The goal of ESA’s WorldCover project was clear! Develop a new global land cover map at 10 m resolution in less than 2 years to provide valuable information for many applications such as biodiversity, food security, carbon assessment and climate modelling! Until now, high resolution, regional or continental land cover maps are solely based on Sentinel-2 data. However, with both Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 at full capacity, WorldCover provides the ideal base to explore the synergetic use of Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 at global scale for land cover mapping.
By combining these data we are able to update the land cover map almost in real time, a major step forward for science and services. Ruben Van de Kerchove explains more about WorldCover, the already available prototype maps covering 10% of the world and the upcoming release of the global land cover map at 10 m resolution!