Open ttencate opened 4 years ago
NASA also has an easy to download single PNG, although at 0.1 degrees its resolution is probably a bit limiting: https://neo.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/view.php?datasetId=MCD12C1_T1
Also MODIS data, may be the same, but at 0.05 degrees and there's a direct 1.2 GB download: https://lpdaac.usgs.gov/products/mcd12c1v006/
Downloaded the latter; preliminary docs are on the feature/habitats
branch. Citation:
Friedl, M., Sulla-Menashe, D. (2015). MCD12C1 MODIS/Terra+Aqua Land Cover Type Yearly L3 Global 0.05Deg CMG V006 [Data set]. NASA EOSDIS Land Processes DAAC. Accessed 2020-06-03 from https://doi.org/10.5067/MODIS/MCD12C1.006
We'll also need to take https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinusoidal_projection into account on the vertical (latitude) axis.
It would be great if you could say something like "I want to learn all forest birds in my area" or "all sea birds in Europe". This could also be implemented as a branching, rather than linear, course structure, similar to what DuoLingo does: after finishing a chapter, you get to pick what you want for the next chapter.
But first we need habitat data for each species. There is some good information on how to do this here in the eBird best practices documentation: https://cornelllabofornithology.github.io/ebird-best-practices/covariates.html They use data from the MODIS satellite instrument, which has 500-meter resolution and is classified into 16 different land cover types. It's a bit involved to download this, but certainly doable.