NASA'S Terra Satellite Refines Map of Global Land Cover

This image shows the land cover types of the United States in different colors. The urban growth is a key land cover issue for the Northeast. Baltimore and Washington appear to be growing into a single urban corridor, replacing the few remaining patches of forest and mixed vegetation landscapes.

New NASA land cover maps are providing scientists with the most refined global picture ever produced of the distribution of Earth's ecosystems and land use patterns. High-quality land cover maps aid scientists and policy makers involved in natural resource management and a range of research and global onitoring objectives.

The land cover maps were developed at Boston University in Boston, Mass., using data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument on NASA's Terra satellite. The maps are based on a digital database of Earth images collected between November 2000 and October 2001.

"These maps, with spatial resolution of 1 kilometer (.6 mile), mark a significant step forward in global land cover mapping by providing a clearer, more detailed picture than previously available maps," says Mark Friedl, one of the project's investigators. The last maps of this kind were produced from data collected in 1992 and 1993 by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer.

For more on the Terra satellite assisting with the production of global maps, go to: http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/news-release/releases/2002/02-126.htm