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The geographers at the University of Cincinnati have created a map to show how much the planet has changed in 25 years. The result is a whirlwind of glorious colors (and slightly tripping).
Unfortunately, the practical implications of these models are not as beautiful as the design itself. In fact, nearly 22% of the Earth's living space was significantly altered between 1992 and 2015, whether due to deforestation, water loss or urban spread.
"It's very informative. There is nothing else, "said Tomasz Stepinski, a UC professor who worked on the project published in the International Journal of Earth Observation and Geoinformation.
"There are maps of the forest loss but no map showing everything."
To create the map, Stepinski and co. used high-resolution satellite images captured by the European Space Agency to study climate change, a process initiated by the organization in 1992. Specifically, the team used two images, the l & # 39; One of 1992 and the other of 2015.
The images are so detailed that the researchers were able to divide them into 300-square-meter (pixel) grids. For each of these pixels, the team used 22 land use categories (forest types, agricultural land, wetlands, grasslands and urban development) to measure the evolution of the land use. environment in the space of a quarter of a century.
But there was a problem. The result was a map so detailed that it was virtually impossible to analyze at the global level. It looked like a "bowl of fruity pebbles," according to a research release.
The team instead extended the size of pixels to 9 kilometers and reduced the number of land use categories to 9. They then used three shades of color to display the extent of the change. This means that it is now possible to see the major trends in land-use change, but that researchers can still zoom in and study the changes on a scale of 300 square meters.
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