A New Wetlands Map for China
The digital map, being the first of its kind to be publicly released (1KMresolution ESRI GRID available), is a valuable resource for ecologists, conservationists, planners, and scientists alike. It appears, however, to primarily be a remote-sensing exercise with minimal ground-truthing (mainly cross-referencedwith Google Earth imagery) and it will be interesting to see how it translates on the ground! Apparently, China’s State Forestry Administration is currently working on a wetlands mapping project( $14.6M USD) that includes remote sensing and substantial ground data – looking forward to that release in the future.
Let us know if you have explored this dataset to any extent!
News Articles announcing release of the maps:
Nature: http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090310/full/458134a.html
Wetlands International :http://www.wetwonder.org/en/shownews.asp?news_id=953
Description of dataand download access: http://www.slrss.cn/show.aspx?id=651&cid=19
Read the referencepaper (in Chinese):
Niu ZG., P Gong, X Cheng, Guo JH, WangL, Huang HB, Shen SQ, Wu YZ, Wang XF, Wang XW, Ying Q, Liang L, Zhang LN, WangL, Yao Q, Yang ZZ, Guo ZQ, Dai YJ, Geographical analysis of China’s wetlands preliminarily derived from remotely sensed data. Science in China Series D:Earth Sciences, 2009. 39(2):188-203 {in Chinese}