LBA - Land Cover Dataset for the Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment (SAGE)

Global Biogeochemical Cycles 16(3), 10.1029/2000GB001386, 20. The fusion technique merges agricultural census data from countries of the basin (including Brazil) with land cover data from the University of Maryland Global Land Cover Facility 1-km classification. This technique was used to derive the mid-1990s total agriculture surface for the region, which was then apportioned according to agriculture census data proportions into cultivated area, natural pasture, and planted pasture.

The mid-1980s maps were created by scaling the mid-1990s snapshots backward in time using the relative increase or decrease in agriculture, as derived from mid-1980s census data and United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) data. These data files are generated by a fusion of two data sources which may contain errors in position and value. In particular, census variables may be susceptible to under- and over-estimation for political and economic reasons.

While we do not treat these errors of estimation directly, it appears that the fusion technique smooths extreme/unlikely values in the census data. [Summary provided by SAGE.]