Global Land Cover Characterization Program

The Global Land Cover Characterization Project was established to meet science data requirements identified by the International Geosphere and Biosphere Programme (IGBP), and the U. S. Global Change Research Program. The overall goal is to produce flexible large-area land cover databases to meet evolving requirements of the earth science research community.

The project was implemented by the United States Geological Survey/EROS Data Center (EDC), the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL), and the Joint Research (JRC) of European Commission. This effort is part of the National Aeronautic's and Space Administration (NASA) Earth Observing System Pathfinder Program.

Funding for the project was provided by the USGS, NASA, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), U.S. Forest Service (USFS) , and the United Nations Environment Programme.

The data base has been adopted by the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme Data and Information System office (IGBP-DIS) to fill its requirement for a global 1-km land cover data set.

[Summary provided by the USGS.]

Data and Resources

Additional Info

Field Value
Maintainer TYLER STEVENS
Last Updated July 17, 2025, 16:46 (UTC)
Created March 31, 2025, 22:52 (UTC)
Identifier C1220566586-USGS_LTA
Issued 1992-04-01
Language {en-US}
Modified 1993-03-01
Theme {LCCP,geospatial}
accessLevel public
bureauCode {026:00}
catalog_@context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
catalog_@id https://data.nasa.gov/data.json
catalog_conformsTo https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
catalog_describedBy https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
citation USGS. 1997-11-01. Global Land Cover Characterization Program. Version 1.2. Archived by National Aeronautics and Space Administration, U.S. Government, USGS. http://landcover.usgs.gov/glcc/.
creator USGS
harvest_object_id 4a21d3ba-8246-4465-bb2f-d5ea154c3915
harvest_source_id 61638e72-b36c-4866-9d28-551a3062f158
harvest_source_title DNG Legacy Data
landingPage https://cmr.earthdata.nasa.gov:443/search/concepts/C1220566586-USGS_LTA.html
metadata_type geospatial
programCode {026:001}
publisher DOI/USGS/EROS
resource-type Dataset
source_datajson_identifier true
source_hash 3b1392e236ba813d6139619d8762a7bf626a9235045c6493c5505501938f085c
source_schema_version 1.1
spatial -180.0 -90.0 180.0 90.0
temporal 1992-04-01T00:00:00Z/1993-03-01T23:59:59.999Z