Google displays features on the Earth’s surface in near real time. Dynamic World is a tool that uses deep learning and satellite imagery to create a high-resolution land cover map that shows which areas of land have features such as trees, crops, or water.
Land cover maps typically take a long time to create, and there are significant gaps between the time images are captured and the data is published.
They also frequently lack a detailed breakdown of what’s on the ground in a given area for example, a city would be classified as “built-up” (a designation for human-altered landscapes) even if there are large sections with parks.
According to Google, Dynamic World classifies the land cover type for every 1,100 square feet.
It indicates the likelihood that the sections are covered by one of nine different types of cover: water, flooded vegetation, built-up areas, trees, crops, bare ground, grass, shrub and ice.
The Dynamic World model generates over 5,000 images per day, and the land cover data is updated in real time.
This allows researchers and policymakers to quickly assess the effects of events such as wildfires or hurricanes and better respond to changes.
