The GlobCover Portal provides access to the results of the GlobCover project. GlobCover is an ESA initiative in partnership with JRC, EEA, FAO, UNEP, GOFC-GOLD and IGBP. The GlobCover project has developed a service capable of delivering global composite and land cover maps using as input observations from the 300m MERIS sensor on board the ENVISAT satellite mission. The GlobCover service has been demonstrated over a period of 19 months [December 2004 - June 2006], for which a set of MERIS Full Resolution (FR) composites (bi-monthly and annual) and a Global Land Cover map are being produced.
The GlobCover composites are derived from a set of processing made on the MERIS FR images such as cloud detection, atmospheric correction, geolocalisation and re-mapping. The GlobCover Land Cover map is compatible with the UN Land Cover Classification System (LCCS).

A set of GlobCover MERIS FR composites (Version 2) is available on the GlobCover Portal and can be downloaded from this website. This set includes:
- 10 bi-monthly reflectances composites for period December 2004 - June 2006
- 1 annual reflectance composite for year 2005

The GlobCover Land Cover V2 product was released mid-August 2008 to ESA and Partners and will be open to public on September 30, 2008.During the 3rd User consultation (9-10 September 2008, EEA, Copenhagen), Partners and Users strongly requested to distribute together with the LC product a detailed description of his quality and limitation. As a consequence ESA and Consortium decided to postpone the distribution to September 30, 2008 in order to issue this document with the valuable support of the GlobCover partners and experts.

The GlobCover LC version 2 is available to public through the following ftp server: ftp://uranus.esrin.esa.int/pub/globcover_v2/
On the FTP you will find:
1) The LandCover V2 in greyscale geotiff
2) The QL - Quality file geotiff
3) The legend in xls file
4) The latest Product Description Manual PDM_I2.1

The GlobCover Land Cover product is the highest resolution (300 meters) Global Land Cover product ever produced and independently validated, derived from an automatic and regionally-tuned classification of a time series of MERIS FR composites, which cover the period: December 2004-June 2006.
It has been developed in partnership with EEA, FAO, GOFC-GOLD, IGBP, JRC and UNEP and is labeled according to the UN Land Cover Classification System (LCCS).
When using the GlobCover Land Cover product acknowledgment shall be as follow:
Source data: © ESA / ESA GlobCover Project, led by MEDIAS-France
Image: © ESA / ESA GlobCover Project, led by MEDIAS-France
The GlobCover Validation Report will be posted on the same site by end of October.

Useful Links:

• How to access the GlobCover data products.
  
• View the terms and conditions on the usage of GlobCover products.
  
• Download the GlobCover Product Specifications.
  
• How to read the HDF format of the GlobCover products
  

Source data and image: © ESA / ESA GlobCover Project, led by MEDIAS-France/Postel