FAQs

Land cover maps are maps of the Earth’s surface that provide insights into the type of land present in any given location. Land cover maps have a variety of use cases and can be used alone or in combination with other geospatial data to understand environmental and social patterns such as industry, agriculture, urbanization, forestry, conservation, and hydrology. Impact Observatory provides land cover maps in digital formats, which you can read about in our documentation site. Our AI-powered models classify land visible in satellite imagery to create land cover maps that represent specific time periods. By using the most high-resolution and most recently available satellite imagery, our models produce the highest quality land cover maps available on the market so that you can monitor land patterns over time.

Our model was shown to be the best available the market in a paper titled: Global 10 m Land Use Land Cover Datasets: A Comparison of Dynamic World, World Cover and Esri Land Cover.

Our AI-powered models classify land in satellite imagery into different land cover types, depending on the product. Our Maps for Good contain 9 land cover types. Our custom 10m Land Cover maps split the 9 free land cover types into 15 land cover types for a more detailed map. Our custom 3m Land Cover maps provide the most insights with 17 land cover types that divide urban areas into roads, buildings, mixed vegetation, and other built areas.

Each land cover class has a short label and a longer definition available on our website at the following locations:

• Maps for Good class definitions
• 10m Land Cover class definitions
• 3m Land Cover class definitions

Our maps are provided in two formats with every order: Cloud Optimized GeoTIFF (COG) and PNG. COG files are best for geospatial analysis, while PNGs are best for visual mediums, such as presentations and reports. Every order also includes a CSV file with pre-calcualted metrics over your Area of Interest. If you are interested in a different file format, reach out to our team to let us know what would work best for your workflows.

We currently offer maps in 3 meter or 10 meter resolution. 3 meter land cover maps reveal additional land features in urban areas including Roads, Buildings, Mixed Vegetation and Other Built Areas. 10 meter land cover maps are ideal for mapping vegetative types of land cover and water patterns, including dense and sparse rangeland, active vs inactive croplands, dense and sparse trees, water channel extent, variable water, persistent water, Snow/Ice, Bare Ground, and Flooded Vegetation.

Yes, you can define a custom bounding box in the IO Store to download data over your area of interest with direct delivery to your email. If you would like to order a custom area of interest you can reach out to our product team at hello@impactobservatory.com and attach a GIS file (GeoJSON or Shapefile) or describe your location.

Every order for 10m Land Cover Maps includes three land cover maps available as a PNG file and a Cloud Optimized GeoTIFF( COG) file. Metrics are also provided in a CSV file for summary statistics and insights about each map. You can learn more about our metrics and file formats in our product documentation. The Area of Interest used to define the map area is provided as a GeoJSON. After they are delivered to your email files can be downloaded to your device, transferred into an ArcGIS Online account (with a proper license) or transferred into an Azure or AWS S3 account.

Our Maps for Good are available for free under an open CC BY 4.0 license. Our 10m Land cover is available at $2 per square kilometer. Our 3m Land Cover is available at $7.50 per square kilometer. If you already have access to PlanetScope satellite imagery, 3m Land Cover costs are significantly lower. Tiered pricing is available for larger orders or subscription-based purchases. Reach out to hello@impactobservatory.com for pricing questions or a custom quote.

The 10m Land Cover maps are available for purchase from the IO Store and are available within a few hours. Our 3m Land Cover maps are available for purchase by reaching out to hello@impactobservatory.com and can be available within 3 days. Our free annual land cover maps are available for download from the IO Store and can be delivered within a few minutes.

Our land cover maps are provided in Cloud Optimized GeoTIFF (COG) format, which can be easily used in several GIS software programs, such as QGIS, ArcGIS Desktop, ArcGIS Pro, and ArcGIS Online.

Yes, you can filter the land cover maps provided to display one or multiple land cover classes at a time using a geospatial application such as QGIS or ArcGIS Products. If you do not have experience with geospatial applications, you can request for data to be delivered in a specific format and our team will be happy to assist you. The maps are generated with different land cover classes that can be filtered to appear on the map one at a time, or in specific groups. Filtering the maps can be useful for customizing the display of the maps to focus on particular land cover types or characteristics.

We provide a Change map with every 10m Land Cover map order to highlight differences between the land cover types in the same area that were detected between two years. We also provide a table of pre-calculated metrics in CVS format to quantify the amount of each land cover type in your map and the amount of change over time between the date range requested and the year prior.

At this time we do not include the probabilities in our maps. If you are interested in additional data with your maps reach out to hello@impactobservatory.com and express your support for this feature.

There are a few ways to learn more about using our Land Cover Maps. For interacting with our maps and trying before buying, download our free sample data maps. Check out our documentation website, for a deeper dive into our products. You can also email hello@impactobservatory.com with your questions or set up a time to meet with us to discuss your unique use case.