A simple, fast, and accurate method for land cover mapping in Mongolia

Abstract

Low accuracy of global land cover (LC) products at local and regional scales is concerning, because of its huge impact on downstream applications. Therefore, developing a method for high accuracy LC maps at local and regional scale is of utmost importance. Taking Mongolia as a case study, we proposed a simple, fast, and accurate method to produce annual LC maps with 250 m spatial resolution from 2001 to 2020 using MODIS data. Our products have higher spatial resolution and higher accuracy (Overall Accuracy ∼90%) compared to MCD12Q1. These new maps are critical e.g., for land degradation research, and desertification/forest cover monitoring. Especially, information on grassland ecosystems is of utmost importance for Mongolia since more than half of the country economically depends on grassland resources. Therefore, Mongolia will benefit from the new dataset. Furthermore, due to the simplicity of the method, it can be easily applied and transferred to other regions.