Global land cover maps for monitoring the regional human induced changes: A comparative study in the Brazilian Savanna

This study compared the three main global land cover / land use databases with the official map for the Cerrado biome (PROBIO, year 2002, 1:250,000 semi-detailed scale, based on Landsat 5 - TM), aiming to measure how different and complementary they are. Our results indicated Global Land Cover 2000 map (from SPOT-IV/Vegetation imagery) as the most similar to PROBIO, especially in terms of anthropic classes. The GlobCover 2009 map (from ENVISAT/MERIS imagery) also presented a good similarity to PROBIO, including the visual aspects. Finally, the MOD12Q1 map (from TERRA/MODIS imagery) presented the lower similarity in relation to PROBIO, with the smallest area of land use (21%). Despite the differences in methodology and scale, the GLC-2000 and GlobCover 2009 maps are very close to the current landscape in the Cerrado region, reinforcing their application for monitoring this large biome in South American, with ample and unrestricted use by decision-makers.