The Land Cover Database of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan has been created as part of the land cover mapping component of the project on “Strengthening Agricultural Economics, Market Information and Statistics Services” formulated upon request from the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and funded by the European Commission. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) provided technical assistance as the executing agency in close cooperation with all parties. The Land Cover database provides information on land cover distribution. It has been created using the FAO/GLCN methodology and tools. The main data sources include satellite imagery from SPOT-4 (2009-2011) and Global Land Survey (GLS-2011) Landsat satellites, high resolution satellite imagery and very hisgh resolution aerial photographs, ancillary data. The national legend was prepared using the Land Cover Classification System (LCCS). FAO’s Mapping Device Change Analysis Tools (MADCAT) software was used to create the database using object based classification methodology. The full resolution land cover legend has 25 classes. As result, more that 500,000 polygons were delineated. To refine the interpretation, high resolution images from various sources are used. The 25 original land cover classes were aggregated into 11 generalized and self-explicative classes as following: Built-Up (URB); Fruit Trees (AGT); Vineyard (AGV); Irrigated Agricultural Land (AGI); Rainfed Agricultural Land (AGR); Forest and Shrubs (NFS); Rangeland (NHS); Barren land (BRS); Sand Cover (BSD); Water Body and Marshland (WAT); Permanent Snow (SNW). The database is distributed in shapefile format in UTM zone 42 North WGS-84 datum. Each shapefile is included in a geodatabase. The tabular attributes contains 4 fields: -AGGCODE is the aggregated class name; -LCCSPERC is the percentage share of each code in the land cover unit as following:100 means that there is only one single land cover class present; 60/40 means that this is a mixed unit land cover class with two classes; the distribution of the land cover classes inside the land cover unit is 60 percent for the first class and 40 percent for the second class; 40/30/30 means that this is a mixed unit land cover class with three classes; the distribution of the land cover classes inside the land cover unit is 40 percent for the first class, 30 percent for the second class and 30 percent for the third class; -DIST_NAME is the second administrative unit level (District level) name based on the administrative layer provided by the Counterpart Agency in Afghanistan; -PROV_NAME is the first administrative unit level (Provincial level) name based on the administrative layer provided by the Counterpart Agency in Afghanistan.

The Jordanian land cover database and atlas were developed under the Regional Food Security Analysis Network (RFSAN) project. The Land Cover Atlas of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan provides information on the land cover distribution by subnational administrative boundaries (governorates and districts) shared by the Royal Jordanian Geographic Centre (RJGC). The main data source includes multispectral Sentinel-2 imagery at 10 m of spatial resolution acquired from April to November 2016 and ancillary georeferenced data (land cover and land use map, vegetation cover, soil map) obtained from different institutions. The Land cover database attributes contain the following fields: -Area (sqm) -ID -LCCSCode

he Land Cover map 2018 of FYR Macedonia is the one of the final output of the Assessment of Agricultural Production through NAEZ and LRIMS and Scenario Development (TCP/MCD/3602) Project. Outputs were produced by using the very detailed Sentinel-2 images and by using ISO standard LCCS methodology of FAO. For more information, please refer to the detailed report also in the delivery package. Th delivered outputs as package includes below information; • Land Cover Layer (Macedonia_LC_2018MMA100ha) (the original polygons are dissolved and minimum mapping unit is 100ha) • Land Cover Layer (Macedonia_LC_2018_Gaul2) (the original polygons are dissolved and minimum mapping unit is 100ha, and administrative borders (GAUL2 level) information is included in the attribute table) • Agricultural land mask (AGRIpolys) • Legend (in excel and layer formats) • Photo-keys (pdf) • Report (pdf) • Metadata (txt)

This land cover database has been produced after the Ketsana Typhoon that hit Laos in September 28, 2009. Land cover monitoring and assessment is essential for the sustainable management of natural resources, environmental protection, food security, and of course for measuring the impact and extent of natural disasters. Commissioned by the Lao FAOREP, the GIS and RS group of the FAO NR Department has conducted a quick interpretation of historical satellite imagery (Landsat ETM from the Global Land Survey archive), dated around 2000, according to procedures, methodologies and tools established by the Global Land Cover Network (GLCN) programme. The LCCS approach was adopted to classify the land cover.

The development of the 2020 national land cover map of Sudan is an important step towards the REDD+ readiness as well as Sudan’s Forest Monitoring System (SFMS). The 2020 land cover map has been developed using 10 m spatial resolution, open-source satellite data, employing an object-based classification approach. The processing was implemented in the Google Earth Engine (GEE), cloud computing environment using 10 m spatial resolution Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 data. Use of GEE leverages the use of terabytes of satellite imagery and geospatial datasets. The workflow is mostly reproducible and based on the use of open-source software/platforms (e.g., R, SEPAL, etc.). The methodological approach for land cover mapping takes into consideration the time constraint of the project and comparative advantage and respective technical expertise of FAO and Forests National Corporation (FNC). Descriptions of the legend classes were translated using the land cover classification system (LCCS v3) – an implementation tool of the ISO standard (ISO 19144-2) Land Cover Meta Language (LCML). You can download a zip archive containing: -the shape file in gdb file -legends in lccs file

The Lesotho Land Cover Database (LCDB) and ATLAS have been prepared in the framework of the FAO Emergency Program (OSRO/LES/401/EC): “Building Lesotho resilience through the upscale of Climate Smart Agriculture and functional DRR Land Resources Information”. The national Land Cover Legend was prepared using the FAO (ISO standard) Land Cover Classification System (LCCS): a FAO’s comprehensive, standardized “a priori” classification system, designed to meet specific user requirements and created for mapping exercises, independent of the scale or means used to map. The shape file's attributes contain the following fields: -ID -Area (km2) -LCS3Code (unique LCCS code) You can download a zip archive containing: -the shape file (.shp)