NEWS
New near-real-time tool reveals Earth ’ s land cover in more detail than ever before
Carolyn Cowan
Current Address : Mongabay news & inspiration from nature ’ s frontline Reprinted from : https :// bit . ly / 3PHT08s
• A new tool co-developed by Google Earth Engine and the World Resources Institute is being billed as the planet ’ s most up-to-date and high-resolution global land cover mapping data set , giving unprecedented levels of detail about how land is being used around the world .
• The launch of the tool this week marks a big step forward in enabling organizations and governments to make better science-based , datainformed decisions about urgent planetary challenges , the developers say .
• Named Dynamic World , it merges cloud-based artificial intelligence with satellite imagery to give nearreal-time global visualizations of nine types of land use and land cover .
• The tool is likely to be important for a variety of purposes , the developers say , such as monitoring the progress of ecosystem restoration goals , assessing the effectiveness of protected areas , creating sustainable food systems , and alerting land managers to unforeseen land changes like deforestation and fires .
Figure 1 . A Dynamic World land use land cover map showing the distinct classification of different land cover types . Image courtesy of Google / WRI .
G oogle and the World Resources
Institute ( WRI ) this week announced the launch of a new mapping tool touted as providing an unprecedented level of detail about how land is being used around the world . Called Dynamic World , it ’ s said to be the first global land cover data set available in near-real-time at high resolution .
“ It ’ s a new frontier in global , high-resolution , near-real-time environmental monitoring ,” Rebecca Moore , director of Google Earth , said at an online press launch on June 6 .
Figure 2 . The nine land cover types Google Earth Engine ’ s cloud-based artificial intelligence classifies to generate the land use land cover mapping in Dynamic World . Image courtesy of Googe / WRI .
39 Grassroots Vol 22 No 2 July 2022