Land Cover Change Community-based Processing and Analysis System

Public Overview

Although there is now over 30 years of Landsat-class observations, the land science community still lacks the analysis infrastructure to meet the GCOS goal of routine, global land-cover change updates every five years. In response, this project will create the infrastructure for a distributed Land cover Change Community-based Processing and analysis System (LC-ComPS). Online tools will be developed to generate land cover change information from large volumes of Landsat-class satellite imagery, including modules for:

• Calibration and atmospheric correction
• Compositing to reduce cloud contamination
• BRDF/phenology adjustment to reduce variability between images
• Robust change detection tools centered on forest cover change mapping
• Aggregation and resampling of output map products

These tools will be linked with Data Grid technologies, so that multiple satellite archives can be accessed for any given processing task. Software from this effort will be made available to other institutions so that the LC-ComPS “Virtual Organization” can continue to expand. The LC-ComPS application will be available to users through this site and the GLCF home page. Check back for updates or contact project staff for further information.

The LC-ComPS project is a collaborative effort of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, the University of Maryland, and the USGS Eros Data Center. NASA has sponsored this effort through the Advancing Collaborative Connections for Earth-Sun System Science (ACCESS) program.