Slashgeo

All Points Blog links to the Future of Operational Land Imaging Working Group website (US Government). From the website: "The Future of Operational Land Imaging Working Group is leading an effort to develop a long-term plan to achieve technical, financial, and managerial stability for operational land imaging in accord with the goals and objectives of the U.S. Integrated Earth Observation System."

A colleague sent me the link to the active Global Mapping Project. From their summary: "What is a Global Map? Digital geographic information in 1 km resolution covering the earth's surface with standardized specifications and available to everyone at marginal cost. How Many Layers are there in a Global Map? Global Map data have 8 layers: Boundaries, Drainage, Transportation, Population Centers, Elevation, Land Cover, Land Use, and Vegetation." What's impressive is the quantity of countries which participates, in short: most countries!

Earth Visualizations writes "Good news from the United Nations Statistical Division: This summer they will launch a new data portal — UN-data. It’s not much information available, but it looks promising. Until now a large amount of UN statistics have only been available to subscribed users. It’s a good move that the UN now wants to improve the dissemination of statistics to the widest possible audience free of charge. Read more at: http://earthvisualizations.wordpress.com/" Here's the official, yet unlaunched, UN website.

All Points Blog links to ESA's GlobCover project which released a global land use land cover classification at 300m. From the site: "The GlobCover project has developed a service capable of delivering global composite and land cover maps using as input observations from the 300m MERIS sensor on board the ENVISAT satellite mission. The GlobCover service has been demonstrated over a period of 18 months [Januray 2005 - June 2006], for which a set of MERIS Full Resolution (FR) composites (bi-monthly and annual) and a Global Land Cover map have been produced. The GlobCover composites are the results of a set of processing made on the MERIS FR images such as cloud detection, atmospheric correction, geolocalisation and re-mapping. The GlobCover Land Cover map is compatible with the UN Land Cover Classification System (LCCS)." Yes, it's free. See also related stories below.

Catching up my September emails, here's the Global Land Cover Network has released their bulletin #12 (don't ask about the dates! ;-), the 52'North open source geospatial initiative has released their second newsletter, but I haven't found it on their website. Meanwhile, Canada's GeoBase launched their first newsletter [pdf], not long after the announcement of Canada's National Hydro Network: "The National Hydro Network describes and models the elements of the interior, surface water systems of Canada. It contains two representations of water: a linear network which is a logical representation detailing surface water movement; and, a more traditional cartographic representation of hydrographic elements such as lakes, rivers, and streams."

mailseth writes "I'm happy to announce the release of my new true color global dataset: True Marble. It's a global 15m, 3 terabyte, dataset which concentrates on reproducing the natural color of the landscape while maintaining the contrast required to distinguish small features. I think it's much more realistic than other similar products out there. I've released a 250m resolution version of True Marble under a Creative Commons license.

We're also releasing True Marble GLCD, a global 15m land cover dataset. This is a highly experimental, but first of its kind, dataset. I've been in contact with a professor and am planning on starting a PhD in the fall to study the algorithm I used. The accuracy isn't the best, but that's what makes it experimental. :) I'm also releasing a free 250m version of the True Marble GLCD." See also related stories below.

Slashdot discuss the new United Nations free data portal. Their summary: "Since its foundation, the United Nations system has been collecting statistical information from member states on a variety of topics. The information thus collected constitutes a considerable information asset of the organization. However, these statistical data are often stored in proprietary databases, each with unique dissemination and access policies. As a result, users are often unaware of the full array of statistical information that the UN system has in its data libraries. The current arrangement also means that users are required to move from one database to another to access different types of information. UNdata addresses this problem by datapooling major UN databases and those of several other international organizations into one single Internet environment. The innovative design allows a user to access a large number of UN databases either by browsing the data series or through a keyword search."

Via AGISRS, here's two updates on the GlobCover dataset which provides free 300m-resolution land-use land-cover of global coverage. We discussed GlobCover about a year ago, the source data is not available but should be this coming July. You can browse the whole world GlobCover LULC data using the tool in the links above. From the ESA article: "Earth’s land cover has been charted from space before, but this map, which will be made available to the public upon its completion in July, has a resolution 10 times sharper than any of its predecessors. Scientists, who will use the data to plot worldwide land-cover trends, study natural and managed ecosystems and to model climate change extent and impacts, are hailing the product – generated under the ESA-initiated GlobCover project – as 'a milestone.'" See other LULC related stories below.