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| Himalaya Region Land Cover Mapping |
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Within the Regional HArmonization Programme (RHAP) of GLCN, the land
cover mapping of the Himalaya region was carried out.
The initiative was conducted in collaboration between GLCN staff and
the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD),
Kathmandu, Nepal.
The purpose of this initiative is to provide essential basic
information on natural resource assessment and management, environmental
modelling, and decision-making and policy formulation for a
sustainable land management.
The mapping area is the Hindu Kush - Karakorum -
Himalaya mountain chain, which is about 1,500,000 km2.
Portions of the following 5 countries: Afghanistan, Pakistan, India,
China and Myanmar, and the full Nepal and Bhutan, have been mapped.
1. Land Cover Database
The development of the land cover database is based on the multi-phase
image interpretation approach, which is successfully adopted by FAO
in a number of projects.
The database was developed by performing an automatic image segmentation
on 2000 Landsat satellite imagery (30 mt resolution). The land cover
change was then visually assessed performing a manual digitization
upon historical LANDSAT imagery: 1970-80, 1990,
and more recent 2007 imagery.
The land cover mapping was performed at 1:350,000 scale and
derives from a combination of visual and automatic interpretation of
satellite imageries. For this purpose, the FAO's
MADCAT software was adopted, in order
to perform automatic classification.
FAO's GeoVIS interpretation
software was also used. The land cover legend,
consisting of 35 classes, was set up using the FAO's LCCS methodology, a
standardized a priori land cover classifications system applied with
success in a series of FAO projects. As result, 511,292 polygons were
delineated. To refine the interpretation, high resolution images from
Google Earth were used.
The final dataset consists of 511,292 polygons. This data set is
VALIDATED only at a regional scale (quick revision performed by GLCN
based on ancillary data and high resolution imagery from free sources),
even though it is distributed by administrative boundaries. It is recommended
to open the data sets inside the
Advanced Database Gateway (by FAO),
to benefit from the "OBJECT ORIENTED" way to interact with the data base.
| Id |
Title |
Type |
Download |
| 1.a |
Metadata and GIS data download (FAO's Geonetwork) |
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web link |
| 1.b |
Legend details (English) |
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4.56 MB |
| 1.c |
Himalaya Land Cover Mapping Overview presentation |
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N/A |
| 1.d |
Land Cover Classes Description |
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N/A |
1.a Next
Following the completion of the regional revision, GLCN has sent the
land cover database to each country for evaluation
and upgrading of the thematic content. This task, which is being done
in collaboration with ICIMOD, and it is not yet completed, will lead
to generate a higher thematic resolution and country validated database
that is going to be used in support of activities at national and
sub-national level.
2. Mapping Accuracy Assessment
N/A
3. Land Cover Change Analysis
A regional scale change assessment was performed based on 4 dates:
1970, 1990, 2000 and 2007.
Following are reports on changes generated by the GLCN application, MadCat.
4. Local Capacity Building
The first regional workshop on "Development & Harmonization of Land Cover
Classification in the Hindu Kush-Himalayas (HKH) Region", was held at
the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD),
in Kathmandu, NEPAL from 13th to 24th October 2008.
The workshop brought together all the key players in the field of
operational land cover mapping and technical personnel involved in the
development of land cover products (19 participants from the eight
ICIMOD member countries), who were trained on GLCN tools and
methodology. read more..
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