HILDA+

HILDA+ Global land use change

Understanding the dynamics of land use change is critical in tackling global societal challenges such as food security, climate change, and biodiversity loss. By combining multiple open data streams (remote sensing, reconstructions and statistics) we created the HIstoric Land Dynamics Assessment + (HILDA +), a global map set on annual land use/cover change in 1960-2019 at 1 km spatial resolution.

We estimate that land use change has affected almost a third (32%) of the global land area in just six decades (1960-2019) and, thus, is around four times greater in extent than previously estimated from long-term land use reconstructions.

We identify geographically diverging land use change patterns, with afforestation and cropland abandonment in the Global North and deforestation and agricultural expansion in the South (see figure).

About the HILDA+ spatial dataset:

Format: GeoTIFF and NetCDF

Projection:  EPSG: 4326 - WGS 84 – Geographic

Spatial coverage/extent: -180, 90, 180, -90 ° (Global)

Temporal coverage: 1899-2019/ 1960-2019/20

Spatial resolution:  1 km

Temporal resolution:  1 year

Class codes (for stable categories): 00 ocean, 11 urban, 22 cropland, 33 pasture/rangeland, 44 forest, 55 unmanaged grass/shrubland, 66 sparse/no vegetation, 77 water, 99 no data

• HILDA+ is an Open Dataset, download it here: https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.921846  
• Explore the maps in an interactive viewer: https://landchangestories.org/hildaplus-mapviewer/
• Read the publication: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-22702-2
• Watch the movie: https://nextcloud.imk-ifu.kit.edu/s/idxctaFL9naKRzM

HILDA+ movie