Congo Basin land cover layers and spatial predictors
Description
The data presented here constitutes Land use and land cover datasets (LULC) generated for the years 1990-2020, as well as spatial predictor layers used in future projections, under three climate change scenarios. Google Earth Engine codes used in producing the LULC data are attached as a txt file named GEE_codes_YGY. The LULC datasets have been downscaled to a 1km spatial resolution as a means of reducing file size, and staying within the 10GB limits provided by the Mendeley repository. Population density datasets have also been created at a 1km spatial resolution in order to reduce data size. Climatic datasets have been created at a 30km spatial resolution to respond to similar disk space storage problems, while datasets on landscape topography, forest logging, and distance to built-up areas have been created at a 10km spatial resolution respectively. However, 30m resolution datasets for all spatial layers are available upon request, due to storage limits. The LULC datasets have been used in mapping and quantifying LULCC for the Congo Basin for the periods 1990-2020, with the generated detected changes projected to the year 2050, under the influence of the uploaded spatial predictor layers, using the Idrissi Land change modeler from TerrSet.