Researchers Released Global Land Cover Data for 1975
The new 60-meter resolution dataset fills a critical historical gap in global land monitoring before 1985.
Updated on Sept. 28, 2026 in Geography
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Researchers have released the GLC_FCS60 dataset, providing the first high-resolution global land cover observations for the years 1975 and 1980. This research-stage development offers a standardized baseline for analyzing long-term environmental change.
Why it matters
Global land cover information prior to 1985 has remained scarce, hindering the ability to track environmental shifts over the last half-century. This new dataset addresses that limitation by providing consistent data from the era before extensive satellite monitoring became common.
The GLC_FCS60 dataset provides 60-meter resolution mapping, achieving an overall classification accuracy of approximately 80% for both years. A change and no-change validation process further confirmed an accuracy of 78.61% across the multi-year set.
The players
Google Earth Engine
A cloud-based planetary-scale platform for geospatial analysis that integrates massive datasets for researchers.
The details
The team generated this data by processing observations from the Landsat Multispectral Scanner, an early Earth-imaging sensor. They utilized locally adaptive classification models within the Google Earth Engine, a cloud-based geospatial analysis platform, to refine the mapping. An improved change-detection method employing adaptive thresholding allowed the researchers to resolve surface patterns despite the data limitations of the era.
Timeline
1975: Initial data collection year.
1980: Secondary data collection year.
September 28, 2026: Official dataset publication.
The Tech Race
This release marks a significant effort to bridge the data gap in historical environmental monitoring programs. It extends the utility of the Landsat satellite observation program by extracting high-resolution insights from its earliest archival imagery.
This dataset serves as a foundational resource for climatologists and ecologists performing long-term environmental modeling. It requires access to geospatial analysis tools capable of handling 60-meter resolution raster data.
The takeaway
The availability of this data allows researchers to finally anchor long-term climate models in a verified mid-1970s baseline. Scientists should watch for subsequent peer-reviewed papers that utilize this data to re-evaluate historical land-use patterns.
Further reading
Explore the evolution of earth observation in Geography.
Source note: This article includes information reported by Nature.
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