SAFARI 2000 Potential Vegetation, 5-min (Ramankutty and Foley)

Data are available in both ASCII GRID and binary image file formats. The original map was derived at a 5-min resolution and contains natural vegetation classified into 15 types.

This data set is derived mainly from the DISCover land cover data set, with the regions dominated by land use filled using the vegetation data set of Haxeltine and Prentice (1996). The data set represents the world's potential vegetation (i.e., vegetation that would most likely exist now in the absence of human activities), and not necessarily natural pre-settlement vegetation. This is because human activities such as fire suppression have modified the stages of succession at which vegetation communities exist.