EarthTrack has been developed to facilitate the routine collection of land cover, land cover change and environmental variables to support routine and continuous characterisation, mapping and monitoring of landscapes from Earth Observation (EO) data. EarthTrack is a mobile application that can be downloaded at no cost and has three main components:
In all three Mobile Applications, land cover and change information is consistently captured using the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Land Cover Classification System (LCCS V2) taxonomy.
Within EarthTrack, and for some countries (e.g., Wales), a second section collects information on dominant and co-dominant plant species considered to be detectable from satellite sensor data. Similar lists are being developed for other countries and regions. A third section contains modules that capture a range of information on environmental variables, land cover change and biodiversity. The App also allows the collection of plot-based measurements of individual trees.
EarthTrack Nature is designed for citizen science and is currently developed for use in Wales by a range of users, with particular focus on recording biodiversity.
EarthTrack Mangroves has been developed to support the validation of the global mangrove maps generated through the Global Mangrove Watch (GWM) and has been supported by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) Living Wales Project, Mangrove Capital Africa, DOB Ecology, The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Geoscience Australia, Australia’s Terrestrial Environment Research Network and SoloEO.
When submitted, all data collected using the EarthTrack Apps are integrated within a global data base (see Land Cover on the home page) that is continually updated. All data are made freely available to the global community as text and vector files but are anonymous.
Please note that EarthTrack is currently a research platform and is in development. For all applications, no further versions will be released until January 2020 and following a review process. For feedback, please email richard.lucas[at]aber.ac.uk.