Global Forest Mask for 2023 at 10 m Resolution from Multi-Sensor Satellite Imagery

This repository contains the global forest mask derived from the global maps of canopy height (CH) and canopy cover (CC) described by:

Weber, M.; Beneke, C.; Wheeler, C. Unified Deep Learning Model for Global Prediction of Aboveground Biomass, Canopy Height, and Cover from High-Resolution, Multi-Sensor Satellite Imagery. Remote Sens. 2025, 17, 1594. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs17091594

The source variables for this derived product are available at 10.5281/zenodo.15269923. This dataset consists of GeoTIFF files covering a latitude range from 57° S to 67° N in splits of 3° x 3° per file. Each file contains a single band corresponding to the binary output of the operation

fm = [(CH - CH_sd) > 5 m] & [(CC - CC_sd) > 10%]

corresponding to the widely accepted definition of forest by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) [1]. We subtract one standard deviation from the source variables, as estimated by the model, in order to compensate for the slight over-estimation at low values of CH and CC resulting in a more conservative classification of forest. Further details are given in the publication mentioned above.

In addition, an alpha band is included indicating the valid pixels. Non-valid pixels are masked based on the following conditions:

1. is water or
2. is urban build up

We recommend applying this alpha mask in addition to the data mask.

The full dataset can also be retrieved from a public S3 bucket on AWS as a Requester-Pays service. Note that no transfer costs are incurred if downloading to an AWS resource within the same region (us-west-2). For further details on data transfer costs we refer to the AWS documentation. We encourage users to create their own AWS account (if not already existing) and transfer individual files within the same region by:

aws s3 cp s3://eda-appsci-open-access/forestmask/2023/earthdaily_forestmask_{lon}_{lat}-[forest, alpha].tif DESTINATION_PATH --request-payer requester

or the full dataset by:

aws s3 sync s3://eda-appsci-open-access/forestmask/2023/ DESTINATION_PATH --request-payer requester

A complete list of files avaialable in the S3 bucket is provided by filelist.txt.

[1] Food and Agriculture Organization. (2000, November 2). FRA 2000 on definitions of forest and forest change (FRA Working Paper No. 33). Forest Resources Assessment Programme. Rome. Retrieved from FAO website https://www.fao.org/4/ad665e/ad665e00.htm