The Global 1km Land Data Project is an international undertaking aimed at gathering and processing daily NOAA AVHRR imagery for the entire land area of the globe. These data, in the form of 10-day vegetation condition composites, are required for studies of terrestrial processes (including landcover change, radiation balance and trace gas exchange) under the International Geosphere Biosphere Programme (IGBP). The IGBP is a long-term, planetary scale research effort devoted to understanding natural and human-induced alterations to the Earth's land, atmosphere, oceans and ice sheets.

The project was initiated by the peak body responsible for co-ordinating Earth observation programs - the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS). The main partners in the Global 1 km Land Data Project are NASA, NOAA, USGS, the European Space Agency (ESA) and CSIRO. As well as supplying information needed for long-term research into environmental change, the project demonstrates methods developed for handling large volumes of scientific data.

Initially planned to operate for 18 months, April 1992 to September 1993, the project is now in it's ninth year of operation. Current indications are that the project will continue to operate until September 2001, to allow some comparison with data from the MODIS instrument on the TERRA satellite, launched in early 2000.

More information on the global project is available at the EROS Data Centre (EDC) website at http://edcwww.cr.usgs.gov/landdaac/1KM/1kmhomepage.html

The Australian contribution

In 1992 a small group of scientists calling themselves the Global Change Group at the CSIRO Division of Wildlife and Ecology in Canberra agreed to collect and reformat NOAA 14 afternoon passes from several receiving stations in our region of the globe, including the Philippines and Antarctic for input to the global composites. In 1995 the group was absorbed into the newly established Earth Observation Centre, where the project continues to operate.

Data Sources

The Bureau of Meteorology is a key supporter of the project through the supply of AVHRR data from its Casey (Antarctica) and Darwin groundstations. AIMS (Australian Institute of Marine Science), WASTAC (Western Australian Satellite Technology and Applications Consortium) and the CSIRO Marine Laboratories also routinely supply NOAA satellite data from their respective reception stations in Townsville, Perth and Hobart. (coverage map).

Most of these locations have supplied daily NOAA AVHRR passes since1 April 1992. Initially, only the NOAA 11 afternoon passes were collected as required for the project. However,we now receive all available passes from all the NOAA satellites (9,10,11,12,14,15). These data are now being processed at the EOC to produce continental time-series data sets for ongoing climate change research.This is a major undertaking, given the large volumes of data involved. In order to improve the quality of the final products, data received from the CSIRO Atmospheric Research station in Aspendale are being included in the processing and archived at the EOC.

Summary of AVHRR Holdings

Station	Start date	End date	No. of files	Data Volume	Data Format
Casey	01/01/92	01/09/99*	29000	2.0 Tb	Raw (Station format)
Darwin	09/08/92	19/04/00	33000	2.3 Tb	Raw (Stn format)
Townsville	01/04/92	30/01/00	19500	1.4 Tb	Raw (Stn format)
Hobart	31/03/92	10/02/00	26000	1.8 Tb	Raw (Stn format)
Perth	27/3/92	06/04/00	27500	1.9 Tb	Raw (Stn format)
Manila	10/04/92	13/12/94*	1000	70 Gb	Raw (Stn format)
Aspendale	1992	1997	TBD	~0.5Tb	Disimp

* Not inclusive

Other data holdings at the EOC include an extensive collection of Landsat MSS data, some dating back to1972, as well as Landsat TM, SPOT, GMS, ATSR, AVHRR GAC and some recently acquired SPOT-VEGETATION data.

A related activity: The World Fire Web.

The CSIRO Earth Observation centre is involved in a another global project using the same AVHRR data, called the World Fire Web. This project is run by the Global Vegetation Monitoring Unit of the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, The World Fire Web is a system for globally mapping fires in vegetation. Satellite images are acquired by a world-wide network of receiving stations. Each station operates a data processing chain for detecting fires in the satellite imagery. Daily, global fire maps are built up at each station from this regional data by automatically sharing regional fire maps over the internet. Global fire information is then available on-line, from each station, in near real-time. The World Fire Web has been chosen as a pilot project to supply fire information to the Global Observation of Forest Cover (GOFC) project. The GOFC project is coordinating an international research programme designed to produce a comprehensive global forest mapping and monitoring system.

For more information see: http://www.gvm.sai.jrc.it/fire/wfw/wfw.htm

Susan.Campbell@eoc.csiro.au