The seasonal fractional ground cover product is a spatially explicit raster product that shows the proportion of bare ground, green and non-green ground cover at medium resolution (30 m per-pixel) for each 3-month calendar season for Australia from 1989 - present. It is derived directly from the seasonal fractional cover product, also produced by Queensland's Remote Sensing Centre.A 3 band (byte) image is produced:band 1 - bare ground fraction (in percent),band 2 - green vegetation fraction (in percent),band 3 - non-green vegetation fraction (in percent).The no data value is 255.
The seasonal fractional cover product predicts vegetation cover, but does not distinguish tree and mid-level woody foliage and branch cover from green and dry ground cover. As a result, in areas with even minimal tree cover (>15%), estimates of ground cover become uncertain.
With the development of the fractional cover time-series, it has become possible to derive an estimate of ‘persistent green’ based on time-series analysis. The persistent green vegetation product provides an estimate of the vertically-projected green-vegetation fraction where vegetation is deemed to persist over time. These areas are nominally woody vegetation. This separation of the 'persistent green' from the fractional cover product, allows for the adjustment of the underlying spectral signature of the fractional cover image and the creation of a resulting 'true' ground cover estimate for each season. The estimates of cover are restricted to areas of <60% woody vegetation.
