Land cover of the lower Amazon floodplain, ca. 2008-2009

Land cover of the lower Amazon floodplain ca. 2008-2009 was mapped at 30 m resolution using a combination of multi-temporal Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) and ALOS PALSAR-1 data.  To enable mapping of seasonal changes in lake and channel areas, map inputs included TM scenes acquired at very low, mid, and high stage levels of the Amazon River. Land cover classes mapped were open water (with separate classes for the Amazon mainstem channel and floodplain lakes and channels), \"campo\" (3 classes), shrub, and forest. \"Campo\" refers to seasonally flooded areas that transition among bare ground, herbaceous, aquatic macrophyte, and open water states. Campo areas were further divided between those flooded at  low-, mid-, and high-water levels. Excluding the main stem channel, the primary  land cover in the study region was seasonally inundated lakes and channels (59.4%), followed by permanently inundated lakes and channels (17.9%; these retained water even at extreme low water stage..., Mapping was carried out for the floodplain of the lower Amazon River (referred to locally as várzea) within a17,674 km² study area in Pará State, Brazil. Wetlands within a 10 km buffer of the floodplain were also mapped. The study area contains a mosaic of forests, lakes, and secondary channels that are continually re-shaped by dynamic processes of erosion and sedimentation. The várzea supports diverse plant communities, with herbaceous and shrub communities occurring near margins of lakes and channels, and forests occupying higher ground along natural levees. The annual river flood pulse as measured at the Óbidos gauge is monomodal and varies by 4 to 8 m annually (mean variation of 5.7 m), creating marked differences in floodplain conditions between high-water periods, when most areas are flooded, and low-water periods when only lakes and connecting channels retain water.  The river water level begins to rise during December and reaches its maximum during late May or early June. W..., , # Land cover of the lower Amazon floodplain, ca. 2008-2009

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.tx95x6b7k](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.tx95x6b7k)

## Description of the data and file structure

These analyses were funded by NASA Land-Cover and Land-Use Change program grant NNX12AD27G (L. Hess and D. McGrath, PIs): Land and resource use on the Amazon floodplain under evolving management systems and environmental change: Fish, forests, cattle, and settlements. Land cover classes were selected to emphasize habitats relevant for fish abundance and biodiversity, and fisheries productivity.

### Files and variables

#### LowerAmazonFloodplainLandCoverBW\.tif, \*.tfw

Single-band byte GeoTiff (UTM, zone 21S, WGS 84, (EPSG:32721), 30 m pixels) with DN codes for land cover classes. The data range is 0 to 240.  See README_LowerAmazonFloodplainLandCover.xlsx for further documentation.

#### LowerAmazonFloodplainLandCoverColor.tif, \*.tfw

Three-band byte GeoTiff (UTM, zone 21S, WGS 84, (EPSG:32721), ...,