China’s Ministry of Natural Resources has donated its updated 30-meter resolution global land cover data to the UN, China Science Daily reported on Thursday.
The 2020 data was launched on Tuesday.
Collected in 966 datasets, the data illustrates 10 types of land cover including arable land, forest, grassland, shrubland, wetland, water, tundra, artificial land surface, bare land, glacier, and firn.
The complete 30-meter resolution land cover of the Antarctic was generated for the first time, helping the 2020 data achieve full coverage of the 149 million square km of a global land surface.
Meanwhile, 67 percent of image data was captured by China’s independently developed satellites.
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In 2014, China first launched the 2000 version and 2010 version of 30-meter resolution global land cover data products and made a donation to the UN.
All three versions document the changes in global land use and landscape patterns within the past 20 years while providing support for studying global change, boosting sustainable development, and improving the global governance system.
Global land cover distribution and changes can show the interaction between human activities and nature.
The data has been used by specialized organs of the UN and more than 130 countries.