This serie clc5 describes the landscape according to the CORINE Land Cover (CLC) nomenclature. These classes contain mainly information about landcover mixed with some aspects of landuse. CLC5 is based on the more detailed German landcover model (LBM-DE) which uses separate classes for landcover and landuse and attribute-information about percentage of vegetation and sealing. The mimimum unit for an object is 1 ha. For the CLC5 dataset landcover and landuse classes are combined to unique CLC-classes taking into account the percentage of vegetation and sealing, followed by a generalisation process.

The TimeScan product is based on the fully-automated analysis of comprehensive time-series acquisitions of Landsat data. Based on a user-specified definition of the required period of time, the region of interest and – optionally – the maximum cloud cover, the TimeScan processor starts with the collection of all available Landsat scenes that meet the user specification. Next, for each single scene masking of clouds, haze and shadow is conducted using the Fmask algorithm. Then, a total of 6 indices is calculated for those pixels of each single scene that have not been masked in the prior step. The set of indices includes the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), the Built-up Index (BI), the Modified Normalized Difference Water Index (MNDWI), the Normalized Difference Band-5 / Band-7 (ND57), the Normalized Difference Band-4 / Band-3 (ND43), and the Normalized Difference Band-3 / Band-2 (ND32). Finally, the TimeScan product is generated by calculating the temporal statistics (minimum, maximum, mean, standard deviation, mean slope) for each index over the defined period of time. Hence, in case of the defined 6 indices chosen, the TimeScan product will include a total of 30 bands (5 statistical features per index). As an additional band a quality layer is added which shows for each pixel the number of valid values (meaning times with no cloud/haze or shadow cover) that have been included in the statistics calculation.

Indian Remote Sensing satellites (IRS) are a series of Earth Observation satellites, built, launched and maintained by Indian Space Research Organisation. The IRS series provides many remote sensing services to India and international ground stations. The revisit capability of only 5 days and the products coverage size of 370 km x 370 km make AWiFS products a valuable source for application fields such forestry and environmental monitoring

The Sentinel-2 fractional vegetation cover (fCover) product for the Netherlands was produced as part of the NextGEOSS project at the German Aerospace Center (DLR). The goal is to derive abundance maps from atmospherically corrected Sentinel-2 multispectral images for: photosynthetically active vegetation (PV); and for combined non-photosynthetically active vegetation (NPV) and bare soil (BS). The fCover product for the Netherlands has been generated by processing 10 cloud-free Sentinel-2 tiles which covered the country on 8 September 2016. The map has a spatial resolution of 60m x 60m. The Sentinel-2 scene classification layer was used to ensure that the spectral unmixing was only performed on areas of vegetation or soil. The abundance maps were made by performing MESMA unmixing on each pixel from an endmember library of PV and combined NPV + BS spectra. The purest pixels in a scene, called endmembers, were extracted using the Spatial-Spectral Endmember Extraction (SSEE) approach. The PV and NPV+BS endmembers were classified with a random forest approach and selected to form the spectral library. The spectral library was used in the µMESMA unmixing to get the PV and NPV+BS abundances.

This product shows Snow Cover Duration Early Season (SCDES). SCDES represents the SCD between September 1st and January 15th of a given hydrological year. Information about extent, beginning, duration and melt of snow cover are important for climate research, hydrological applications, flood prediction and weather forecast. Climate change is influencing the characteristics and duration of snow cover, affecting landscape, hydrology, flora, fauna, and humans in equal measure. Therefore, precise information about the different snow parameters and their development over time are particularly important for various research fields. The “Global SnowPack” is a dataset containing information about snow cover parameters on a global scale. Overall, early season, and late season snow cover duration are included and allow detailed insights in the characteristics of this most relevant part of Earth’s cryosphere. The parameters are being derived from daily, operational MODIS snow cover products for every year since 2000. The negative effects of polar darkness and cloud coverage are compensated by applying several processing steps. Thereby, a unique global dataset can be provided that is characterized by its high accuracy, a spatial resolution of 500 meter and continuous future enhancements. For more information please also refer to: Dietz, A. J., C. Kuenzer, and S. Dech. 2015: Global SnowPack – “A new set of snow cover parameters to study status and dynamics of the planetary snow cover extent.“ accepted for publication in Remote Sensing Letters. Dietz, A. J., C. Conrad, C. Kuenzer, G. Gesell, and S. Dech. 2014. “Identifying Changing Snow Cover Characteristics in Central Asia between 1986 and 2014 from Remote Sensing Data.” Remote Sensing 6 (12): 12752–75. doi:10.3390/rs61212752. Dietz, A. J., C. Kuenzer, and C. Conrad. 2013. “Snow-Cover Variability in Central Asia between 2000 and 2011 Derived from Improved MODIS Daily Snow-Cover Products.” International Journal of Remote Sensing 34 (11): 3879–3902. Dietz, A. J., C. Wohner, and C. Kuenzer. 2012. “European Snow Cover Characteristics between 2000 and 2011 Derived from Improved MODIS Daily Snow Cover Products.” Remote Sensing 4 (8): 2432–54. doi:10.3390/rs4082432.

Indian Remote Sensing satellites (IRS) are a series of Earth Observation satellites, built, launched and maintained by Indian Space Research Organisation. The IRS series provides many remote sensing services to India and international ground stations. With 5 m resolution and products covering areas up to 23.5 km x 23.5 km IRS LISS-IV multispectral data provide a cost effective solution for mapping tasks up to 1:25'000 scale.

This product shows Snow Cover Duration (SCD) for the whole hydrological year (Sept. 1st of a given year until Aug. 31st of the next year). Information about extent, beginning, duration and melt of snow cover are important for climate research, hydrological applications, flood prediction and weather forecast. Climate change is influencing the characteristics and duration of snow cover, affecting landscape, hydrology, flora, fauna, and humans in equal measure. Therefore, precise information about the different snow parameters and their development over time are particularly important for various research fields. The “Global SnowPack” is a dataset containing information about snow cover parameters on a global scale. Overall, early season, and late season snow cover duration are included and allow detailed insights in the characteristics of this most relevant part of Earth’s cryosphere. The parameters are being derived from daily, operational MODIS snow cover products for every year since 2000. The negative effects of polar darkness and cloud coverage are compensated by applying several processing steps. Thereby, a unique global dataset can be provided that is characterized by its high accuracy, a spatial resolution of 500 meter and continuous future enhancements. For more information please also refer to: Dietz, A. J., C. Kuenzer, and S. Dech. 2015: Global SnowPack – “A new set of snow cover parameters to study status and dynamics of the planetary snow cover extent.“ accepted for publication in Remote Sensing Letters. Dietz, A. J., C. Conrad, C. Kuenzer, G. Gesell, and S. Dech. 2014. “Identifying Changing Snow Cover Characteristics in Central Asia between 1986 and 2014 from Remote Sensing Data.” Remote Sensing 6 (12): 12752–75. doi:10.3390/rs61212752. Dietz, A. J., C. Kuenzer, and C. Conrad. 2013. “Snow-Cover Variability in Central Asia between 2000 and 2011 Derived from Improved MODIS Daily Snow-Cover Products.” International Journal of Remote Sensing 34 (11): 3879–3902. Dietz, A. J., C. Wohner, and C. Kuenzer. 2012. “European Snow Cover Characteristics between 2000 and 2011 Derived from Improved MODIS Daily Snow Cover Products.” Remote Sensing 4 (8): 2432–54. doi:10.3390/rs4082432.

Indian Remote Sensing satellites (IRS) are a series of Earth Observation satellites, built, launched and maintained by Indian Space Research Organisation. The IRS series provides many remote sensing services to India and international ground stations. With 5 m resolution and products covering areas up to 23.5 km x 23.5 km IRS LISS-IV multispectral data provide a cost effective solution for mapping tasks up to 1:25'000 scale.