This data set consists of a southern African subset of the 5-min resolution Global Potential Vegetation data set developed by Navin Ramankutty and Jon Foley at the University of Wisconsin. Data are available in both ASCII GRID and binary image file formats.

This data set consists of a southern African subset of the University of Maryland (UMD) 8-km Global Land Cover product in ASCII GRID and binary image files formats.

This data set consists of a southern African subset of the 1-km Global Land Cover Data Set Derived from AVHRR developed at the Laboratory for Global Remote Sensing Studies (LGRSS) at the University of Maryland. Both ASCII data and binary image files are available.

The data set consists of a southern African subset of the 1-km Global Land Cover Data Set Derived from AVHRR developed at the Laboratory for Global Remote Sensing Studies (LGRSS) at the University of Maryland. Both ASCII data and binary image files are available. Over the past several years, researchers have increasingly turned to remotely sensed data to improve the accuracy of data sets that describe the geographic distribution of land cover at regional and global scales. To develop improved methodologies for global land cover classifications as well as to provide global land cover products for immediate use in global change research, researchers at the Laboratory for Global Remote Sensing Studies (LGRSS) at the University of Maryland have employed the NASA/NOAA Pathfinder Land (PAL) data set with a spatial resolution of 1 km. This data set has a record length of 14 years (1981-1994), providing the ability to test the stability of classification algorithms. Furthermore, this data set includes red, infrared, and thermal bands in addition to the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). Inclusion of these additional bands improves discrimination between cover types. The project aim is to develop and validate global land cover data sets and to develop advanced methodologies for more realistically describing the vegetative land surface based on satellite data. The 1-km global land cover product was created from 1992-93 LAC AVHRR data. The full 1-km global land cover product is available for download from the Global Land Cover Facility (GLCF) web site. Forty-one (41) metrics were developed to describe global vegetation phenology, and these data were used to make the 1-km land cover map. The final product contains 13 land cover classes. More information can be found at: ftp://daac.ornl.gov/data/safari2k/vegetation_wetlands/land_cover_data-1km/comp/glcf1km_readme.pdf.

This data set contains a subset for southern Africa of Wilson and Henderson-Sellers' Global Vegetation and Soils 1-degree data. The data are available in both ASCII GRID and binary image file formats.

This data set consists of a southern African subset of the 1-km Global Tree Cover Data Set developed at the Laboratory for Global Remote Sensing Studies (LGRSS) at the University of Maryland. Data are available in both ASCII GRID and binary image files formats.

The data set consists of a southern Africa subset of the 1km Global Tree Cover Data Set developed at the Laboratory for Global Remote Sensing Studies (LGRSS) at the University of Maryland. Data are available in both ASCII GRID and binary image files formats. Characterization of terrestrial vegetation from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) on the global to regional scale has traditionally been accomplished using classification schemes with discrete numbers of vegetation classes. Representation of vegetation into a limited number of homogeneous classes does not account for the variability within land cover, nor does the portrayal recognize transition zones between adjacent cover types. An alternative paradigm to describing land cover as discrete classes is to represent land cover as continuous fields of vegetation characteristics using a linear mixture model approach. This prototype data set, created by researchers at the Laboratory for Global Remote Sensing Studies (LGRSS) at the University of Maryland, contains 1-km cells estimating: 1) Percent tree cover; 2) Percentage cover for two layers representing leaf longevity (evergreen and deciduous); and 3) Percentage cover for two layers estimating leaf type (broadleaf and needleleaf). Data acquired in 1992-93 from NOAA's AVHRR at a 1-km spatial resolution and processed under the guidance of the International Geosphere Biosphere Programme (IGBP) were used to derive the tree cover, leaf type and leaf longevity maps. Each pixel in the layers has a value between 10 and 80 percent. These layers can be directly used as parameters in models or aggregated into more conventional land cover maps. For the latter, the product offers the flexibility to derive land cover maps based on user's requirements for a particular application. The product is intended for use in terrestrial carbon cycle models, in conjunction with other spatial data sets such as climate and soil type, to obtain more consistent and reliable estimates of carbon stocks. More information can be found at: ftp://daac.ornl.gov/data/safari2k/vegetation_wetlands/tree_cover-1km/comp/glcftree_readme.pdf.

This data set consists of a southern African subset of the University of Maryland (UMD) 8-km Global Land Cover product in ASCII GRID and binary image files formats. Over the past several years, researchers have increasingly turned to remotely sensed data to improve the accuracy of data sets that describe the geographic distribution of land cover at regional and global scales. To develop improved methodologies for global land cover classifications as well as to provide global land cover products for immediate use in global change research, researchers at the Laboratory for Global Remote Sensing Studies (LGRSS) at the University of Maryland (UMD) have employed the NASA/NOAA Pathfinder Land (PAL) data set with a spatial resolution of 8 km. This data set has a length of record of 14 years (1981-1994), providing the ability to test the stability of classification algorithms. Furthermore, this data set includes red, infrared, and thermal bands in addition to the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). Inclusion of these additional bands improves discrimination between cover types. The project aim is to develop and validate global land cover data sets and to develop advanced methodologies for more realistically describing the vegetative land surface based on satellite data. The 8-km global land cover product was derived by testing several metrics that describe the temporal dynamics of vegetation over an annual cycle. These metrics were applied to 1984 PAL data at 8-km resolution to derive a global land cover classification product using a decision tree classifier. The final product contains 13 land cover classes. The original 8-km global land cover product is available for download from the Global Land Cover Facility (GLCF) web site. Additional information and references on this data set can be found at the GLCF web site as well as at the LGRSS web site (link provided at the GLCF web site ). More information can be found at: ftp://daac.ornl.gov/data/safari2k/vegetation_wetlands/land_cover_data_8km/comp/glcf8km_readme.pdf.

This data set consists of a southern African subset of the University of Maryland (UMD) 1-degree Global Land Cover product in ASCII GRID and binary image formats. The UMD 1-degree Global Land Cover product was produced by researchers at the Laboratory for Global Remote Sensing Studies (LGRSS) at UMD. The product is based on Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) maximum monthly composites for 1987 of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) values at approximately 8-km resolution, averaged to one-by-one degree resolution. This coarse- resolution data set was used as the basis for a supervised classification of eleven cover types that broadly represent the major biomes of the world. Because of missing values at high latitudes, the Pathfinder AVHRR data set for 1987 for summer monthly NDVI and red reflectance values were used to distinguish the following cover types: tundra, high latitude deciduous forest and woodland, coniferous evergreen forest and woodland. The 1-degree global land cover product is available for download from the Global Land Cover Facility (GLCF) web site. The data are available as a global coverage in both binary and ASCII format. Additional information and references on this data set can be found at the GLCF web site as well as at the LGRSS web site (link provided at the GLCF web site ) and in the readme file found along with the data [ ftp://daac.ornl.gov/data/safari2k/vegetation_wetlands/land_cover_data_1deg/comp/glcf1deg_readme.pdf].

The National Botanical Institute (NBI) has mapped woody plant species distribution to provide estimates of individual species contribution to peak leaf area index for designated vegetation types in southern Africa (Rutherford et al., 2000). The target was to account for 80% of the woody vegetation leaf area in terms of named species, for 80% of the surface area of Africa south of the equator. The data sources include published and unpublished species lists for vegetation types and individual sample plots, with the species contribution estimated by local experts in terms of dominants and subdominants. Source maps include: Low and Rebelo (1998); Giess (1971); Wild and Barbosa (1968); Barbosa (1970); and White (1983). Each source map delineates a wide variety of land cover categories that differ from region to region. Because vegetation discontinuities exist along some of the regional borders and a perfectly continuous regional map could not be achieved within the timeframe and budget of the project, the final map is made up of six independent sub-regional maps. A cross-referenced database of woody plant species, in order of species dominance, associated with all mapped units is provided.The data set contains six GIS shapefile archives, each containing a shape file for a given region in southern Africa on a 5 x 5 degree grid. An accompanying ASCII file contains the species list associated with the map files. The regional NBI Vegetation Map (a compilation of the 6 independent sub-regional coverages) is provided as a JPEG image.