The MapBiomas is a global, multi-institutional network formed by universities, NGOs, and technology companies that monitors changes in land cover and land use in different territories and their impacts. In 2025, the network celebrated its tenth anniversary. It provides the most up-to-date and detailed spatial database on land use in a country available in the world. First launched in Brazil, MapBiomas is now active in 14 countries across South America and Indonesia.
Based on open and collaborative science, the network feeds a platform that integrates satellite imagery, machine learning, and cloud computing. All data, maps, methods, and codes are available to the public free of charge.
The information generated by the MapBiomas network can be used by decision makers, public policy makers, researchers from a wide range of fields, teachers and students, civil society organizations, and companies.
OUR PURPOSE
Reveal territorial transformations through science — with precision, agility, and quality — and make knowledge about land cover and land use accessible, in order to promote the conservation and sustainable management of natural resources as a means of combating climate change.
ORIGIN
MapBiomas emerged from a seminar held in March 2015 in São Paulo, where experts in remote sensing and vegetation mapping were invited by the Climate Observatory’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Removals Estimation System (SEEG) to discuss a central question: how to produce annual maps of land use and cover for all of Brazil in a significantly cheaper, faster, and more up-to-date manner compared to existing methods and practices, while also retrieving historical data from the past decades? To achieve this, it would require unprecedented processing capability, a high degree of process automation, and the collaboration of a community of experts in each field. Based on this, a technical cooperation was established with Google, using the Google Earth Engine platform as the foundation, with training conducted in Mountain View, California. Google Earth Engine como fundamento, com treinamento realizado em Mountain View, Califórnia.
CARACTERÍSTICAS
MapBiomas operates according to the principles of open and collaborative science, involving institutions focused on different biomes and cross-cutting themes. It uses distributed and automated data processing in partnership with Google Earth Engine. The platform is open, scalable, and designed to be applied in different countries and contexts.
The data is released as soon as analysis and validation are completed, with both the accuracy and the limitations of the information made explicit. At the same time, we receive suggestions for adjustments and improvements from different platform users, which are evaluated by our teams and help promote the enhancement of the content.