Tools

A wall-to-wall mapping of land cover is a critical component for many applications in which the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is involved, including the sustainable management of natural resources, environmental protection, food security, and humanitarian programmes, as well as core baseline data for modelling.

The increased number of Earth-observation missions, as well as the development of on–line platforms for the cloud–computing of analysis–ready data (ARD), have shaped a new era for operational protocols on the assessment of land and its dynamics. FAO, with its extensive experience in land cover mapping, has enhanced the ability to analyse and produce land cover information in many countries, developing accurate land cover products for national, regional and global applications with a systematic approach that include:

• a software toolbox for land cover mapping;
• algorithms for processing multi-temporal satellite imagery;
• Object Based Image Analysis (OBIA) and pixel–based analysis;
• supervised and unsupervised classification;
• vegetation index profiling;
• national reference systems and national land cover legend classification systems (LCCSs) in ISO standards;
• protocol for accuracy assessment;
• capacity development; and
• data dissemination.