Enhanced Land Cover and Land Cover Change Products from MODIS

Principal Investigator: Dr. Townshend

Reliable land cover information is increasingly recognized as having crucial relevance for understanding many aspects of Earth System Science. We have developed algorithms for the exploitation of the 250m MODIS bands to improve land cover change detection, the creation of continuous fields for land cover characterization and the availability at launch of a land cover product at 1 km resolution using AVHRR data.

The land cover 1 km product will be available based on pre-MODIS data, specifically AVHRR data and that contains fields of land cover and a conventional land cover classification containing the simple functional classes as previously defined by the MODIS Science Team'.

Several algorithms have been developed for the creation of a 250m land cover change indicator product², which in a simplified form can be used as a land cover change alarm product to assist acquisition strategies of fine resolution systems such as Landsat Thematic Mapper. We are continuing the validation of these algorithms and are developing advanced procedures for the post-launch change detection products.

Finally we have developed 500m and 250m land cover products depicting continuous fields of land cover components³.

For more information, please check the website at http://www/geog.umd.edu/landcover/modis/