The Global Land Cover Facility and Biodiversity Conservation

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The Global Land Cover Facility and Biodiversity
Conservation
The Global Land Cover Facility

• University of Maryland Department of Geography
  and Institute for Advanced Computer Studies
• John Townshend, Joseph JaJa, Paul Davis, Benjamin
  White
• NASA Biodiversity and Ecological Forecasting Team
  Meeting
• August 29, 2005

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Introduction
The Global Land Cover Facility

• About the GLCF GLCF Collections
• The GLCF Contribution to Biodiversity
  Conservation

Global Land Cover Product, derived from AVHRR
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About the Global Land Cover Facility
The Global Land Cover Facility
The Global Land Cover Facility (GLCF) is a
research project housed at the University of
Maryland that focuses on developing land cover
and land cover change products, and making land
cover relevant imagery and products available to
users. The GLCF mission is To encourage the
use of remotely sensed imagery, derived products
and applications within a broad range of science
communities in a manner that improves
comprehension of the nature and causes of land
cover change and its impact on the Earth. GLCF
Goals include Provide free access to an
integrated collection of critical land cover and
Earth science data through systems that are
designed to maximize user outreach and that
promote development of novel tools for ordering,
visualizing and manipulating spatial data.
Landsat 7
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About the Global Land Cover Facility
The Global Land Cover Facility

• The Global Land Cover Facility (GLCF) is
  sponsored primarily by NASA through the Reason,
  Education, and Applications Solutions Network
  (REASoN) program under NASA Grant NNG04GC53A.
• GLCF is a University of Maryland collaborative
  between the Department of Geography and the
  Institute for Advanced Computing Studies.
• The GLCF is a founding member of the Federation
  of Earth Science Information Partners.
• The GLCF is an active member of the Open
  Geospatial Consortium.

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The Global Land Cover Facility
The GLCF Archive includes collections of mostly
remotely sensed imagery and derived
products. Current holdings are over 14
terabytes, including 28,000 Landsat scenes and
MODIS composites for every 32 days since
2000. Collections are standardized in GeoTiff
WGS84 to be ready to use and interoperable. All
data products are available for free, to
anyone.
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GLCF Archive Includes a Global High Resolution
Satellite Record
The Global Land Cover Facility
ETM 16 January, 2001
MSS 15 February, 1974
TM 16 April, 1990

• Free
• Entire land surface of the globe, at least three
  times often more.
• Multi-temporal includes Landsat GeoCover in
  decadal editions for 1975, 1990, 2000.
• GeoCover portion of collection is
  orthorectified.
• Easy to integrate with other data sets (GeoTIFF,
  WGS84).
• Allows users to monitor areas of interest
  cheaply and safely.

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Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM)
The Global Land Cover Facility
Global elevation data, converted to GeoTIFF and
WGS84 at GLCF, at three resolutions 1 arc second
(_at_30m), 3 arc seconds (_at_90m), and 30 arc seconds
(_at_1km) Each of the resolution editions are also
available in two tiling schemes

• 1 arc sec 3 arc sec
• native one degree tiles,
• in geographic coordinates
• OR
• WRS-2 tiles, in UTM coordinates
• 30 arc sec
• Native GTOPO30 tiles
• OR
• Global mosaic

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SRTM Landsat
The Global Land Cover Facility

• Since both SRTM and Landsat TM/ETM are 30m
  resolution, they are relatively easy to use
  together, for simple draping or for complex
  modeling operations. GLCF makes both products
  available in GeoTIFF format and in WRS-2/UTM
  tiles.

Landsat GeoCover ETM Draped over 30m SRTM. Mt.
Rainier, Washington.
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Moderate Resolution Remote Sensing with MODIS
The Global Land Cover Facility
UMD Geography

• Vegetative Cover Conversion (VCC), showing change
  (red) that occurred in the tree cover of Mato
  Grosso, Brazil, between 2001-2002.

Several MODIS products that are generated by the
UMD Geography Dept are served at the GLCF,
including VCC, VCF (vegetation continuous
fields), NDVI (normalized difference vegetation
index) and 32-day composites. These products are
ready to use for many regional and global science
activities, and are often suitable for local
change detection.
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Global Data Collections for Systems Analysis
The Global Land Cover Facility
GLCF makes available several AVHRR-derived
collections that are suitable for regional or
global modeling, including two collections with
full global coverage over twenty years

• Global Inventory Modeling and Mapping Studies
  (GIMMS), by NASA
• Global Product Efficiency Model (GloPEM), by UMD
  Geography

• GloPEM Net Primary Productivity (NPP)
• Applications include
• Climate modeling
• Multi-scale productivity measures

• GIMMS Normalized Difference Vegetation Index
  (NDVI)
• Applications include
• Climate biogeochemical modeling
• Long-term vegetation measures

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Serving Landsat GeoCover to UNEP
The Global Land Cover Facility
Per NASAs direction, the GLCF has provided whole
copies of the Landsat GeoCover Product,
containing orthorectified Landsat imagery in
three series (ETM/2000, TM/1990 and MSS/1975),
produced through the Earth Satellite Corporation
and NASAs Science Data Purchase Program, to the
United Nations Environment Programme and FAO.
Landsat Scenes for Colombia
UNEP is providing access to this same collection
to each developing countrys environmental
ministry so that each nation has the same base
data to work with for environmental assessment.
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GLCF Conservation Science Goals
The Global Land Cover Facility

• Integration
• To provide the conservation community with a
  mechanism for the integration of remote sensing
  with more traditional data collection efforts
• Science
• To provide scientific leadership for the
  conservation community on land cover mapping and
  techniques
• Interoperability
• To develop mechanisms for the interoperability of
  data catalogues within the conservation community
• Intergovernmental Decision Support
• To provide decision support mechanisms for the
  intergovernmental environmental policy-making
  community

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Integration for Conservation
The Global Land Cover Facility

• Goal
• A one-stop shop for conservation data
• Current
• Provision of interface tools for conservation
  relevant Earth science data
• Near-Term
• Integrating traditionally non-spatial data sets
  into the conservation science collection

Fires burning in Landsat scene of Russia
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Earth Science Value to Conservation as a Function
of Data Access Data Reduction
The Global Land Cover Facility

• The GLCFs role
• Providing access to critical, global, multiple
  resolution and multiple date collections of Earth
  observation imagery and products.
• Data collections are processed to reduce need for
  conservation users to translate into local
  systems.

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GLCFs Earth Science Data Interface
(ESDI)Multiple Modes of Access to over 14TB of
Free Data
The Global Land Cover Facility
(left) Search by Map, WRS-1 or WRS-2
Path/Row/Date, or by Individual Product
(right) Red indicates GLCF SRTM data available
via. a simple point, click and download interface
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The Global Land Cover Facility
GLCF Infrastructure Usage

• GLCFs computing infrastructure is designed for
• reliability, including collection security and
  sustainability
• flexibility and ease of integration
• bandwidth optimization
• both operational and research computing

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GLCF is Active in Data Sharing Research and
Practice
The Global Land Cover Facility

• OPeNDAP
• Data Grid
• Developing Regional Data Exchange Centers
• Russia
• China
• Japan
• Amazon Cooperation Treaty
• (ACT) area
• GBIF

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Developing a New Information Landscape
The Global Land Cover Facility
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Intergovernmental Decision Support
The Global Land Cover Facility

• CBD
• IUCN
• UNESCO-WHC
• IGOS - IGOL
• GOFC-GOLD
• GEOSS

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GLCF and the NASA-NGO Working Group on
Biodiversity
The Global Land Cover Facility

• Working Group Mission
• To recommend to the Convention on Biological
  Diversity and Target 2010, those global and
  national biodiversity indicators which may best
  be acquired with remote sensing
• In collaboration with UNEP-WCMC, develop a
  resource book on the use of remote sensing in
  future monitoring activities
• GLCFs Role
• Site-based and national recommendations
• Forest ARD
• Fragmentation
• Monitoring for protected area management
• Recommendations on integration of remote sensing
  based indicator monitoring with more traditional
  methods of data collection
• Computational and technological infrastructure

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Remote Sensing and Global Conservation
Priorities GLCF and IUCN
The Global Land Cover Facility

• GLCF Membership
• GLCF is a voting member of IUCN
• A participant in World Conservation Commons
• Commission membership
• World Commission on Protected Areas
• Commission on Ecosystem Management
• Innovation in Conservation
• Can old conservation objectives be accomplished
  in new ways?
• GLCF is a vehicle for the integration of NASA
  remote sensing science, technology with the
  conservation communitys requirement for
  systematic, synoptic observations of habitat and
  habitat threats

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Conservation Commons
The Global Land Cover Facility

• GLCF has formally endorsed the IUCN Conservation
  Commons
• The Principles of the Commons are
• Open Access
• The Conservation Commons promotes free and open
  access to data, information and knowledge for
  conservation purposes.
• Mutual Benefit
• The Conservation Commons welcomes and encourages
  participants to both use resources and to
  contribute data, information and knowledge.
• Rights and Responsibilities
• Contributors to the Conservation Commons have
  full right to attribution for any uses of their
  data, information, or knowledge, and the right to
  ensure that the original integrity of their
  contribution to the Commons is preserved. Users
  of the Conservation Commons are expected to
  comply, in good faith, with terms of uses
  specified by contributors and in accordance with
  these Principles.
• An initial focus is encouraging openness in
  commercial entities with conservation-relevant
  data e.g. the banking, energy, and communications
  sectors
• Other participants include UNESCO, UNDP, UNEP,
  Conservation International, GBIF, Shell, The
  Nature Conservancy, NASA, IUCN

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UNESCO Natural, Terrestrial, World Heritage Sites
The Global Land Cover Facility
A GLCF Goal Integrated Spatial Support for
Heritage Site Management
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December 2004 Tsunamis Influence on Protected
Areas
The Global Land Cover Facility

• Donors Digital Globe, OrbImage
• Partners Conservation Internationals Tsunami
  Impact Model
• Capacity building in the assessment and
  restoration of tsunami-impacted protected areas
  and livelihoods.
• High resolution imagery available for free
  download.
• Designed to provide a framework for ongoing
  monitoring of regeneration and recovery.

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GLCFs ASTER STAR for NASA NGOs
The Global Land Cover Facility

• The conservation community needs consistent and
  specific monitoring for
• priority areas
• validation
• general management
• GLCF has a STAR tasking program to provide the
  NGOs with ASTER for science research. GLCF also
  facilitates access and usability through
• conversion to GeoTIFF
• high speed access
• integration with GLCF archive

Land cover classification and L1B ASTER imagery.
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The Global Land Cover Facility
Using Remote Sensing Imagery to Monitor Remote
Locations
Atlasov Island is an active volcano found in
Russias Kuril Islands. This island is part of
the Kamchatka Volcanoes World Heritage Site, but
is difficult to access and dangerous to visit.
Imagery such as this ASTER scene can be used to
monitor and manage this protected area.
Atlasov
Kamchatka Volcanoes World Heritage Site
ASTER 25 July, 2001
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Future Activities
The Global Land Cover Facility

• The GLCF will continue efforts in conservation
  science, including
• Supporting World Heritage Sites with remote
  sensing products.
• Creating land cover and land cover change
  products to support conservation.
• Expanding and researching spatial infrastructure
  design and delivery.
• Responding to special events.
• Continuing development of critical, synoptic,
  global to local data collections.
• Building remote sensing capacity with
• conservation science researchers.

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Please Visit the GLCF
The Global Land Cover Facility

• www.landcover.org

Vegetation Continuous Fields, derived from MODIS,
Percent Tree Cover, 2000, by UMD Geography