Skip to contents

Download and process MacroEcological Land Cover (MELC)

Source: R/melc.R
melc.Rd

This function downloads, processes, and extracts variables from the MELC 1 km Land Cover dataset, designed for biogeography and ecological modelling. Each variable corresponds to a global raster representing a specific land cover class or diversity index derived from very high-resolution imagery of the ESA.

Usage

melc(x, vars, discover = TRUE, ...)

Arguments

x

The output from `par_set()` defining the area or locations for extraction, the reference system, and the buffer. Leave this empty and use `par_set()` to define parameters for download.

vars

Character vector of one or more variables to download and process.

discover

Logical. If TRUE, creates a discovery map (unused in current implementation but kept for compatibility).

...

Additional arguments (currently unused).

Value

If `par_set()` contained a raster/polygon/points with buffer: a `SpatRaster` stack of processed variables. If `par_set()` contained spatial points or data.frame of points without buffer: a `data.frame` of x, y, and extracted values.

Details

Available variables (working synonyms in parentheses):

Land Cover Classes

  • 1 - "wetland" ("wetlands", "swamp", "marsh", "bog", "fen")

  • 2 - "bare" ("bare ground", "bare soil", "desert", "unvegetated")

  • 3 - "built" ("built area", "built up", "urban", "artificial", "impervious")

  • 4 - "cropland" ("agriculture", "agricultural", "crop", "crops", "farming")

  • 5 - "grass" ("grassland", "grass land", "meadow", "pasture", "prairie")

  • 6 - "ice" ("snow", "snow and ice", "glacier", "ice", "permafrost")

  • 8 - "mangrove" ("mangroves")

  • 9 - "moss" ("mosses", "lichen", "lichens", "moss and lichen")

  • 10 - "shrub" ("shrubland", "scrub", "bush", "thicket")

  • 11 - "tree" ("trees", "forest", "woodland", "canopy", "canopy cover")

  • 12 - "water" ("surface water", "lake", "river", "freshwater")

Diversity & Metrics

  • 7 - "land_perc" ("percentage of land", "land percentage", "land cover fraction", "land fraction")

  • 13 - "simpson" ("simpson index", "diversity simpson", "simpson diversity")

  • 14 - "shannon" ("shannon index", "entropy", "shannon entropy", "shannon diversity")

  • 15 - "evenness" ("evenness index", "pielou", "pielou evenness", "species evenness")

Citation:
Lo Parrino E, Simoncini A, Ficetola GF, Falaschi M (2025). "Global 1 km land cover for macroecological modelling from very high resolution imagery." Figshare. https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.30665069

Note: Users should verify the terms of use provided at https://figshare.com/s/4e7dee46628b530aee03

Examples

# \donttest{
processed <- par_set(country= "Italy", crs=3035) %>% 
  melc(vars=c("tree", "water"))
# }