • Employ regression tree using percent cover training as dependent variable and metrics as independent variables • Current layers include tree, tree leaf type, tree leaf longevity, bare ground and herbaceous covers
Prototype 1992-93 AVHRR Continuous Field of Tree Cover % tree cover derived from 1992-93 1km AVHRR (DeFries et al, 2000)
Possibility of standardizing global forest statistics FAO estimate 1995 % tree cover DRC Tree cover FAO estimate 1995 <10% >80% 500 km Namibia % tree cover
Training from Landsat For details see http://glcf.umiacs.umd.edu MODIS 250m U.S. Tree Cover Prototype Tree Cover 0% 100%
100km 100km MODIS 250 meter map EPA Region 3 MRLC 30 meter map, green is forest, beige non-forest The MODIS result compares quite favorably with the MRLC and is clearly superior to AVHRR heritage products. Tree cover 0% 100% AVHRR 1km, 1995-96
Using Continuous Fields to Detect Forest Cover Change Tree Canopy Cover 0% >80% Percent tree cover ~1985 Percent tree cover ~1995 +30% -30% Change in tree cover
Use of Landsat data for fine-scale mapping of forest disturbance EOS, 1 May 2001
South American Ecoregions Interior Atlantic Forest Ecoregion Brazil Paraguay 1) Tree canopy cover 0% 100% 2) Country forest statistics cyan = protected areas Atlantic Ocean Argentina Argentina 3) 200 km 200 km % Tree Cover Derived from AVHRR Data to Assess Forest Degradation within Ecoregions Paraguay Brazil R. DeFries and M. Hansen
UMD, GSFC and USFS • MODLand Rapid Response collaboration: • Low latency (1 to 6 hours from acquisition)provision of Active Fire and Reflectance • Builds upon IMAPP L0-to-L1B software developed by Univ. of Wisconsin • Operational prototyping of Linux system to create standard MODIS L2+ products • R&D for enhanced VCC Burn Severity and Smoke / Aerosol products • Assist USFS in procurement of MODIS Direct Broadcast receiving stations • Transfer of Rapid Response software to USFS • Remote Sensing Applications Center (Salt Lake City) • Fire Science Lab (Missoula) • 2001 bridging activity to provide MODIS products while DB stations are built • Daily Reflectance and Active Fire mapped to standard NIFC geographic regions VCC Burned Area, ID/MT border 2000 25km