This paper identifies opportunities to refine OECD’s indicators of land cover and land use and their
regular production for all OECD and G20 countries. A comprehensive review is conducted of the available
datasets at the global, regional and national levels, including data derived from remote sensing as well as
those complemented with administrative and survey data. The datasets are assessed in terms of their
geographic coverage, periodicity, spatial resolution, data reliability and comparability. The paper discusses
the potential use of such datasets for the production of indicators that are harmonised across countries and
over time. It is found that data on land cover are widely available and that many OECD countries have
good-quality national land cover datasets, in some cases consistently over time. However, considerable
differences have been found among the land cover products reviewed in terms of their geographic
coverage, spatial, temporal and thematic resolution. For eight countries, no country- or region-specific data
could be found (including Israel, Korea, Colombia, Costa Rica, India, Indonesia, the Russian Federation
and Saudi Arabia). On the other hand, data on land use seem to be much scarcer, available only for
Australia, European countries, Japan and the United States. The paper concludes with a discussion of
selection guidelines for, and examples of, potentially suitable datasets in terms of their geographic
coverage and the temporal, spatial and thematic resolution.
Land Cover and Land Use Indicators
Review of available data
Working paper
OECD Green Growth Papers
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Abstract
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