A VEGETATION MAP OF SOUTH AMERICA MAPA DE LA VEGETACIÓN DE AMÉRICA DEL SUR MAPA DA VEGETAÇÃO DA AMÉRICA DO SUL H.D.Eva E.E. de Miranda C.M. Di Bella V.Gond O.Huber M.Sgrenzaroli S.Jones A.Coutinho A.Dorado M.Guimarães C.Elvidge F.Achard A.S.Belward E.Bartholomé A.Baraldi G.De Grandi P.Vogt S.Fritz A.Hartley 2002 EUR 20159 EN A VEGETATION MAP OF SOUTH AMERICA MAPA DE LA VEGETACIÓN DE AMÉRICA DEL SUR MAPA DA VEGETAÇÃO DA AMÉRICA DO SUL H.D.Eva E.E. de Miranda C.M. Di Bella V.Gond O.Huber M.Sgrenzaroli S.Jones A.Coutinho A.Dorado M.Guimarães C.Elvidge F.Achard A.S.Belward E.Bartholomé A.Baraldi G.De Grandi P.Vogt S.Fritz A.Hartley 2002 EUR 20159 EN A Vegetation Map of South America I LEGAL NOTICE Neither the European Commission nor any person acting on behalf of the Commission is responsible for the use which might be made of the following information. A great deal of additional information on the European Union is available on the Internet. It can be accessed through the Europa server (http://europa.eu.int) Cataloguing data can be found at the end of this publication Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, 2002 ISBN 92-894-4449-5 © European Communities, 2002 Reproduction is authorized provided the source is acknowledged Printed in Italy II A Vegetation Map of South America A VEGETATION MAP OF SOUTH AMERICA prepared by H.D.Eva* E.E. de Miranda ‡ C.M. Di Bella# V.Gond† O.Huber◊ M.Sgrenzaroli* S.Jones° A.Coutinho‡ A.Dorado¢ M.Guimarães‡ C.Elvidge▪ F.Achard* A.S.Belward* E.Bartholomé* A.Baraldi* G.De Grandi * P.Vogt* S.Fritz * A.Hartley* *Institute for Environment and Sustainability – Joint Research Centre of the European Commission – Ispra – Italy ‡ Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária -EMBRAPA-CNPM – Campinas – Brazil # Instituto de Clima y Agua – INTA- Los Reseros y Las Cabañas S/N (1712) – Castelar – Buenos Aires – Argentina †Centre International de Recherche en Agronomie pour le Développement, Unité mixte de Recherche "Ecologie des Forêts de Guyane" - CIRAD / ECOFOG - Cayenne - French Guyana ◊CoroLab Humboldt – CIET/IVIC – Caracas– Venezuela ° Department of Geomatics– University of Melbourne – Melbourne – Australia ¢ ECOFORÇA – Campinas – Brazil ▪NOAA-NESDIS National Geophysical Data Center- Boulder-USA A Vegetation Map of South America III Project Organisation Co-ordination and continental map production H.D.Eva Regional co-ordinators E.E.de Miranda C.Di Bella V.Gond Regional vegetation experts E.E.de Miranda C.Di Bella V.Gond O.Huber A.Dorado F.Achard A.Coutinho M.Guimarães Radar data preparation M.Sgrenzaroli G.De Grandi A.Baraldi DMSP data preparation C.Elvidge ATSR data preparation and interpretation S.Jones SPOT VGT data preparation E.Bartholomé P.Vogt Legend translation E.E.de Miranda C.Di Bella V.Gond A. Dorado GIS S.Fritz Web presentation A.Hartley GLC 2000 project co-ordination A.S.Belward E.Bartholomé IV A Vegetation Map of South America Figure 1: The South America map with generalised legend A Vegetation Map of South America V Contents 1. Introduction...........................................................................................................................1 1.1. Objectives and presentation of the map ........................................................................1 1.2. Previous maps of South America...................................................................................1 1.3. Applications of such maps..............................................................................................1 2. Methodological approach.....................................................................................................2 2.1. Use of multi-resolution satellite data ............................................................................2 2.2. Image classification techniques .....................................................................................4 3. Legend....................................................................................................................................7 3.1. Classification scheme.....................................................................................................7 3.2. Correspondence with the GLC 2000 global legend......................................................7 3.3. Forest classes .................................................................................................................7 3.4. Shrubland classes...........................................................................................................9 3.5. Grassland classes...........................................................................................................9 3.6. Land with little or sparse vegetation ...........................................................................10 3.7. Agricultural classes......................................................................................................11 4. The distribution of the main vegetation formations .......................................................13 4.1. Thematic detail .............................................................................................................13 4.2. Continental distributions .............................................................................................13 4.3. Surface areas of major land cover types .....................................................................13 5. Data access and update ......................................................................................................19 6. Maps consulted....................................................................................................................21 7. References............................................................................................................................23 8. Technical specifications......................................................................................................29 9. Legend translations ............................................................................................................31 10. Accompanying maps in the series.................................................................................34 VI A Vegetation Map of South America List of Tables Table 1: Ancillary sources of information for class labelling ......................................................5 Table 2: Maps available for class labelling ..................................................................................5 Table 3: Correspondence between the regional legend and the global legend ...........................6 Table 4: Land cover class criteria ...............................................................................................12 Table 5: Distribution of land cover classes in South America....................................................14 Table 6: Class groupings in the digital data ...............................................................................29 Table 7: Digital numbers of the land cover classes ....................................................................30 Table 8: The legend in French English Spanish and Portuguese – Forest classes ...................32 Table 9: The legend in French English Spanish and Portuguese – Non-forest classes ...........33 List of Figures Figure 1: The South America map with generalised legend........................................................ V Figure 2: SPOT VGT mosaic of South America........................................................................... X Figure 3: ATSR-2 image of Rondônia............................................................................................3 Figure 4: Map detail from the Rio Negro, north Brazil..............................................................13 Figure 5: The distribution of humid and dry forests...................................................................15 Figure 6: The distribution of shrublands.....................................................................................16 Figure 7: The distribution of grasslands.....................................................................................17 Figure 8: The distribution of wetlands ........................................................................................18 A Vegetation Map of South America VII Acknowledgements The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support of the European Commission and of EMBRAPA-CNPM. The European Space Agency is thanked for access to their Near-Real- Time Along Track Scanning Radiometer (ATSR) service. The Rutherford Appleton Laboratories are thanked for technical support and information relating to the calibration of the ATSR-2 instrument. The VEGETATION data used in the framework of this project have been provided by VEGA 2000, an initiative co-sponsored by the French Space Agency, CNES, the Flemish Institute for Technological Research (VITO, Belgium) and the Joint Research Centre. VIII A Vegetation Map of South America Foreword South America accounts for around 12% of the Earth’s land surface. The continent is among the most physically, biologically and climatologically diverse of all Earth’s land-masses. Climate ranges from arid desertic conditions, through to humid tropical regions and cold permanent ice caps. The continent boasts the largest rainforest in the world, the largest river and has some of the world’s greatest concentrations of biodiversity. In addition to the largest tropical forest left on the Earth the continent accounts for nearly a quarter of the world’s