News

The Global Land Cover Facility has received multiple awards from NASA programs to continue activities for several years. This includes a continuation of GLCF operations as well as the development of new land cover products. The GLCF and collaborators at UMD, NASA GSFC and SDSU will generate a new series of global forest cover and forest cover change products. Each data set produced will meet the new, high standard of an Earth Science Data Record (ESDR). Our primary activity will be through the NASA MEaSUREs program, with additional research and operation through NASA's EOS and LCLUC programs. We are appreciative of all the support received from users through email, our help-us-help-you site, and formal letters. Our goal is to continue serving the community with high quality, reliable Earth science materials.

A research team led by John Townshend at the University of Maryland Global Land Cover Facility was awarded a project in the NASA MEaSUREs program. Titled "Earth Science Data Records of Global Forest Cover Change", this project will involve GLCF staff over the next several years, with details in the following abstract.
Abstract:
There is long-standing recognition of the need for global forest change detection at Landsat-class resolutions. Previously this was not feasible, because of the absence of well registered multi-temporal data sets, variations in sensors, the need for intensive human input during post-processing, variations in spectral responses of forests, the efforts needed to create validation data sets and the computational and storage demands in carrying out the analysis. We demonstrate in this proposal that these problems have now been overcome by the availability of the GeoCover and the forthcoming Mid-Decadal Global Land Survey (MDGLS) data sets, our ability to create atmospherically corrected reflectance products, much improved classifiers, collection of automated dense training sets, the availability of ultra-fine resolution datasets and much lower computational costs. We therefore propose to produce the following Earth Science Data Records (ESDR) at fine and moderate spatial resolutions and provide the algorithms and services for producing such products:

• Global fine resolution (< 100 m) surface reflectance ESDR for four epochs centered around 1990, 2000, and 2005;
• Fine resolution (< 100 m) forest cover change (FCC) ESDR between the four epochs;
• Fragmentation products derived from the fine resolution FCC products;
• Global 250-m vegetation continuous field (VCF) based FCC ESDR from 2000 to 2005;
• FCC ESDR products aggregated from the fine resolution and the 250 m FCC products to 250 m, 500 m, 1 km, and 0.05° grids for use by carbon, biogeochemical and hydrological modelers;
• Subsets of the above products for protected areas of the world and their buffer zones.

GLCF team members participated in the winter meeting of the Federation of Earth Science Information Partners (ESIPs), at the Embassy Suites Downtown Washington, in Washington DC, January 8 and 9, 2008.

The Global Land Cover Facility participated in the NASA Earth Science Data Systems Working Group meeting in Philadelphia, Oct 27 - 25.

The Global Land Cover Facility has received resources to continue data center operations for the near term. We thank the Science Mission Directorate at NASA for their continued support, as well as the many individuals who contributed letters to keep the GLCF going. Our constant goal is to make current and enhanced services available to all.

The Vegetation Continuous Fields (VCF) product has been enhanced and expanded in a new edition. This includes the improved MODIS Collection 4 processing, providing more accurate MODIS inputs. The Collection 4 edition of VCF includes percent tree cover products for each year from 2000-2005, allowing users to view annual assessments. Additionally, while the Collection 3 is still available that edition is constrained to large, continental tiles, the Goodes projection and MODIS spheroid. The new Collection edition of VCF is available in the UMD tile scheme based upon UTM zones - making it ready for use with Landsat imagery. The product format is GeoTIFF, projection is geographic, with WGS84 datum - all designed to be easily implemented in most image processing and GIS software packages.

GLCF team members participated in the winter meeting of the Federation of Earth Science Information Partners (ESIPs), at the Embassy Suites Downtown Portland, in Portlan, Oregon, January 3-5, 2007. GLCF participated in the Ecological Forecasting Cluster for the Earth Information Exchange data portal, as well as engaging in technical meetings.

The Vegetation Cover Conversion (VCC) product generated at the University of Maryland is now available through the GLCF. For further information regarding this product please review the Data and Products page.

The GLCF website will be down for power system upgrades from 5:00 p.m. on Friday , August 11 and 11:59 p.m. (EST) on Saturday, August 12. Services will be restored as soon as possible. We apologize for any inconvenien ce.

GLCF team members participated in the summer meeting of the Federation of Earth Science Information Partners (ESIPs) , at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observator y, in Palisades, New York, July 18-21, 2006. GLCF participated in the Ecological Forecasting Cluster for th e Earth Information Exchange data portal, as well as engaging in technical meetings.

The GLCF website will be down for power system upgrades from 21:00 UTC on Friday, May 26 through Saturday, May27. Services will be restored as soon as possible. We apologize for any inconvenience.

As of April 7 2006 the GLCF will no longer offer the MODIS 32-day surface reflectance composite product. Instead, the GLCF will begin processing 16-day surface reflectance composites with all seven bands at 250m once MODIS Collection 5 starts. These new datasets will be made available in ESDI as production becomes ongoing.

The 3284 IKONOS and QuickBird scenes acquired through the NASA Science Data Purchase are now available for free at the GLCF. This is a restricted collection, however, and users must be NASA-affiliated researchers, and fill out the registration form. This collection is invaluable for a wide range of Earth science activities, and has been tested and reported upon through the JACIE program, among others. Please note that this imagery is property of Space Imaging/GeoEye and DigitalGlobe.

Dr. John Townshend was the distinguished lecturer in the Smithsonian Institution Air & Space Museum's Exploring Space Lectures series on March 14, 2006. His presentation, titled "Where have all the forests gone? Monitoring the Earth's vegetation with remote sensing" was delivered in the Lockheed Martin IMAX theater at the Air & Space museum in Washington, D.C.. The lecture was preceded by an IMAX film titled "Living Planet" and a 'meet the lecturer' question and answer session. This series is sponsored at the Air & Space museum through NASA and Ball Aerospace. Contact the Smithsonian for further information on the series.
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Kuan Song and Jose Roa of the Global Land Cover Facility made presentations at the annual meeting of the Association of American Geographers in Chicago on March 7-11, 2006. Mr. Song's presentation was titled " Automated Forest Change Mapping, from a Geographer's Perspective and a Computational Approach ", while Mr. Roa presented on " A Rapid Assessment of Landslide Susceptibility and Hazard Using Landsat Imagery and SRTM Data ".

GLCF team members participated in the winter meeting of the Federation of Earth Science Information Partners (ESIPs), in Washington, DC, January 4-7, 2006. GLCF participated in development of the new Ecological Forecasting Cluster for the Earth Information Exchange data portal, as well as engaging in technical meetings.

558 MSS scenes have been added to the GLCF Landsat data archive. The GLCF thanks colleagues at Goddard Space Flight Center for this donation. Please visit ESDI to preview and download the new scenes. To view the recently added scenes please click on the link below. Please click here to proceed the map.

The Advisory Committee of the Global Land Cover Facility held a meeting at the University of Maryland on November 2. The focus of this meeting was discussion of achievement and strategy for the future, to ensure continuance of GLCF activities. Please click here to proceed to the photo.

The LEDAPS project is pleased to announce the release of a 30-meter resolution, atmospherically-corrected surface reflectance product for North America. This "Beta" dataset includes over 2100 Landsat scenes, including most of Canada, the contiguous United States, and Northern Mexico. Coverages for TM (centered on 1990) and ETM+ (centered on 2000) are included in this release to support change-detection applications.

The surface reflectance product is based on the GeoCover dataset produced by Earth Satellite Corporation under contract to NASA (as available at the GLCF). Orthorectified Landsat images were calibrated (using revised Landsat-5 calibration coefficients as necessary), converted to top-of-atmosphere reflectance, and atmospherically corrected to surface reflectance using the MODIS/6S approach. Users may download data products via FTP, using either a map interface or by navigating the FTP archive directly: Landsat Ecosystem Disturbance Adaptive processing System-products

Also included is a "Beta" release of a Forest Disturbance product (1990-2000 stand clearing disturbance and regrowth) for the Mid-Atlantic region: Landsat Ecosystem Disturbance Adaptive processing System-disturbance products . The disturbance product includes 30m resolution scene-based coverages (11 path-rows), as well as 500m resolution Lambert Azimuthal Equal Area and 0.05 degree Geographic grids. A wall-to-wall North American disturbance product will be released at the end of this year.

For more information about the LEDAPS project, please visit Landsat Ecosystem Disturbance Adaptive processing System-North America.

DigitalGlobe, a commercial satellite operation, has made a major donation to the conservation community for post-tsunami restoration. It was made through an IUCN member, Global Land Cover Facility(GLCF) at the University of Maryland, for the use of IUCN members and partners worldwide on tsunami related work. The collection includes over 100 scenes of parks and protected areas in the region. For more information please visit the December 2004 Tsunami Portal. See the IUCN-GLCF Joint Press Release

ASTER imagery is now available via the Earth Science Data Interface. The GLCF team has made this happen so that users can search for this important data collection in the same manner and in conjun ction with Landsat, MODIS or other products in the archive. ASTER is in GeoTIFF format through the GLCF, and is free to anyone with access to FTP. For more information about this product please visit the ASTER data page .

The Global Inventory Modeling and Mapping Studies (GIMMS) data collection is now available via FTP. The Global Inventory Modeling and Mapping Studies (GIMMS) normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) data sets were generated to provide a 22-year satellite record of monthly changes in terrestrial vegetation. For more information about this about this product please visit the GIMMS data pages.

The Global Production Efficiency Model (GLoPEM) data collection is now available via FTP. GLoPEM maps Net Primary Production (NPP), based on AVHRR imagery, for use at the global, regional or local scale. Twenty years of processed data are available as annual files or 10-day increments. This product was developed at the University of Maryland, Department of Geography, by Dr. Stephen Prince. For more information about this product visit the GloPEM data pages.

GLCF team members participated in the first Earth Science Data Systems (ESDS) meeting held in Greenbelt, Maryland. As NASA REASoN program participants, the GLCF attends these meetings to collaborate with other REASoN projects toward coordinating technologies used by NASA with research activities. Paul Davis, Project Manager of the Global Land Cover Facility, participated as co-chair of the Metrics Planning and Review Working Group, including a demonstration of the REASoN Metrics Collection Tool.

The new version for the World Database on Protected Areas produced by the World Conservation Union (IUCN) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is now available via ESDI. This dataset can be found in the "Product Search" section of ESDI.

See the GLCF Press Release

AlphaPixel recently donated an open license for use of their PixelSense software to the University of Maryland. PixelSense does not presume any image processing knowledge on behalf of the user. It is designed to run with GLCF GeoCover data and easily output true color composites for use as base maps. The software is free to University students and faculty. For others, a free demo version is available from the AlphaPixel website