The Core Service biogeophysical Parameter (CSP) supplied the Observatory of Land Cover Change and Forest Monitoring (OLF) with customized FCover derived from the version 1 of FCover generated in the frame of CYCLOPES project from VEGETATION data. Details are available in an ATBD.

Fcover over Boreal Euasia, July 15th of 2002.

Dedicated to the analysis of surface changes in boreal and african ecosystems, the FCover was extracted over Eurasia and Africa for years 2002 and 2003. The map above shows an example of FCover over Eurasia in July 2002. To detect land use change, OLF needs to clean Fcover time profiles such as those displayed in the graphs below for some pixels located on various vegetation types across Africa.

Fcvover time profiles for pixels located along the 25°E meridian across Africa : on the left, bare soil (15°N, orange), sahelian wooded grassland (10°N, red), sahelian woodland (5°N, magenta) ; on the right, equatorial forest (0°S, green), woodland (15°S, blue), and bushland (25°S, cyan).

These temporal profiles are used, for instance, to assess the dates of the beginning, the maximum, and the end of the growing season, and the length of the season. These variables are defined on the graph below.

Definition of the main steps of the vegetative cycle.

Applied to each pixel, this processing allows to elaborate maps (below) which are used to monitor the vegetation status, and over many years, to derive multi-annual trends.

Length of the growing season 2001 over Africa.