LBA Regional Land Cover from AVHRR, 1-Degree, 1987 (Defries and Townshend)

This data set consists of a subset for the study area of the Large Scale Biosphere-Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia (LBA) in South America (i.e., longitude 85 deg to 30 deg W, latitude 25 deg S to 10 deg N) 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)[glcf.umiacs.umd.edu/data/landcover/index.shtml] web site.