MapBiomas

Project

WHAT IS THE MAPBIOMAS COLOMBIA INITIATIVE? 

The “Annual Land Cover and Land Use Mapping of Colombia” project is an initiative that involves a collaborative network of specialists in earth sciences, remote sensing, geographic information systems and programming. It uses cloud processing and automated classifiers operated from the Google Earth Engine platform to generate a historical series of annual land cover and land use maps of Colombia's continental surface.

ORIGIN

The Gaia Amazonas Foundation is the Colombian representation as a member of the Amazon Network of Georeferenced Socio-Environmental Information (RAISG), where this type of information is generated in a coordinated manner with the other countries in the basin, to achieve the same objectives. Since 2009, within the framework of work with the RAISG, the construction of deforestation maps of the Colombian Amazon began, applying increasingly advanced satellite data processing tools and techniques. In search of new alternatives for the automation of processes and the generation of timely information, in March 2017, the RAISG, in agreement with the General Coordination of MapBiomas Network, created the MapBiomas Amazonía.

As part of the work with the RAISG and MapBiomas, Gaia Amazonas has achieved the publication of six collections for the Amazon and two collections of annual Land Cover and Use Maps for the Colombian territory in the period between 1985 and 2023. Thanks to this collaborative effort it is possible to have these maps on an interactive platform for the MapBiomas Colombia.

PURPOSE

Contribute to the understanding of the dynamics of land use in Colombia based on:

  • The development and implementation of a rapid, reliable and low-cost methodology to generate annual land cover and use maps, from 1985 to the present (with annual updates).
  • Creation of a Web platform to facilitate the dissemination of the methodology and access to the results: Products and Subproducts.
  • Establish a collaborative network of specialists in the different biomes for mapping land cover and use and its dynamics of change.

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE INITIATIVE

  • Networking with state, academic and civil society institutions.
  • Distributed and automated data processing through a technological alliance with Google and the Google Earth Engine platform.
  • Work aimed at generating an open and replicable platform.
  • Collaborative platform designed to incorporate and welcome contributions from the interested scientific community.