Multi-temporal forest cover classification for the Xingu River basin, Brazil

The Xingu River basin is known for its high biodiversity. The state of the riparian ecosystems is directly linked to forest cover changes and has an impact on the unique biota. In order to assess the rapid changes that the Xingu river basin has experienced over the last four decades, we developed a forest/ non-forest classification for four time periods, from 1989 to 2018. These datasets were produced from Landsat TM5 and Landsat 8-OLI cloud free surface reflectance mosaics in Google Earth Engine and a supervised CART classification. The forest definition for the classifications uses a minimum mapping unit of 90 m x 90 m (~1 ha). We used around 3000 field photos to identify corresponding forest areas in the image. From the photos, our definition of forest corresponds with areas of approximately more than 30% tree canopy cover, which is consistent with the Brazilian definition of forest.