We are a network of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), universities, research institutions, and technology companies that produce and promote the use of qualified information to manage 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 Argentina joined the network in 2023 and published its first collection of maps for the Land Cover and Land Use Initiative (1998-2022) in 2024. The mapping of the Chaco region was first published in 2020, while in 2021, maps of the Atlantic Forest and the Pampas. In 2023, mappings of the Puna region, the Monte region, Patagonia, and the Andes were consolidated.

MapBiomas Argentina involves researchers and specialists in remote sensing, GIS, computer science, biomes, and land uses from each of the regions (Chaco, Atlantic Forest, Pampa, Patagonia, Monte, Puna, and High Andes). The team is coordinated by Fundación Vida Silvestre Argentina, and the teams work in a coordinated manner processing information in the cloud through the Google Earth Engine platform.

1. The maps can be downloaded directly from the platform via the link: plataforma.argentina.mapbiomas.org
2. Don't forget to download the legend codes at: argentina.mapbiomas.org/codigos-de-la-leyenda
3. It's also possible to download the data directly from Google Earth Engine using the Toolkit.
4. In the website section Downloads/Collection Maps 
5. In Google Earth Engine, you can access the public assets in the Tools section.

• Public asset of LULC:
  projects/mapbiomas-public/assets/argentina/collection1/mapbiomas_argentina_collection1_integration_v1

• Public asset of Transitions: 
  projects/mapbiomas-public/assets/argentina/collection1/mapbiomas_argentina_collection1_transitions_v1

The land cover and land use maps of MapBiomas Argentina were generated through the processing of Landsat images (with a pixel resolution of 30 x 30 meters). Due to the country's extent and the temporal series, a volume of data is generated that can only be efficiently stored and processed in raster format.

There is no such possibility in the MapBiomas Argentina platform. Map vectorization is extremely costly and impractical for storing, analyzing, and processing the temporal series for the entire territory. The recommended solution, if you wish to work with vectors, is to download the data, perform the territorial or spatial cropping of your interest, and then vectorize using software of your choice.

Yes, the data from MapBiomas Argentina are public and free for non-commercial use or for public interest purposes.

Yes, the MapBiomas Argentina collections are available as layers (assets) in the Google Earth Engine platform and can be accessed, processed, and analyzed directly on the platform without the need to download the data. There are three types of data available: i) land cover maps; ii) transition maps; and iii) Landsat image mosaics. For more information, please visit  argentina.mapbiomas.org/herramientas

It is necessary to have an account on Google Earth Engine (GEE), which can be registered for free through the following link: https://earthengine.google.com.

By accessing the Code Editor of GEE (Google Earth Engine) you can initiate scripts to view and process data: 

Data in the Tools section.

You can also access the data for different territorial divisions included in the Land Cover and Use Toolkit prepared in Google Earth Engine (GEE).

MapBiomas data is public, open and free under a Creative Commons CC-BY-SA license and with reference to the source, observing the following format: "MapBiomas Argentina Project - Collection [version] of the Annual Land Use and Land Cover Maps of Argentina, accessed on [date] through the link: [LINK]".

The complete project description can be found at: argentina.mapbiomas.org/proyecto

The codes and detailed description of each mapped class in the Legend can be found at: argentina.mapbiomas.org/codigos-de-la-leyenda

Yes, the statistics of land cover and land use, as well as transitions for different territorial divisions such as country, provinces, departments, ecoregions, river basins, and protected areas, are available at: argentina.mapbiomas.org/estadisticas

The maps and their statistics are available for download by selecting the territorial cut of interest directly from the plataforma.argentina.mapbiomas.org
You can also download the data using the Land Cover and Use Toolkit prepared in Google Earth Engine (GEE) by selecting the territory of interest and exporting it to your Google Drive folder.

Landsat has an average resolution of 30 m, so it is common to associate the area of a pixel with 900 m2. However, since the original MapBiomas Argentina data are created following the representation of the GEE standard (Lat/Long and WGS84), it does not use an equivalent projection (equal area). Therefore, the distance from the target to the equator line influences the size of the pixel. Therefore, on a continental scale, the calculation of pixel count and multiplication by 900 m2 should be avoided.
In MapBiomas Argentina, the calculation is performed in Google Earth Engine, applying the ee.Image.pixelArea () function, which generates an image in which the value of each pixel is the area of that pixel in square meters, taking into account possible cartographic distortions.

You can access the description of all reference maps used by MapBiomas Argentina.