St. Kitts, Nevis, St. Eustatius, Grenada, and Barbados land cover and forest formations (1999-2003)

This data publication contains six raster datasets detailing the land cover and forest structure of several Caribbean islands. These include the islands of St. Kitts, Nevis, St. Eustatius, Grenada and Barbados. Each dataset represents land-cover and woody vegetation formations and is provided as an ERDAS IMAGINE georeferenced raster file and as a GeoTIFF raster file. Spatial land cover datasets for Barbados were created using Landsat ETM+ imagery from 2001 and 2002. Grenada datasets were created using Landsat ETM+ imagery from 2000 and 2001 and Landsat 5 TM imagery from 1986. Lastly, spatial land cover datasets for St. Kitts, Nevis, and St. Eustatius were created using Landsat ETM+ imagery dated between 1999 and 2003.
Satellite image-based mapping of tropical forests is often vital to conservation planning. Standard methods for automated image classification, however, limit classification detail in complex tropical landscapes. The purpose of these maps is to provide an inventory of the existing vegetation land cover of these islands to help monitoring possible changes.
For more information about these data see Helmer et al. (2008).