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Global Impervious Surface Area (1972-2021)

The Global Impervious Surface Area (GISA) dataset provides comprehensive 30-meter resolution mapping of impervious surfaces worldwide. The latest version, GISA-new (1972-2021), addresses omission and commission errors in previous versions by implementing advanced algorithms including a multi-temporal Continuous Change Detection and Classification (NA-CCDC) method and a multi-scale iterative algorithm (MIA). With these improvements, GISA-new achieves the highest overall accuracy (93.12%), lowest omission errors (10.50%), and lowest commission errors (3.52%) among global ISA datasets.

GISA was originally developed using more than three million Landsat satellite images. The original version (1972-2019) provided global ISA maps with a time span from 1972–2019 and achieved high accuracy (F-score of 0.954). The new version extends coverage to 2021 and significantly improves accuracy in challenging areas including rural and arid regions.

Info

GISA-new Improvements:

  • Reduced omission errors in low-density impervious surfaces (rural, suburban areas)
  • Removed commission errors from spectrally similar surfaces (bare soil, water bodies)
  • Improved accuracy in challenging regions (arid landscapes, rural settlements)
  • Expanded temporal coverage to 2021
  • Enhanced consistency across the time series

gisa

Dataset Details

Characteristic Description
Name GISA and GISA-new
Provider Wuhan University
Resolution 30 meters
Coverage Global
Temporal Range 1972-2019 (GISA), 1985-2021 (GISA-new)
Accuracy Overall accuracy: 93.12% (GISA-new)
Data Structure Pixel values indicate first year when ISA was detected
No-data value 0

For GISA (1972-2019), pixel values correspond to the first year of ISA detection according to this lookup table:

Year Pixel Value Year Pixel Value Year Pixel Value
1972 1 1992 10 2008 26
1978 2 1993 11 2009 27
1985 3 1994 12 2010 28
1986 4 1995 13 2011 29
1987 5 1996 14 2012 30
1988 6 1997 15 2013 31
1989 7 1998 16 2014 32
1990 8 1999 17 2015 33
1991 9 2000 18 2016 34
2001 19 2017 35
2002 20 2018 36
2003 21 2019 37
2004 22
2005 23
2006 24
2007 25

Data Access

Citation

Huang, X., Li, J., Yang, J. et al. 30 m global impervious surface area dynamics
and urban expansion pattern observed by Landsat satellites: From 1972 to 2019.
Sci. China Earth Sci. (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11430-020-9797-9

Ren, H., Huang, X., Yang, J., & Zhou, G. (2025). Improving 30-meter global impervious
surface area (GISA) mapping: New method and dataset. ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry
and Remote Sensing, 220, 354-376. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isprsjprs.2024.12.023

Data Citation

Xin Huang, Jiayi Li, Jie Yang, Zhen Zhang, Dongrui Li, & Xiaoping Liu. (2021).
30 m global impervious surface area dynamics and urban expansion pattern observed
by Landsat satellites: from 1972 to 2019 (Version 1.0.0)
[Data set]. http://doi.org/10.1007/s11430-020-9797-9

Huiqun, R., Xin, H., Jie, Y., & Guoqing, Z. (2024). Improving 30-meter global impervious
surface area (GISA) mapping: New method and dataset [Data set].
Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14848113

Earth Engine Snippet

var gisa = ee.ImageCollection("projects/sat-io/open-datasets/GISA_1972_2021");

Sample Code: https://code.earthengine.google.com/?scriptPath=users/sat-io/awesome-gee-catalog-examples:global-landuse-landcover/GLOBAL-IMPERVIOUS-SURFACE-AREA

License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You are free to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format, and to transform and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially. You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made.

Created by: Xin Huang, Huiqun Ren, Jie Yang, Guoqing Zhou, and collaborators at Wuhan University

Curated in GEE by: Samapriya Roy

Keywords: Landsat, Urban, Google Earth Engine, Impervious surface, Urban expansion, Time series, Urbanization, Sustainable development

Last updated: 2025-05-15

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