The LANDMATE Plant Functional Type (PFT) land cover dataset provides gridded, continuous land use and land cover (LULC) information globally tailored to the requirements of regional climate models. The LULC information is prepared in a continuous, regular grid, where each grid cell contains the area coverage of each respective LULC as percentage values (0-1). The map is based on the European Space Agency Climate Change Initiative (ESA-CCI) land cover map from 2015, where the LULC classes given by ESA-CCI are translated into PFTs using a carefully developed cross-walking procedure (Reinhart et al. 2022).
In addition to the LULC data from the ESA-CCI land cover, climate data is employed in the translation to ensure the consideration of regional, climate-dependent differences in distributions and combinations of the PFTs. The temperature and precipitation data used in the cross-walking procedure is the gridded climate data of the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia (CRU), which is available as gridded, continuous data and has the highest resolution and quality for the North American continent. Through identification of annual precipitation amounts and mean temperature ranges, Holdridge Life Zones (HLZs) are determined for the global land masses. Using the HLZs, individual translations for the single ESA-CCI LULC classes into PFTs can be applied within the cross-walking procedure, which is carefully prepared using local expert knowledge and validation with independent data sources. For Version 1.2 of the LANDMATE PFT dataset, the cross-walking tables (CWTs), used for the North America domain (Hoffmann et al. 2025) were employed. There are no previous versions of this dataset. Version 1.2 was added for consistency reasons.
Hoffmann, Peter; Reinhart, Vanessa; Asselin, Olivier; Cohrs, Jan-Christopher; Rechid, Diana (2026). LANDMATE PFT global land cover dataset 2015 (Version 1.2). World Data Center for Climate (WDCC) at DKRZ. https://doi.org/10.26050/WDCC/LM_PFT_GLOB_v1.2
SQA - Scientific Quality Assurance 'approved by author'
Result Date
2026-07-16
Technical Quality Assurance (TQA)
TQA - Technical Quality Assurance 'approved by WDCC'
Description
1. Number of data sets is correct and > 0: passed; 2. Size of every data set is > 0: passed; 3. The data sets and corresponding metadata are accessible: passed; 4. The data sizes are controlled and correct: passed; 5. The spatial-temporal coverage description (metadata) is consistent to the data: passed; 6. The format is correct: passed; 7. Variable description and data are consistent: passed
Method
WDCC-TQA checklist
Method Description
Checks performed by WDCC. The list of TQA metrics are documented in the 'WDCC User Guide for Data Publication' Chapter 8.1.1
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Is compiled by
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[2] DOIReinhart, Vanessa; Hoffmann, Peter; Rechid, Diana; Böhner, Jürgen; Bechtel, Benjamin. (2022). High-resolution land use and land cover dataset for regional climate modelling: a plant functional type map for Europe 2015. doi:10.5194/essd-14-1735-2022
[2] DOIHarris, Ian; Osborn, Timothy J.; Jones, Phil; Lister, David. (2020). Version 4 of the CRU TS monthly high-resolution gridded multivariate climate dataset. doi:10.1038/s41597-020-0453-3
[3] DOIWei, Y.; Liu, S.; Huntzinger, D. N.; Michalak, A. M.; Viovy, N.; Post, W. M.; Schwalm, C. R.; Schaefer, K.; Jacobson, A. R.; Lu, C.; Tian, H.; Ricciuto, D. M.; Cook, R. B.; Mao, J.; Shi, X. (2014). The North American Carbon Program Multi-scale Synthesis and Terrestrial Model Intercomparison Project – Part 2: Environmental driver data. doi:10.5194/gmd-7-2875-2014