JRC’s Global Map of Forest Cover for 2020 Now Available in Google Earth Engine
By Alicia Sullivan, Product Manager & Tanya Birch, Program Manager for Earth Engine
On December 7th, as part of a meeting of the Multistakeholder Platform Expert Group, the Joint Research Centre released the 2020 Global map of forest cover. This map corresponds to the cut-off date set in the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), which will require companies to provide statements affirming that goods sold or produced in the EU were not grown on land deforested after December 31, 2020. The 2020 Global map of forest cover map is a tool to help implement the regulation and we are excited to announce that this dataset is available in the Google Earth Engine Data Catalog.
About the JRC Global forest Cover Map
The Joint Research Center (JRC) is the European Commission’s science and knowledge service. JRC’s global map of forest cover provides a spatially explicit representation of forest presence and absence for the year 2020 at 10m spatial resolution. The global map of forest cover was created by combining available global datasets (wall-to-wall or global in their scope) on tree cover, tree height, land cover and land use into a single harmonized globally-consistent representation of where forests existed in 2020.
The use of the map will not automatically ensure that the conditions of the EUDR are complied with. Companies will still be obliged to carry out due diligence to ensure full compliance. However, the map is a helpful source and starting point for companies to understand where there is potential deforestation risk in their supply chain. For more information about this dataset, and its intended uses, please refer to the EU Observatory on Deforestation and Forest Degradation (EUFO) and point #61 of the FAQ- EU Deforestation Regulation.
Check out the new JRC 2020 Global map of forest cover in Earth Engine Data Catalog to get started.
