Land cover is the observed physical cover on the Earth’s surface including trees, shrubs, grasses, soils, exposed rocks, water bodies, plantations, crops and built structures. A consistent, Australia-wide land cover product helps understanding of how the different parts of the environment change and inter-relate. Earth observation data recorded over a period of time firstly allows the observation of the state of land cover at a specific time and secondly the way that land cover changes by comparison between times. For more information please visit https://knowledge.dea.ga.gov.au/data/product/dea-land-cover-landsat.
The Land Cover product was made possible through a collaboration between Geoscience Australia, The University of New South Wales and Aberystwyth University.
Associated References include: Lucas R, Mueller N, Siggins A, Owers C, Clewley D, Bunting P, Kooymans C, Tissott B, Lewis B, Lymburner L, Metternicht G. Land Cover Mapping using Digital Earth Australia. Data. 2019; 4(4):143. https://doi.org/10.3390/data4040143, Christopher J. Owers, Richard M. Lucas, Daniel Clewley, Carole Planque, Suvarna Punalekar, Belle Tissott, Sean M. T. Chua, Pete Bunting, Norman Mueller & Graciela Metternicht (2021) Living Earth: Implementing national standardised land cover classification systems for Earth Observation in support of sustainable development, Big Earth Data, 5:3, 368-390, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/20964471.2021.1948179, Metternicht, G., Mueller, N., Lucas, R., Digital Earth for Sustainable Development Goals, Manual of Digital Earth, pp 443 - 471, Springer Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9915-3_13