Land cover of Afghanistan

The annual land cover data of Afghanistan (2000-2018) have been created through the National Land Cover Monitoring System (NLCMS) for Afghanistan. The system uses freely available remote-sensing data (Landsat) and a cloud-based machine learning architecture in the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform to generate land cover maps on an annual basis using a harmonized and consistent classification system. The NLCMS is developed by International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) through SERVIR Hindu Kush Himalaya (SERVIR-HKH), a joint initiative in partnership with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Collaborators in the development of NLCMS include SERVIR–Mekong at the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC), Afghanistan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock (MAIL), SilvaCarbon, Global Land Analysis and Discovery (GLAD) group at the University of Maryland, and the United States Forest Service.