We are a network of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), universities, research institutions, and technology companies that produce and promote the use of qualified information for managing land use and land cover in South America and other tropical and subtropical regions.

As a network, we are committed to generating data, methods, tools, and information to enhance the understanding, analysis, and decision-making regarding the conservation and sustainable management of continental natural resources.

MapBiomas Suriname became a member of the network in 2023 and published its first collection of maps from the Land Cover and Land Use Initiative (1998-2022) in 2024. The first mapping of the Chaco region was first published in 2020, while in 2021, maps of the Atlantic Forest and the Pampas. In 2023, mapping of the remaining regions will be consolidated, resulting in the first MapBiomas Suriname collection. The second collection covers the period from 1985 to 2024 and includes 18 land cover and land use classes.

MapBiomas Suriname involves researchers and specialists in remote sensing, GIS, IT, biomes, and land use from each of the regions and cross-cutting themes. The team is coordinated by Fundación Vida Silvestre Suriname, and the teams work in a coordinated manner, processing information in the cloud through the Google Earth Engine platform. To learn about all the institutions that are part of the network: https://suriname.mapbiomas.org/who-we-are/

1. The maps can be downloaded directly from the platform via the link: plataforma.suriname.mapbiomas.org
2. Don't forget to download the legend codes via: suriname.mapbiomas.org/legend-codes
3. It is also possible to download the data directly from Google Earth Engine using the Toolkit.
4. In the ‘Downloads/Collection Maps’ section of the website Collection Maps 
5. In Google Earth Engine, you have access to public assets via the section Tools.

The MapBiomas Suriname land cover and land use maps were produced by processing Landsat imagery (with a pixel resolution of 30 x 30 meters). Given the size of the country and the time series involved, the resulting volume of data can only be efficiently stored and processed in raster format.

The MapBiomas Suriname platform does not offer this capability. Converting maps to vectors is extremely costly and impractical for storing, analyzing, and processing time series covering the entire territory. The recommended approach, if you wish to work with vectors, is to download the data, extract the area of ​​interest (via a territorial or spatial subset), and then vectorize the data using software of your choice.

MapBiomas data are publicly, openly, and freely available under a Creative Commons CC-BY-SA license, provided the source is cited using the following format: “MapBiomas Suriname Project – Collection [version] of the annual land-use and land-cover maps of Suriname, accessed on [date] via the link: [LINK]”.

Yes, the MapBiomas Suriname datasets are available as layers (assets) on the Google Earth Engine platform; they can be accessed, processed, and analyzed directly on the platform without the need to download the data. For more information, visit  suriname.mapbiomas.org/tools

This requires a Google Earth Engine (GEE) account; you can register for free via the following link: https://earthengine.google.com.

Via the GEE Code Editor (Google Earth Engine) You can run scripts to view and process data:

Data in the section Tools section.

You can also consult the data for various area classifications included in the  Toolkit for land cover and land use, prepared in Google Earth Engine (GEE).

MapBiomas data are public, accessible, and free under a Creative Commons CC-BY-SA license and with attribution, using the following format: “MapBiomas Suriname Project – Collection [version] of the annual land-use and land-cover maps of Suriname, accessed on [date] via the link: [LINK]”.

The full project description can be found at: suriname.mapbiomas.org/project

The codes and the detailed description of each class included in the legend can be found at: suriname.mapbiomas.org/legend-codes

Yes, statistics on land cover and land use, as well as transitions for various territorial divisions—such as countries, provinces, departments, ecoregions, river basins, and protected areas—are available at: suriname.mapbiomas.org/statistics

The maps and associated statistics can be downloaded by directly selecting the desired area. plataforma.suriname.mapbiomas.org
You can also download the data via Land Cover and Land Use.Toolkit prepared in Google Earth Engine (GEE) by selecting the area in question and exporting it to your Google Drive folder.

Landsat has an average resolution of 30 m, making it common practice to equate the area of ​​a pixel to 900 m². However, since the original MapBiomas Suriname data were generated according to the GEE standard (latitude/longitude and WGS84), an equal-area projection is not used. Consequently, pixel size varies depending on the distance from the equator. Therefore, at a continental scale, one should avoid simply multiplying the number of pixels by 900 m².
At MapBiomas Suriname, the calculation is performed in Google Earth Engine using the function ee.Image.pixelArea(). This generates an image in which the value of each pixel corresponds to the area of ​​that pixel in square meters, taking into account any cartographic distortions.

by MapBiomas Suriname. You can view the description of everything. reference cards used  by MapBiomas Suriname.