NALCMS — The North American Land Change Monitoring System
A trinational collaboration of more than 21 million square kilometers
NALCMS — The North American Land Change Monitoring System
A trinational collaboration of more than 21 million square kilometers
Description
Initiatives generating land cover information from geospatial data exist at various levels, from national to global. However, depending on user needs, one initiative might be more useful than another. What about regional or continental initiatives? They are less frequent because they often require direct cooperation between different national initiatives, and this involves long-term coordination and commitments among governmental agencies from different countries. This is why the North American Land Change Monitoring System (NALCMS) is a unique initiative whose story of collaboration is showcased in this publication to inform others around the world who might also need mid-level land cover initiatives to bridge the gap between national and global ones.
This document serves as a reference companion to the CEC’s NALCMS digital map products. It provides background information on the NALCMS initiative (history, collaborative process, land cover products creation and validation process, etc.) in an accessible way for generalist researchers, and NALCMS map products data users. It also highlights the nearly 20-year partnership between the CEC and experts from our countries’ environmental mapping and statistics agencies.
Additional Information