This dataset contains both large (A0) printable maps of the Torres Strait broken into six overlapping regions, based on a clear sky, clear water composite Sentinel 2 composite imagery and the imagery used to create these maps. These maps show satellite imagery of the region, overlaid with reef and island boundaries and names. Not all features are named, just the more prominent features. This also includes a vector map of Ashmore Reef and Boot Reef in Coral Sea as these were used in the same discussions that these maps were developed for. The map of Ashmore Reef includes the atoll platform, reef boundaries and depth polygons for 5 m and 10 m.

This dataset contains all working files used in the development of these maps. This includes all a copy of all the source datasets and all derived satellite image tiles and QGIS files used to create the maps. This includes cloud free Sentinel 2 composite imagery of the Torres Strait region with alpha blended edges to allow the creation of a smooth high resolution basemap of the region.

The base imagery is similar to the older base imagery dataset: Torres Strait clear sky, clear water Landsat 5 satellite composite (NERP TE 13.1 eAtlas, AIMS, source: NASA).

Most of the imagery in the composite imagery from 2017 - 2021.


Method:
The Sentinel 2 basemap was produced by processing imagery from the World_AIMS_Marine-satellite-imagery dataset (01-data/World_AIMS_Marine-satellite-imagery in the data download) for the Torres Strait region. The TrueColour imagery for the scenes covering the mapped area were downloaded. Both the reference 1 imagery (R1) and reference 2 imagery (R2) was copied for processing. R1 imagery contains the lowest noise, most cloud free imagery, while R2 contains the next best set of imagery. Both R1 and R2 are typically composite images from multiple dates.

The R2 images were selectively blended using manually created masks with the R1 images. This was done to get the best combination of both images and typically resulted in a reduction in some of the cloud artefacts in the R1 images. The mask creation and previewing of the blending was performed in Photoshop. The created masks were saved in 01-data/R2-R1-masks. To help with the blending of neighbouring images a feathered alpha channel was added to the imagery. The processing of the merging (using the masks) and the creation of the feathered borders on the images was performed using a Python script (src/local/03-merge-R2-R1-images.py) using the Pillow library and GDAL. The neighbouring image blending mask was created by applying a blurring of the original hard image mask. This allowed neighbouring image tiles to merge together.

The imagery and reference datasets (reef boundaries, EEZ) were loaded into QGIS for the creation of the printable maps.

To optimise the matching of the resulting map slight brightness adjustments were applied to each scene tile to match its neighbours. This was done in the setup of each image in QGIS. This adjustment was imperfect as each tile was made from a different combinations of days (to remove clouds) resulting in each scene having a different tonal gradients across the scene then its neighbours. Additionally Sentinel 2 has slight stripes (at 13 degrees off the vertical) due to the swath of each sensor having a slight sensitivity difference. This effect was uncorrected in this imagery.


Single merged composite GeoTiff:
The image tiles with alpha blended edges work well in QGIS, but not in ArcGIS Pro. To allow this imagery to be used across tools that don't support the alpha blending we merged and flattened the tiles into a single large GeoTiff with no alpha channel. This was done by rendering the map created in QGIS into a single large image. This was done in multiple steps to make the process manageable.

The rendered map was cut into twenty 1 x 1 degree georeferenced PNG images using the Atlas feature of QGIS. This process baked in the alpha blending across neighbouring Sentinel 2 scenes. The PNG images were then merged back into a large GeoTiff image using GDAL (via QGIS), removing the alpha channel. The brightness of the image was adjusted so that the darkest pixels in the image were 1, saving the value 0 for nodata masking and the boundary was clipped, using a polygon boundary, to trim off the outer feathering. The image was then optimised for performance by using internal tiling and adding overviews. A full breakdown of these steps is provided in the README.md in the 'Browse and download all data files' link.

The merged final image is available in export\TS_AIMS_Torres Strait-Sentinel-2_Composite.tif.


Source datasets:
Complete Great Barrier Reef (GBR) Island and Reef Feature boundaries including Torres Strait Version 1b (NESP TWQ 3.13, AIMS, TSRA, GBRMPA), https://eatlas.org.au/data/uuid/d2396b2c-68d4-4f4b-aab0-52f7bc4a81f5

Geoscience Australia (2014b), Seas and Submerged Lands Act 1973 - Australian Maritime Boundaries 2014a - Geodatabase [Dataset]. Canberra, Australia: Author. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ [license]. Sourced on 12 July 2017, https://dx.doi.org/10.4225/25/5539DFE87D895

Basemap/AU_GA_AMB_2014a/Exclusive_Economic_Zone_AMB2014a_Limit.shp
The original data was obtained from GA (Geoscience Australia, 2014a). The Geodatabase was loaded in ArcMap. The Exclusive_Economic_Zone_AMB2014a_Limit layer was loaded and exported as a shapefile. Since this file was small no clipping was applied to the data.

Geoscience Australia (2014a), Treaties - Australian Maritime Boundaries (AMB) 2014a [Dataset]. Canberra, Australia: Author. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ [license]. Sourced on 12 July 2017, http://dx.doi.org/10.4225/25/5539E01878302
Basemap/AU_GA_Treaties-AMB_2014a/Papua_New_Guinea_TSPZ_AMB2014a_Limit.shp
The original data was obtained from GA (Geoscience Australia, 2014b). The Geodatabase was loaded in ArcMap. The Papua_New_Guinea_TSPZ_AMB2014a_Limit layer was loaded and exported as a shapefile. Since this file was small no clipping was applied to the data.

AIMS Coral Sea Features (2022) - DRAFT
This is a draft version of this dataset. The region for Ashmore and Boot reef was checked. The attributes in these datasets haven't been cleaned up. Note these files should not be considered finalised and are only suitable for maps around Ashmore Reef. Please source an updated version of this dataset for any other purpose.
CS_AIMS_Coral-Sea-Features/CS_Names/Names.shp
CS_AIMS_Coral-Sea-Features/CS_Platform_adj/CS_Platform.shp
CS_AIMS_Coral-Sea-Features/CS_Reef_Boundaries_adj/CS_Reef_Boundaries.shp
CS_AIMS_Coral-Sea-Features/CS_Depth/CS_AIMS_Coral-Sea-Features_Img_S2_R1_Depth5m_Coral-Sea.shp
CS_AIMS_Coral-Sea-Features/CS_Depth/CS_AIMS_Coral-Sea-Features_Img_S2_R1_Depth10m_Coral-Sea.shp

Murray Island 20 Sept 2011 15cm SISP aerial imagery, Queensland Spatial Imagery Services Program, Department of Resources, Queensland
This is the high resolution imagery used to create the map of Mer.

World_AIMS_Marine-satellite-imagery
The base image composites used in this dataset were based on an early version of Lawrey, E., Hammerton, M. (2024). Marine satellite imagery test collections (AIMS) [Data set]. eAtlas. https://doi.org/10.26274/zq26-a956. A snapshot of the code at the time this dataset was developed is made available in the 01-data/World_AIMS_Marine-satellite-imagery folder of the download of this dataset.


Data Location:
This dataset is filed in the eAtlas enduring data repository at: data\custodian\2020-2029-AIMS\TS_AIMS_Torres-Strait-Sentinel-2-regional-maps. On the eAtlas server it is stored at eAtlas GeoServer\data\2020-2029-AIMS.


Change Log:
2025-05-12: Eric Lawrey
Added Torres-Strait-Region-Map-Masig-Ugar-Erub-45k-A0 and Torres-Strait-Eastern-Region-Map-Landscape-A0. These maps have a brighten satellite imagery to allow easier reading of writing on the maps. They also include markers for geo-referencing the maps for digitisation.

2025-02-04: Eric Lawrey
Fixed up the reference to the World_AIMS_Marine-satellite-imagery dataset, clarifying where the source that was used in this dataset. Added ORCID and RORs to the record.

2023-11-22: Eric Lawrey
Added the data and maps for close up of Mer.
- 01-data/TS_DNRM_Mer-aerial-imagery/
- preview/Torres-Strait-Mer-Map-Landscape-A0.jpeg
- exports/Torres-Strait-Mer-Map-Landscape-A0.pdf
Updated 02-Torres-Strait-regional-maps.qgz to include the layout for the new map.

2023-03-02: Eric Lawrey
Created a merged version of the satellite imagery, with no alpha blending so that it can be used in ArcGIS Pro. It is now a single large GeoTiff image. The Google Earth Engine source code for the World_AIMS_Marine-satellite-imagery was included to improve the reproducibility and provenance of the dataset, along with a calculation of the distribution of image dates that went into the final composite image. A WMS service for the imagery was also setup and linked to from the metadata. A cross reference to the older Torres Strait clear sky clear water Landsat composite imagery was also added to the record.

The GIS database contains the data of aufeis (naleds) in the Indigirka River basin (Russia) from historical and nowadays sources, and complete ArcGIS 10.1/10.2 and Qgis 3* projects to view and analyze the data. All data and projects have WGS 1984 coordinate system (without projection). ArcGIS and Qgis projects contain two layers, such as Aufeis_kadastr (historical aufeis data collection, point objects) and Aufeis_Landsat (satellite-derived aufeis data collection, polygon objects). Historical data collection is created based on the Cadastre of aufeis (naleds) of the North-East of the USSR (1958). Each aufeis was digitized as point feature by the inventory map (scale 1:2 000 000), or by topographic maps. Attributive data was obtained from the Cadastre of aufeis. According to the historical data, there were 896 aufeis with a total area 2063.6 km² within the studied basin. Present-day aufeis dataset was created by Landsat-8 OLI images for the period 2013-2017. Each aufeis was delineated by satellite images as polygon. Cloud-free Landsat images are obtained immediately after snowmelt season (e.g. between May, 15 and June, 18), to detect the highest possible number of aufeis. Critical values of Normalized Difference Snow Index (NDSI) were used for semi-automated aufeis detection. However, a detailed expert-based verification was performed after automated procedure, to distinguish snow-covered areas from aufeis and cross-reference historical and satellite-based data collections. According to Landsat data, the number of aufeis reaches 1213, with their total area about 1287 km². The difference between the Cadastre (1958) and the satellite-derived data may indicate significant changes of aufeis formation environments.

Canopy top height and indicative high carbon stock maps for Indonesia, Malaysia, and Philippines. The provided land cover maps follow the high carbon stock approach (HCSA) stratifying vegetation based on the estimated carbon density (aboveground biomass). A deep convolutional neural network was trained to estimate canopy top height from Sentinel-2 optical satellite images using reference data derived from GEDI lidar waveforms. Carbon density and high carbon stock classes were derived from these dense canopy height maps using calibration data from an airborne lidar campaign in Sabah, Borneo. The resulting maps have a ground sampling distance (GSD) of 10 m and are based on images between 1st of September 2020 and 1st of March 2021.

The style files (color_style_HCS.qml, color_style_canopy_top_height.qml) contain the color coding and can be loaded for visualization (e.g. in QGIS).

The indicative HCS maps contain 9 land cover categories noted as "Label: name [colorcode]":

0: Open land (OL) [#440154] 1: Scrub (S) [#404387] 2: Young regenerating forest (YRF) [#29788e] 3: Low density forest (LDF) [#22a884] 4: Medium density forest (MDF) [#7ad251] 5: High density forest (HDF) [#fde725] 10: Oil palm [#fcffa4] 11: Coconut [#a4feff] 50: Urban [#fa0000] 255: No data

Citation: Use of these data require citation of this dataset and the original research articles. These citations are as follows:

Lang, N., Schindler, K., & Wegner, J. D. (2021). High carbon stock mapping at large scale with optical satellite imagery and spaceborne LIDAR. arXiv preprint arXiv:2107.07431.

Rodríguez, A. C., D'Aronco, S., Schindler, K., & Wegner, J. D. (2021). Mapping oil palm density at country scale: An active learning approach. Remote Sensing of Environment, 261, 112479.

Lang, N., Rodríguez, A. C., Schindler, K., & Wegner, J. D. (2021). Canopy top height and indicative high carbon stock maps for Indonesia, Malaysia, and Philippines (Version 1.0) [Data set]. Zenodo. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5012448

The GIS database contains the data of aufeis (naleds) in the Kolyma River basin (Russia) from historical and nowadays sources, and complete ArcGIS 10.1/10.2 and Qgis 3* projects to view and analyze the data. All data and projects have WGS 1984 coordinate system (without projection). ArcGIS and Qgis projects contain two layers, such as Aufeis_kadastr (historical aufeis data collection, point objects) and Aufeis_Landsat (satellite-derived aufeis data collection, polygon objects). Historical data collection is created based on the Cadastre of aufeis (naled) of the North-East of the USSR (1958). Each aufeis was digitized as point feature by the inventory map (scale 1:2 000 000), or by topographic maps. Attributive data was obtained from the Cadastre of aufeis. According to the historical data, there were 1755 aufeis with a total area 1945.2 km² within the studied basin. Present-day aufeis dataset was created by Landsat-8 OLI images for the period 2013-2019. Each aufeis was delineated by satellite images as polygon. Cloud-free Landsat images are obtained immediately after snowmelt season (e.g. between May, 17 and June, 16), to detect the highest possible number of aufeis. Critical values of Normalized Difference Snow Index (NDSI) were used for semi-automated aufeis detection. However, a detailed expert-based verification was performed after automated procedure, to distinguish snow-covered areas from aufeis and cross-reference historical and satellite-based data collections. According to Landsat data, the number of aufeis reaches 2216, with their total area about 879.7 km². The difference between the Cadastre (1958) and the satellite-derived data may indicate significant changes of aufeis formation environments.

This archive contains:

├── classification_dpt64_16_classes.tif : the 16 classes land cover map

├── classification_dpt64_16_classes_confusion_matrix.png : the confusion matrix. Have a look at it, it is performed on a different dataset than the one used for training the classifier.

├── classification_dpt64_21_classes.tif : the 21 classes land cover map including post-treatments (https://framagit.org/Schwaab/projet_predateurs64/-/blob/main/scripts/ClassificationPostProcess.py)

├── colorFile.txt : color file for symbology

├── configfile_iota2.cfg : iota2 configuration file (in case you are already using iota2. If not, what are you waiting for ?)

├── document_methodologique.pdf : technical report (french) for the classification

├── nomenclature.txt : nomenclature file

├── reference_data_2018.shp : the training and validation data set in its 2018 version (for crops)

├── reference_data_2019.shp : the training and validation data set in its 2019 version (for crops)

├── reference_photo_interpretation.shp : the part of the training and validation data set that has been photo interpreted with a field giving the potential species or combinations of associated vegetation

├── reference_tree_nomenclature.png : a visual about the reference data

├── stratification_3_zones.shp : the stratification layer that has helped improve classification results. It is based on landscape entities (https://data.le64.fr/explore/dataset/entite-paysagere/)

├── style_16_classes.qml : the Qgis style layer 16 classes

└── style_21_classes.qml : the Qgis style layer 21 classes

Description:

The land cover map of the French department Pyrénées-Atlantiques (64) is based on Sentinel-2 (L2A level) satellite images performed with Iota² chain (https://framagit.org/iota2-project/iota2/). The algorithm used is Random Forest. The time series used ranges from 2017 to 2018.

During the development phase of this classification, the collection of additional training data on the photo-interpreted classes 'landes basses' (low heath shrublands), 'landes hautes' (high heath shrublands) and 'landes hautes avec arbres' (high heath shrublands with young-growth forest) has led to a remarkable increase of the number of pixels of these classes and with it the visual quality of the map. However, this increase has been linked with only minor to almost no significant improvement of the F-scores on these classes. Some are still massively confused with other land covers like grasslands and broadleaf mature forests. Especially the mixed class 'landes hautes avec arbres' (high heath shrublands with young-growth forest).

We take it as a limit of the reference data that is built from divers data sources and would always beneficiate from more training samples of shrubby classes and a better precision of the class 'forêt de feuillus' (broadleaf mature forests). But this could also show the limit of pixel-oriented classifications for mixed/textured classes (classes with high intra-class heterogeneity). Experimentations using a contextual method – the Auto-context method now being included in Iota2 thanks to Dawa Derksen and Iota2 developers (http://lannister.ups-tlse.fr/oso/donneeswww_TheiaOSO/iota2_documentation/develop/autoContext.html) – has unfortunately not been conclusive on that matter yet.

The GIS database contains the data of aufeis (naled) in the Chukotka region from historical and nowadays sources, and complete ArcGIS 10.1/10.2 and Qgis 3* projects to view and analyze the data. All data and projects have WGS 1984 coordinate system (without projection). ArcGIS and Qgis projects contain two layers, such as Aufeis_kadastr (historical aufeis data collection, point objects) and Aufeis_Landsat (satellite-derived aufeis data collection, polygon objects). Historical data collection is created based on the Cadastre of aufeis (naled) of the North-East of the USSR (1958). Each aufeis was digitized as point feature by the inventory map (scale 1:2 000 000), or by topographic maps. Attributive data was obtained from the Cadastre of aufeis. According to the historical data, there were 2024 aufeis with a total area 2976.9 km² within the studied area. Present-day aufeis dataset was created by Landsat-8 OLI images for the period 2013-2019. Each aufeis was delineated by satellite images as polygon. Cloud-free Landsat images are obtained immediately after snowmelt season, to detect the highest possible number of aufeis. Critical values of Normalized Difference Snow Index (NDSI) were used for semi-automated aufeis detection. However, a detailed expert-based verification was performed after automated procedure, to distinguish snow-covered areas from aufeis and cross-reference historical and satellite-based data collections. According to Landsat data, the number of aufeis reaches 2758, with their total area about 1147.1 km². The difference between the Cadastre (1958) and the satellite-derived data may indicate significant changes of aufeis formation environments.