Land cover types

Agriculture

• Agricultural land: Cropped land, fallow land and grassland (excluding extensive grassland)
• Extensive grassland: Land covered by grass with potential productivity of less than 25% of world maximum for grassland
• Biofuel Land: cropped for biofuels

Managed forest land and regrowing vegetation

• Carbon plantation: Lands planted with wood species used for biofuel production or C sequestration
• Regrowing vegetation (abandoning): Abandoned agricultural land that reverts back to its natural vegetation
• Regrowing vegetation (timber): Vegetation harvested for timber or fuelwood production that reverts back to its natural vegetation type
• Wood plantations: Planted forests where management is optimized for efficient wood production with shorter rotation cycles.

Natural land cover (biome)

• Ice
• Tundra
• Wooded tundra
• Boreal forest
• Cool coniferous forest
• Temperate mixed forest
• Temperate deciduous forest
• Warm mixed forest
• Grassland and steppe
• Hot desert
• Scrubland
• Savanna
• Tropical woodland
• Tropical forest

For the classification of biomes seePlant functional types and natural land cover types.

Areas not shown on land cover maps or graphs

• Built-up areas; Urban and built-up areas (fractions of grid-cells covered by built-up areas are excluded from being used for agricultural practices).
• Bioreserves: Protected nature reserves, national parks and monuments occurring within the above natural vegetation types; these areas are excluded for being used as managed forest or agriculture.