Classification of Global Forests for IPCC Aboveground Biomass Tier 1 Estimates, 2020

This dataset provides classes of global forests delineated by status/condition in 2020 at approximately 30-m resolution. The data support generating Tier 1 estimates for Aboveground dry woody Biomass Density (AGBD) in natural forests in the 2019 Refinement to the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories. Forest classes include primary, young secondary (<=20 years), and old secondary forests (>20 years). Classification was based on a Boolean combination of a suite of existing Earth Observation (EO) products of forest tree cover, height, age, and land use classification layers representing years 2000 to 2020. This forest status/condition classification prioritizes the reduction of potential errors of commission in the delineations by minimizing the inclusion of ambiguous pixels. Hence, it provides a conservative estimate of global forest area, identifying approximately 3.26 billion ha of forests worldwide. The classification was created on the collaborative open-science cloud-computing system, the ESA-NASA Multi-mission Analysis and Algorithm Platform (MAAP). The data are provided in cloud-optimized GeoTIFF format.