Overview and Mission
WorldCover is an Earth observation initiative led by the European Space Agency (ESA) aimed at delivering global land cover maps at 10-metre resolution. It combines optical data from Sentinel-2 with radar data from Sentinel-1 to produce validated maps in near-real time.
The initiative’s principal goal is to generate a reliable baseline for global land cover (initially for 2020, then extended to 2021), with broad utility for climate modelling, biodiversity assessment, carbon accounting, land-use planning and environmental monitoring.
Structure and Partnerships
WorldCover is implemented via a European consortium of research and service organisations, including VITO (Belgium), Brockmann Consult, Gamma Remote Sensing, IIASA and Wageningen University.
The consortium manages algorithm development, production, validation and dissemination.
From design through validation and uptake, the project engaged five key user organisations, UNCCD, WRI, CIFOR, FAO and OECD, to ensure alignment with real-world requirements.
A broader network of additional organisations (e.g. SwissRe, CSIRO, GEO BON) is also involved as stakeholders or secondary users.
Products, Tools and Accessibility
WorldCover offers freely accessible datasets under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence.
The core products include land cover maps for 2020 (algorithm version v100) and 2021 (v200), differentiated into 11 land cover classes, with global overall accuracies of ~74–76.7%.
Additional “annual composites” (median, percentiles) are available for 2020 and 2021.
These data are delivered as Cloud-Optimised GeoTIFFs (COGs), accessible via AWS public buckets, Terrascope, a web viewer, Web Map Services (WMS/WMTS) and a Google Earth Engine app.
Users may view land cover statistics by administrative units, compare to Sentinel composites, and download tiles via the viewer or programmatic tools.
Relation to Sustainable Finance and Utility
By supplying consistent, high-resolution land cover data, WorldCover supports sustainable finance through enabling environmental risk analysis, natural capital valuation, carbon accounting and land-use stress metrics for investors, regulators and institutions. Its validated maps enhance climate modelling, biodiversity assessments and support evidence-based decision making in sustainable development.
