Artificial intelligence / news brief
Google releases a 10-meter global map that distinguishes six forest and land-use types
- Event
- Published
Google DeepMind and Google Research released ForTy 2020, an open global map that classifies 10-by-10-meter land patches into six forest and land-use categories, plus an early annual series for 2017–2025. A Scientific Data paper reports 90.2% overall accuracy on 8,190 expert-labeled sites; that is a study result, not a guarantee for every region or regulatory decision.
Why it matters
The dataset goes beyond tree-cover maps by separating natural forests, plantations and tree crops, which could improve supply-chain and conservation checks.
Sources
- Beyond tree cover: mapping the world’s forest types (external site)Google DeepMind · primary source ·
- Global forest typology at 10-meter resolution for forest and land-use monitoring (external site)Scientific Data · coverage ·
Single source: Official Google DeepMind and Google Research release, backed by a peer-reviewed Scientific Data paper written by the same teams; no independent coverage yet.