Land Cover Data 10m 10 class

This block returns a portion of a global map of land use/land cover (LULC), as defined by an input bounding box. The map is derived from ESA Sentinel-2 imagery at 10m resolution. The output can be used in analyses that require LULC input.

This map was produced by a deep learning model trained using over 5 billion hand-labeled Sentinel-2 pixels, sampled from over 20,000 sites distributed across all major biomes of the world. The underlying deep learning model uses 6 bands of Sentinel-2 surface reflectance data: visible blue, green, red, near infrared, and two shortwave infrared bands. To create the final map, the model is run on multiple dates of imagery throughout the year, and the outputs are composited into a final representative map of 2020.

Technical information

Feature	Info
Archive date / refresh frequency	Annual data for 2020
Resolution	10 meter
Data format	GeoTIFF

Use cases

Global LULC maps provide information on conservation planning, food security, and hydrologic modeling, among other things. This dataset can be used to visualize land use/land cover (LULC) anywhere on Earth. Read more about this map:

• Global land use / land cover with Sentinel 2 and deep learning - K. Karra, C. Kontgis, Z. Statman-Weil, J. C. Mazzariello, M. Mathis and S. P. Brumby, “Global land use / land cover with Sentinel 2 and deep learning,” 2021 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium IGARSS, 2021, pp. 4704-4707, doi: 10.1109/IGARSS47720.2021.9553499.
• Mapping the World in Unprecedented Detail (Medium post by Caitlin Kontgis)

Class definitions

1. Water

Areas where water was predominantly present throughout the year; may not cover areas with sporadic or ephemeral water; contains little to no sparse vegetation, no rock outcrop nor built up features like docks; examples: rivers, ponds, lakes, oceans, flooded salt plains.

2. Trees

Any significant clustering of tall (~15-m or higher) dense vegetation, typically with a closed or dense canopy; examples: wooded vegetation, clusters of dense tall vegetation within savannas, plantations, swamp or mangroves (dense/tall vegetation with ephemeral water or canopy too thick to detect water underneath).

3. Grass

Open areas covered in homogenous grasses with little to no taller vegetation; wild cereals and grasses with no obvious human plotting (i.e., not a plotted field); examples: natural meadows and fields with sparse to no tree cover, open savanna with few to no trees, parks/golf courses/lawns, pastures.

4. Flooded vegetation

Areas of any type of vegetation with obvious intermixing of water throughout a majority of the year; seasonally flooded area that is a mix of grass/shrub/trees/bare ground; examples: flooded mangroves, emergent vegetation, rice paddies and other heavily irrigated and inundated agriculture.

5. Crops

Human planted/plotted cereals, grasses, and crops not at tree height; examples: corn, wheat, soy, fallow plots of structured land.

6. Scrub/shrub

Mix of small clusters of plants or single plants dispersed on a landscape that shows exposed soil or rock; scrub-filled clearings within dense forests that are clearly not taller than trees; examples: moderate to sparse cover of bushes, shrubs and tufts of grass, savannas with very sparse grasses, trees or other plants

7. Built Area

Human made structures; major road and rail networks; large homogenous impervious surfaces including parking structures, office buildings and residential housing; examples: houses, dense villages / towns / cities, paved roads, asphalt.

8. Bare ground

Areas of rock or soil with very sparse to no vegetation for the entire year; large areas of sand and deserts with no to little vegetation; examples: exposed rock or soil, desert and sand dunes, dry salt flats/pans, dried lake beds, mines.

9. Snow/Ice

Large homogenous areas of permanent snow or ice, typically only in mountain areas or highest latitudes; examples: glaciers, permanent snowpack, snow fields.

10. Clouds

No land cover information due to persistent cloud cover.

Output data values

{
    0: [255, 255, 255], # no data
    1: [65, 155, 223], # water
    2: [57, 125, 73], # trees
    3: [136, 176, 83], # grass
    4: [122, 135, 198], # flooded vegetation
    5: [228, 150, 53], # crops
    6: [223, 195, 90], # scrub
    7: [196, 40, 27], # built area
    8: [165, 155, 143], # bare ground
    9: [168, 235, 255], # snow or ice
    10: [97, 97, 97] # clouds
}

License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)