Biodiversity Intactness

The Intact Forest Landscapes (IFL) data set identifies unbroken expanses of natural ecosystems within the zone of forest extent that show no signs of significant human activity and are large enough that all native biodiversity, including viable populations of wide-ranging species, could be maintained. To map IFL areas, a set of criteria was developed and designed to be globally applicable and easily replicable, the latter to allow for repeated assessments over time as well as verification. IFL areas were defined as unfragmented landscapes, at least 50,000 hectares in size, and with a minimum width of 10 kilometers. These were then mapped from Landsat satellite imagery for the year 2000.  Changes in the extent of IFLs were identified within year 2000 IFL boundary using  Landsat Analysis Ready Data (ARD), the global forest cover loss dataset (Hansen et al., 2013), Sentinel-2 imagery, and high resolution data from Google Earth and Planet. Areas identified as “reduction in extent” met the IFL criteria in 2000, but no longer met the criteria in 2025. The main causes of change were clearing for agriculture and tree plantations, industrial activity such as logging and mining, fragmentation due to infrastructure and new roads, and fires assumed to be caused by humans.  This data can be used to assess forest intactness, alteration, and degradation at global and regional scales. Identifies the world’s last remaining unfragmented forest landscapes, large enough to retain all native biodiversity and showing no signs of human alteration as of the year 2020. This layer also shows the reduction in the extent of Intact Forest Landscapes from 2000 to 2025.

Time series of annual global maps of land use and land cover (LULC). It currently has data from 2017-2023. The maps are derived from ESA Sentinel-2 imagery at 10m resolution. Each map is a composite of LULC predictions for 9 classes throughout the year in order to generate a representative snapshot of each year. This dataset, produced by Impact Observatory, Microsoft, and Esri, displays a global map of land use and land cover (LULC) derived from ESA Sentinel-2 imagery at 10 meter resolution for the years 2017 - 2023. Each map is a composite of LULC predictions for 9 classes throughout the year in order to generate a representative snapshot of each year. This dataset was generated by Impact Observatory, which used billions of human-labeled pixels (curated by the National Geographic Society) to train a deep learning model for land classification. Each global map was produced by applying this model to the Sentinel-2 annual scene collections from the Mircosoft Planetary Computer. Each of the maps has an assessed average accuracy of over 75%. These maps have been improved from Impact Observatory’s previous release and provide a relative reduction in the amount of anomalous change between classes, particularly between “Bare” and any of the vegetative classes “Trees,” “Crops,” “Flooded Vegetation,” and “Rangeland”. This updated time series of annual global maps is also re-aligned to match the ESA UTM tiling grid for Sentinel-2 imagery. All years are available under a Creative Commons BY-4.0.

__Note__: _A new version of this item is available for your use. This mature version of the map remains available for use in existing applications. This item will be retired in December 2024. There is 2023 data available in the newer 9-class v2 dataset._ Time series of annual global maps of land use and land cover (LULC). It currently has data from 2017-2022. The maps are derived from ESA Sentinel-2 imagery at 10m resolution. Each map is a composite of LULC predictions for 9 classes throughout the year in order to generate a representative snapshot of each year. This dataset was generated by Impact Observatory, who used billions of human-labeled pixels (curated by the National Geographic Society) to train a deep learning model for land classification. The global map was produced by applying this model to the Sentinel-2 annual scene collections on the Planetary Computer. Each of the maps has an assessed average accuracy of over 75%. This map uses an updated model from the 10-class model and combines Grass(formerly class 3) and Scrub (formerly class 6) into a single Rangeland class (class 11). The original Esri 2020 Land Cover collection uses 10 classes (Grass and Scrub separate) and an older version of the underlying deep learning model. The Esri 2020 Land Cover map was also produced by Impact Observatory. The map remains available for use in existing applications. New applications should use the updated version of 2020 once it is available in this collection, especially when using data from multiple years of this time series, to ensure consistent classification. All years are available under a Creative Commons BY-4.0.

__Note__: _A new version of this item is available for your use. This mature version of the map remains available for use in existing applications. This item will be retired in December 2024. There is 2020 data available in the newer 9-class dataset._ Global estimates of 10-class land use/land cover (LULC) for 2020, derived from ESA Sentinel-2 imagery at 10m resolution. This dataset was generated by Impact Observatory, who used billions of human-labeled pixels (curated by the National Geographic Society) to train a deep learning model for land classification. The global map was produced by applying this model to the relevant yearly Sentinel-2 scenes on the Planetary Computer. This dataset is also available on the ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World.

To produce the Forest Landscape Integrity Index (FLII), four data sets were combined representing: (i) forest extent; (ii) ‘observed’ pressure from high impact, localized human activities for which spatial datasets exist, specifically: infrastructure, agriculture, and recent deforestation; (iii) ‘inferred’ pressure associated with edge effects, and other diffuse processes, (e.g. activities such as hunting and selective logging) modelled using proximity to observed pressures; and iv) anthropogenic changes in forest connectivity due to forest loss. These datasets were combined to produce an index score for each forest pixel (300m), with the highest scores reflecting the highest forest integrity, and applied to forest extent for the start of 2019. Globally consistent parameters were used for all elements (i.e. parameters do not vary geographically). All calculations were conducted in Google Earth Engine. Displays forest condition as a continuous index determined by degree of anthropogenic modification

The Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LP DAAC) archives and distributes Global Forest Cover Change (GFCC) data products through the NASA Making Earth System Data Records for Use in Research Environments (MEaSUREs) Program. The GFCC Tree Cover Multi-Year Global dataset is available for four epochs centered on the years 2000, 2005, 2010, and 2015. The dataset is derived from the GFCC Surface Reflectance product (GFCC30SR), which is based on enhanced Global Land Survey (GLS) datasets. The GLS datasets are composed of high-resolution Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper (TM) and Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) images at 30 meter resolution. GFCC30TC provides tree canopy information and can be used to understand forest changes. Each tree cover product features four files associated with it; a tree cover layer with an embedded color map, a tree cover error (uncertainty) file, and an index (provenance) file, plus a list of path/rows that relate to the Surface Reflectance input files. Note that the index file and file list were not generated for the 2015 epoch. Data follow the Worldwide Reference System-2 tiling scheme. Additional details regarding the methodology used to create the data are available in the Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document (ATBD).