title: Certainties and uncertainties of land cover statistics in China.
abstract: Vegetation or land cover maps have been made directly or indirectly available for the entire territory of China. The certainties and uncertainties of land cover statistics were analyzed by comparing three data sources: China's Vegetation Map, IGPB DISCover, and University of Maryland Product. Great similarities in the statistics of 7 aggregated land cover types were found among the three data sources,particularly between the two global land cover maps. The per-pixel agreement between any 2 of 3 maps was between 38.0%-51.4%; the per-pixel agreement among all three maps was only 27.1%. Certainties were found in regions where vegetation types are typical and human land use practice is relatively homogenous; the uncertainties occurred to either vegetation transition zones or regions where land cover types and land use practice are relatively diversified. Systematic and multidisciplinary efforts are necessary to promote accurate mapping of nationwide land cover types in China. Intensive efforts should be made in regions where uncertainties of land cover information are found.
authors.affiliation: Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China.
authors.forename: Jing-zhu
authors.initials: JZ
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.forename: Yi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.forename: Guang-xin
authors.initials: GX
authors.lastname: Bai
authors.forename: Gang
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.forename: Guo-fan
authors.initials: GF
authors.lastname: Shao
mesh_terms: D002681:China; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources; D017753:Ecosystem; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000592:standards*; D040362:Geographic Information Systems; D010944:Plants; D015203:Reproducibility of Results