Africover data distribution

The Africover Project is aimed at producing reliable spatial databases on the environment to provide the information needed for a better management of environmental resources at national, regional and global levels.

A data dissemination strategy compliant to SDI standards has been developed to assure that users will be able to access the databases developed by Africover; data distribution and management is based on the Guidelines for custodianship.

The national data bases developed by Africover are property of each country; the national focal points institutions (NFPI) are responsible for the maintenance, update and distribution of the national MADE.

Specific data access policies have been developed in agreement with the NFPIs for the different types of data sets.

The full resolution national MADE is deposited in the NFPIs; FAO Africover also acts as a repository of the full resolution data set and can access it for specific purposes.

The authorization to access the full resolution data base must be granted by the NFPIs.

On the base of an agreement with the participating countries, FAO Africover distributes free of charge a public domain aggregated version of the full data base.

Starting from the public domain Africover data base, users can develop their own aggregations sets to satisfy specific information needs.

You can contact FAO Africover to request support on the use of the data or on the production of custom aggregations.

Accessing Africover Data

FAO and the Africover Project are providing the infrastructure required to guarantee an effective distribution of the data in support to the national distribution systems.

This web site is the specifically designed to provide users the opportunity to easily discover and access the Africover data.

An integrated gateway to access different formats of the Africover products has been developed:

- on line metadata and related documentation is available for each data set that is published: metadata is the core element of the system (ISO standard is used). Metadata will describe full resolution and aggregated public domain data sets; starting from the metadata, you can download the public domain data (after free registration), request access to the full resolution data or request a custom aggregation

- on line web mapping : it has been designed to provide the user with a quick way to explore the data. No download is required! This is the ideal instrument to visually examining the before proceeding to download.

- data warehouses are available for download and use with Dynamic Maps, a free powerful desktop GIS. Users will be able to perform all typical desktop GIS operation in a user friendly environment; link to your own data (e.g. tables in Excel spreadsheets or Access databases, images, documents or web pages) is just one click away. You can also compose and print your maps or export them directly in power point.

To find what you need and understand the access procedures see the data distribution scheme.

Understanding public domain land cover data sets:
spatial vs thematic aggregation

FAO Africover distributes a public domain spatially aggregated version of the full resolution land cover data set.

The thematic content of the spatially aggregated data set is very similar to the original data set: the aggregation is performed at a spatial level setting a threshold under which the polygons are dissolved in the polygons containing them.

The public domain spatially aggregated data set retains the full power of the original data set: you can exploit all the power of the LCCS coding to perform complex queries and you can re-aggregate the data thematically to extract exactly the information you need.

Africover also provides some thematic aggregations designed to answer the information requirements of most users.

To discover how to access the different Africover products see the data dissemination scheme.

The spatially aggregated public domain Africover data

Spatially aggregated Africover data represent the reference public domain data distribution.

The spatial aggregation process and the related statistics are documented for each database.

Africover Data available

A complete list of the national databases developed by the first Africover module implemented (Eastern Africa module) can be found in the Africover data section or in the individual country pages:

- Burundi
- DR Congo
- Egypt
- Eritrea
- Kenya
- Rwanda
- Somalia
- Tanzania
- Uganda