Somalia Dot Grid (2014)

The Dot Grid was produced by applying the USGS Rapid Land Cover Mapper (RLCM) methodology that uses regularly spaced (in this case 500m spacing) dot grid statistical approach to generate land cover data. The principal aim was to produce an updated statistical assessment of Somalia's cultivable area. USGS EROS Data Center provided with ASTER satellite imagery of 15m resolution , acquired mainly in 2013. The average visual interpretation scale is 1:50,000. The joint Research Center(JRC) of the European Commission provided with additional additional LANDSAT ETM (2009-2011) satellite images and contributed to the definition and accuracy assessment of the methodology . LANDSAT imagery complemented the baseline images in areas where either cloud cover was present on ASTER images or when gaps occurred. Very high resolution satellite images were used to refine the interpretation of cultivable areas and to verify/validate the natural vegetation cover. \r\nStandardized FAO Land Cover Meta Language (LCML) methodology was utilized to create the legend for the analysis. The area covered by each land cover class was derived from the classified dots