Global Forest Change

Results from time-series analysis of 654,178 Landsat images in characterizing forest extent and change, 2000–2012.

Trees are defined as all vegetation taller than 5m in height and are expressed as a percentage per output grid cell as ‘2000 Percent Tree Cover’. ‘Forest Loss’ is defined as a stand-replacement disturbance, or a change from a forest to non-forest state. ‘Forest Gain’ is defined as the inverse of loss, or a non-forest to forest change entirely within the study period. ‘Forest Loss Year’ is a disaggregation of total ‘Forest Loss’ to annual time scales.

Reference 2000 and 2012 imagery are median observations from a set of quality assessment-passed growing season observations.

ORIGINAL: Earth Engine Partners

by Hansen, Potapov, Moore, Hancher et al.