Evaluation of Global Land Use–Land Cover Data Products in Guangxi, China

Land use–land cover (LULC) is an important feature for ecological environment research, land resource management and evaluation. Although global high-resolution LULC data sets are booming, their regional performances were still evaluated in limited regions. To demonstrate the local applicability of global LULC data products, six emerging LULC data products were evaluated and compared in Guangxi, China. The six products used are European Space Agency GlobCover (ESAGC), ESRI Land Use–Land Cover (ESRI–LULC), Finer Resolution Observation and Monitoring of Global Land Cover (FROM–GLC), the China Land Cover Dataset (CLCD), the Global Land Cover product with Fine Classification System at 30 m (GLC_FCS30) and GlobeLand30 (GLC30). Reference data were obtained from the local government statistical yearbook and high-resolution remote sensing images on Google Earth. The results showed that CLCD, ESRI–LULC and GLC30 were found to agree well with the forest reference data, with the highest correlation coefficient of 0.999. For the cropland areas, GLC30, CLCD and ESAGC agreed well with the reference data, and the highest correlation coefficient was 0.957. Combined with the comparison with the high-resolution images obtained by Google Earth, we finally concluded that ESAGC, CLCD and GLC30 can best represent the LULCs in Guangxi. Furthermore, the spatial consistency analysis showed that three or more products identified the same LULC type as high as 96.98% of the area. We suggest that majority voting might be applied to global LULC products to provide fused products with better performances on a regional or local scale to avoid the error caused by a single data product.