Google DeepMind maps world's forests by type
Google DeepMind, Google Research, WRI and IIASA released ForTy 2020, a global 10-meter map that tells natural forests apart from plantations and farms, giving EU deforestation-rule compliance a much-needed baseline.
Google DeepMind and Google Research, working with the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), have released Forest Typology (ForTy) 2020. It is a global map that puts every 10-by-10-meter patch of land into one of six forest and land-use types.
The release also includes an early time series showing annual change from 2017 to 2025. According to the partners, this makes it possible for the first time to see, at 10-meter resolution worldwide and year by year, what replaced lost forest: a timber plantation, a tree-crop farm or other land.
The six categories follow UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) definitions:
- primary forest
- naturally regenerating forest
- planted forest
- plantation forest
- tree crops and agroforestry, such as oil palm, rubber and cocoa
- other land
The release is aimed at the EU's regulation on deforestation-free products (EUDR). The rule bars commodities such as coffee, cocoa and palm oil from land that was forest in 2020 and was later converted to agriculture. It also bars wood products sourced from primary or naturally regenerating forests that were later turned into plantations. Most global maps only show whether trees are present, so they can't tell an old-growth rainforest from an oil palm estate.
ForTy builds on Natural Forests of the World 2020, which the same group released last year. That map only showed whether each patch was natural forest in 2020.
The announcement does not give accuracy figures, model details, or access and licensing terms.