Geoscience Australia Land Cover (Terra MODIS) ============================================= Dynamic Land Cover Dataset 250m 2.1.0 -------------------------------------- **Authored on**: 2018-03 **Updated on**: 2021-07 **Author/s**: Alexis McIntyre, Peter Tan, Leo Lymburner **License**: CC BY Attribution 4.0 International License View the [original metadata page](https://cmi.ga.gov.au/data-products/dea/131/geoscience-australia-land-cover-terra-modis) for the most up-to-date information on this product. Abstract -------- Land cover is the observed biophysical cover on the Earth's surface including trees, shrubs, grasses, soils, exposed rocks and water bodies, as well as anthropogenic elements such as plantations, crops and built environments. Land cover changes for many reasons, including seasonal weather, severe weather events such as cyclones, floods and fires, and human activities such as mining, agriculture and urbanisation. Remote sensing data recorded over a period of time allows the observation of land cover dynamics. Classifying these responses provides a robust and repeatable way of characterising land cover types. What this product offers ------------------------ The Dynamic Land Cover Dataset is the first nationally consistent and thematically comprehensive land cover reference for Australia. It provides a base-line for reporting on change and trends in vegetation cover and extent. The dataset presents a synopsis of land cover information for every 250m by 250m area of the country from January 2002 to December 2015. The dataset shows Australian land covers clustered into 22 land cover classes. These reflect the structural character of vegetation, ranging from cultivated and managed land covers (crops and pastures) to natural land covers such as closed forest and open grasslands. Applications ------------ Information about land cover dynamics is essential to understanding and addressing a range of national challenges such as drought, salinity, water availability and ecosystem health. This product can be used as an input for a wide range of environmental modelling applications, including: - climate - wind and water erosion risk - evapotranspiration - carbon dynamics - land surface processes Accuracy and limitations ------------------------ The accuracy of the dataset has been assessed using over 30,000 field sites distributed across all states and territories of Australia. The data was provided by Federal, State and Territory Government agencies and collected over the period 2002 to 2012 including data contributed from these sources: - Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES) Riverina Plains Data - Australian Agricultural and Grazing Industries Survey (AAGIS) - Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) Colleambally Data - Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) rapid assessment sites - New South Wales Land Practices - Queensland Herbarium CorVeg - Sunrise21 - Victorian State Forest Resouce Inventory (SFRI) field data - Victorian Land Use Information System (VLUIS) - Western Australian Department of Environment and Conservation - Western Australian WARM The field site data has been collected for a variety of purposes and is accurate to varying spatial and temporal resolutions; typically the primary field site data are no longer available. A process of translation between the field data collected and the dynamic land cover data was undertaken using expert knowledge. Due to the unknown spatial, temporal and thematic accuracy of the field site data the assessment with the dynamic land cover dataset has been reported only for broad themes across all years. **Theme** **Map accuracy** **User accuracy** Crops and Pastures 98.95% 86.44% Grasses 29.00% 62.73% Shrubs 5.22% 4.69% Trees 62.55% 72.34% The overall accuracy of DLCD assessed using the grouped themes is 81.5%. The field data comparison demonstrates that for cover classes that are poorly represented by a greenness measure, the associated accuracy of the DLCD is very poor. However for cover classes with significant greenness, the grouped accuracy of DLCD is reasonably high. In addition, more dynamic classes such grasses and shrubs show a lower accuracy when assessing a single date field data point against the general class over a two year period. The complete error matrix, assessing the full 22 class DLCD against field data is available in an [attachment](https://cmi.ga.gov.au/sites/default/files/2017-06/DLCD%202.1%20Confusion%20Matrix.xlsx). The full matrix highlights the disparity of the 250 m DLCD versus the field data, and shows those classes that are not characterisable using the EVI greeness measurements. The overall accuracy using the finer class structure is 31.1%. Despite the large number of points in the comparison this comprises less than 0.01% of the land cover classification data. Users are encouraged to assess whether the dataset is fit for their purposes in their area of interest, and provide any feedback to earth.observation@ga.gov.au. Additionally, the 250 metre pixel scale of the data will limit the use of this data set in studies that depend on the identification of small or detailed features within the landscape i.e. narrow strips of riparian vegetation or managed landscapes where the fields/paddocks are smaller than 250 x 250 metres. The two year time frame for each map in the map series will limit the capacity to detect short lived changes in land cover such as low-intensity bushfires i.e. the canopy may recover within a two year period. The map series will only provide limited information for land covers that are difficult to discriminate using EVI such as sugar cane. Contacts -------- For questions or more information about this product, email [DEA Support](mailto:dea@ga.gov.au?subject=Data%20Products%20support%20for%20Geoscience%20Australia%20Land%20Cover%20%28Terra%20MODIS%29&cc=leo.lymburner@ga.gov.au,norman.mueller@ga.gov.au).