A NEW GLOBAL LAND COVER MAP, GLCNMO 
R. Tateishi 2 3, 
*, Bayaer 3 , M. A. Ghar 3 , H. Al-Bilbisi 3 , J. Tsendayush 3 , A. Shalaby 3 , Alimujiang Kasimu 3 , N. T. Hoan 3 , T. Kobayashi 3 , 
B. Alsaaideh 3 , Md. M. Rahman 3 , E. Tsevengee 3 , Y. Yamada b , and S. Kajikawa b 
3 Chiba Univeristy, Center for Environmental Remote Sensing, 1-33 Yayoi-cho, Inage-ku Chiba, 263-8522 Japan - 
tateishi@faculty.chiba-u.jp 
b Geogaphical Survey Institute of Japan, 1 Kitazato Tsukuba 305-0811 Japan - kajikawa@gsi.go.jp 
KEY WORDS: Land Cover, Global, Mapping, MODIS 
ABSTRACT: 
The Global Mapping Project organized by International Steering Committee for Global Mapping (ISCGM) has produced a new 1km 
global land cover data called Global Land Cover by National Mapping Organizations (GLCNMO) as one of eight layers of Global 
Map data. It has twenty land cover classes defined by Land Cover Classification System (LCCS). Fourteen classes out of twenty 
were derived by supervised classification, and the rest of six classes such as urban, tree open, mangrove, wetland, snow/ice, and 
inland water were classified independently using MODIS and/or other source data. This land cover mapping has the following 
features, (a) Eight periods of 16-day composite 7-band 1-km MODIS data of 2003 year were used as primary source data, (b) 
Training data for supervised classification were collected using Landsat image, MODIS NDVI seasonal change pattern, and 
comments from National Mapping Organizations with the reference of Google Earth, Virtual Earth and existing regional maps, (c) 
Urban areas were extracted using Gridded Population density, DMSP data, and MODIS NDVI. (d) Tree open areas were mapped 
from percent tree cover data derived from the same MODIS data, (e) Inland water and ocean were mapped by clustering of MODIS 
data 1 . 
1. INTRODUCTION 
Land cover is one of key environmental parameters. After the 
availability of global satellite data such as NOAA/AVHRR, 
global land cover map was produced using satellite data. The 
first one was IGBP-DISCover(GLCC website) using AVHRR 
data of 1992. University of Maryland and Boston University 
have produced global land cover data using MODIS data 
independently (UMDLCC website)(BULC website), and Joint 
Research Centre (JRC) of European Commission produced 
GLC2000 using SPOT/VEGETATION data of 2000(GLC2000 
website). Though several global land cover data are available, 
their accuracy is not very high. Better global land cover data is 
necessary for reliable scientific use of the data. 
Global Mapping project (ISCGM website) is an international 
project to develop eight basic global datasets by the cooperation 
of National Mapping Organizations. One of the products is 
global land cover data which is called Global Land Cover by 
National Mapping Organizations (GLCNMO). GLCNMO was 
produced using mainly MODIS data observed in 2003. This 
paper described how GLCNMO was produced. 
2. POLICY OF LAND COVER MAPPING 
Basic policy of the production of GLCNMO is as follows. 
(1) use of global 1km satellite data 
(2) cooperation of National Mapping Organizations for 
intermediate check of the classification trial 
(3) publication of training data 
There have been several global land cover mapping projects so 
far. However no project releases or publishes training data or 
reference data they used. Accumulation and common use of 
training data (or ground truth data) by different projects 
increases reliable knowledge of global land cover, and it 
follows better land cover mapping in the future. 
(4) independent mapping for the classes which are difficult to 
be classified by automatic digital classification method. 
In this mapping project, six out of twenty land cover classes 
were found difficult to be classified by supervised method. 
Therefore these six land cover classes were classified 
individually by different methods. 
3. DATA USED 
3.1 MODIS data 
The main data used in this mapping project is MODIS data 
observed in 2003. The source MODIS data is MODIS/TERRA 
Nadir BRDF- Adjusted Reflectance 16-DAY L3 Global 1 KM 
SIN Grid Product (MOD43B4 NBAR). This is 16-day 
composite, 7-band, 1-km, 10-degree tile data. The source data 
were processed to remove cloud contamination, and reprojected 
into latitude/longitude coordinate system, and mosaicked to 
make five continental data(Eurasia, North America, South 
America, Africa, and Oceania) and two island regions in the 
Ocean. 
3.2 Other data 
3.2.1 Satellite data: Other satellite data used are Landsat 
+ETM data(GLCF website) and DMSP/OLS data(DMSP/OLS 
website). Landsat data were used to collect training data, and 
DMSP/OLS data were used for urban mapping. 
3.2.2 Global land cover data: Existing global land cover data 
such as GLC2000(GLC2000 website), land cover by Boston 
Corresponding author.