Project Funding: 2015 - 2017

NRA: 2014 NASA: Land Cover / Land Use Change   

Funded by NASA

Abstract:
We propose to develop a seamless and consistent, moderate- (i.e., sub-hectare) resolution database of percent-tree and water cover on a global, epochal basis in 2000, 2005, and 2010 and continentally at annual frequency from 2010 to 2015. Globally, we will refine our existing Landsat-based maps of tree and water cover in 2000 and 2005, and we will extend these data with a global layer for 2010. Further, we will estimate tree and water cover annually from 2010 to 2015 across North and South America. All estimates will be accompanied by per-pixel estimates of uncertainty. To do so, we will generalize our proven multi-source fusion algorithms and apply them to a combination of Landsat, ALOS-PALSAR, Sentinel-2, and other data sources. This research will be partnered with the ESA-funded GLOBBIOMASS project (C. Schmullius, PI), which will map biomass regionally and globally in 2000, 2005, and 2010 epochs based on our maps of tree cover.