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Full catalog/GFCC30FCC
GFCC30FCC·v001·dataset

Where forests gained or lost cover (30 m)

Global Forest Cover Change Forest Cover Change Multi-Year Global 30m V001
land NASA LPCLOUD Level 3 GeoTIFF
In plain English

What it measures. Maps showing where forests gained or lost cover between 1990 and 2000, and between 2000 and 2005, at a fine 30-meter scale. Each spot comes with both a change map and a measure of how confident that change is.

How it's made. Derived from a companion tree-cover product built on Landsat 5 and Landsat 7 imagery, then processed into change maps tiled across the globe.

How & where you'd use it. Useful for spotting deforestation and forest regrowth, tracking long-term forest trends, and feeding studies on carbon and land-use change.

What's measured

AGRICULTURE › FOREST SCIENCE › FOREST HARVESTING AND ENGINEERING

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span1990-01-01 → 2004-12-31
  • Measured byLANDSAT-7 (ETM+) · LANDSAT-5 (TM) · Terra (ASTER, MODIS)
  • Processing levelLevel 3
  • Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90
  • FormatsGeoTIFF
  • StatusCOMPLETE

What you can do with it

  • Track deforestation, fire scars and land-cover change
  • Monitor crop and vegetation health (NDVI/EVI)
  • Map how built-up vs. green an area is over time
Official description

The Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LP DAAC) archives and distributes Global Forest Cover Change (GFCC) data products through the NASA Making Earth System Data Records for Use in Research Environments ([MEaSUREs](https://earthdata.nasa.gov/about/competitive-programs/measures)) Program. The GFCC Forest Cover Change Multi-Year Global dataset provides estimates of changes in forest cover from 1990 to 2000 and from 2000 to 2005 at 30 meter spatial resolution. The GFCC30FCC product represents a global record of fine-scale changes in forest dynamics between observation periods. The forest cover change product was generated from the GFCC Tree Cover ([GFCC30TC](https://doi.org/10.5067/MEaSUREs/GFCC/GFCC30TC.003)) product which is based on Global Land Survey (GLS) data acquired by the Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper (TM) and Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) sensors. Each forest cover product has two GeoTIFF files associated with it; a change map file and a change probability file. Data follow the Worldwide Reference System-2 tiling scheme. Additional details regarding the methodology used to create the data are available in the Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document (ATBD).

Get the data

gfcc30fcc_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="GFCC30FCC",
    version="001",
    bounding_box=(-122.5, 37.2, -121.8, 37.9),  # your area (W,S,E,N)
    temporal=("2024-01-01", "2024-12-31"),       # your dates
)
files = earthaccess.open(results)   # stream straight from LPCLOUD
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.