Basic Raster Data Download

Overview

Basic Raster Data Download provides a unified entry for downloading raster data from surface data sources configured on the platform. It extracts data within a specified extent and outputs GeoTIFF (.tif).

Downloadable data types and optional parameters, such as year, version, and resolution, depend on the platform data source configuration.

Use Cases

• Quick regional raster clipping: Download required rasters for a project-area extent, such as surface indicators or thematic rasters.
• Time-series or versioned data acquisition: Select and download data by year or version when the source provides those attributes.
• Batch mapping and analysis preparation: Download and output GeoTIFF files as inputs for later raster calculation, reclassification, and statistics.

Parameters

Parameter	Description	Notes
Data information	Selects the data to download and its filters.	This component usually includes data type, data source, year or version depending on configuration, resolution, and other options. Available options vary by data source.
Extent	Specifies the download extent.	You can select the view extent, use a layer extent, or manually enter [min_x, min_y, max_x, max_y]. Coordinates follow the current map project or view coordinate system. The tool performs required coordinate transformation and clipping according to the data source.
Output raster file	Output GeoTIFF file path.	.tif is recommended. Output data type and resolution depend on the selected data source.

Support for data sources is controlled by platform-side configuration. The following sections describe common data sources to clarify their spatial and temporal resolution and output values.

General Output Notes

• Output format: Outputs GeoTIFF (.tif). The selected data source determines whether the result is single-band or multiband.
• Clipping and coordinate system: The tool uses the coordinate system of the provided Extent, performs required coordinate transformation and clipping, and outputs the result in the current project or view coordinate system.
• Invalid values (NoData): NoData rules vary by source. Invalid cells are usually written as NoData or NaN.
• Resolution: Native source resolution is preferred. If the platform configuration allows resolution selection, use the options in Data information.

Data Descriptions

NDVI Data

NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) measures vegetation cover and growth. Its theoretical value range is [-1, 1]:

$\mathrm{NDVI} = \frac{\mathrm{NIR} - \mathrm{Red}}{\mathrm{NIR} + \mathrm{Red}}$

NDVI data in this tool is usually provided by year. For the selected year, the tool calculates NDVI from valid observations and averages along the time dimension to output an annual mean NDVI raster.

Landsat 8

• Data source: Microsoft Planetary Computer STAC collection landsat-c2-l2, filtered to landsat-8.
• Spatial resolution: 30 m.
• Time parameter: A year must be specified. The tool searches available scenes in that year and calculates the annual mean.
• Bands and calculation: Uses red and nir08 to calculate NDVI.
• Cloud filtering: Filters scenes by eo:cloud_cover < 20. This is usually scene-level cloud cover, so local cloud or shadow cells may remain.
• Output values: Floating-point NDVI. Invalid cells are output as NoData or NaN.

Sentinel-2

• Data source: Microsoft Planetary Computer STAC collection sentinel-2-l2a.
• Spatial resolution: 10 m.
• Time parameter: A year must be specified. The output is the time-averaged NDVI for that year.
• Bands and calculation: Uses B04 (red) and B08 (near infrared) to calculate NDVI.
• Cloud filtering: Filters scenes by eo:cloud_cover < 10. Local cloud or shadow cells may still remain.
• Output values: Floating-point NDVI. Invalid cells are output as NoData or NaN.

Land Cover Data

The tool supports downloads for land cover datasets such as ESA WorldCover (10 m), GlobeLand30 for China, and MODIS MCD12Q1.

ESA WorldCover 10 m

WorldCover is a high-resolution global land cover product released by the European Space Agency (ESA). It currently provides global maps for 2020 and 2021 at 10 m per cell, using fused Sentinel-1 radar and Sentinel-2 optical imagery. The classification system includes 11 land-cover classes, such as tree cover, shrubland, grassland, cropland, built-up, bare or sparse vegetation, snow and ice, water, wetland, mangroves, and moss and lichen. Independent validation reports overall accuracy of about 74.4% for the 2020 product and about 76.7% for the 2021 product.

Spatial and temporal resolution: 10 m spatial resolution and annual classification maps for 2020 and 2021. The product targets annual updates. Each release is produced about 10 months after the final image acquisition of the year. Future annual products, if available, will be provided at the same resolution.

Access: WorldCover uses the CC BY 4.0 license and is free to use with source attribution. Commercial advertising use requires ESA project approval.

Classes And Default Colors (Cell Value To Meaning)

The following table lists official or recommended ESA WorldCover class codes and common colors. It can be used to configure a unique-value legend.

Code	Class	Default color (RGB)	Color (HEX)
10	Tree cover	(0, 100, 0)	#006400
20	Shrubland	(255, 187, 34)	#ffbb22
30	Grassland	(255, 255, 76)	#ffff4c
40	Cropland	(240, 150, 255)	#f096ff
50	Built-up	(255, 0, 0)	#ff0000
60	Bare/sparse vegetation	(191, 191, 191)	#bfbfbf
70	Snow and ice	(240, 240, 240)	#f0f0f0
80	Permanent water	(0, 0, 255)	#0000ff
90	Herbaceous wetland	(0, 255, 255)	#00ffff
95	Mangroves	(0, 150, 120)	#009678
100	Moss and lichen	(255, 220, 210)	#ffdcd2

GlobeLand30

GlobeLand30 is a global 30 m land cover dataset led by China. It is one of the publicly available land cover products with broad global coverage and relatively high spatial resolution. It classifies and maps global land areas in a unified system and is widely used in ecological monitoring, resource management, climate-change research, and territorial spatial planning.

Basic information:

Item	Description
Data name	GlobeLand30 global 30 m land cover data
Spatial resolution	30 m
Spatial coverage	Global land areas
Data years	2000, 2010, 2020 published versions
Coordinate system	WGS 84 (EPSG:4326)
Data type	Raster data (GeoTIFF)
Developer	National Geomatics Center of China (NGCC)

GlobeLand30 uses a unified global land cover classification system with 10 primary classes:

Code	Class
10	Cultivated Land
20	Forest
30	Grassland
40	Shrubland
50	Wetland
60	Water Bodies
70	Tundra
80	Artificial Surfaces
90	Bare Land
100	Permanent Snow and Ice

This classification balances global consistency and regional differences and supports multi-scale applications. The platform currently provides downloads for China.

Classes And Default Colors (Cell Value To Meaning)

GlobeLand30 uses discrete integer codes for land-cover classes.

Code	Class	Default color (RGB)	Color (HEX)	Description
10	Cultivated Land	(250, 161, 255)	#faa1ff	Land used for agriculture, horticulture, and orchards.
20	Forest	(0, 99, 0)	#006300	Land covered by trees with vegetation cover above 30%.
30	Grassland	(99, 255, 0)	#63ff00	Land covered by natural herbaceous vegetation with cover above 10%.
40	Shrubland	(0, 255, 119)	#00ff77	Land covered by shrubs with cover above 30%.
50	Wetland	(0, 99, 255)	#0063ff	Land covered by wetland vegetation or containing water bodies.
60	Water Bodies	(0, 0, 255)	#0000ff	Water areas within land regions.
70	Tundra	(99, 99, 51)	#636333	Polar land covered by lichen, moss, perennial cold-tolerant herbs, and shrubs.
80	Artificial Surfaces	(255, 0, 0)	#ff0000	Surfaces modified by human activity.
90	Bareland	(191, 191, 191)	#bfbfbf	Land with vegetation cover below 10%.
100	Permanent Snow and Ice	(198, 239, 255)	#c6efff	Land covered by permanent snow, glaciers, and ice sheets.
255	None / undefined	(0, 198, 255)	#00c6ff	Depending on data version, may indicate none or areas outside the boundary.

MODIS Global Land Cover (MCD12Q1)

MCD12Q1 is a global 500 m annual land cover product provided by NASA based on MODIS sensors on Terra and Aqua. Collection 6.1 covers annual land cover classification from 2001 to about 2020 or later. It includes multiple classification schemes: the primary IGBP 17-class scheme, UMD classification, LAI/FPAR vegetation functional types, NPP biome types, plant functional types, and quality-control layers. It is widely used in land-cover and vegetation-attribute studies.

The MODIS Terra + Aqua Land Cover Type Yearly L3 Global 500 m SIN Grid product provides five land-cover classification schemes derived with supervised decision-tree classification:

• Land Cover Type 1: IGBP global vegetation classification scheme.
• Land Cover Type 2: University of Maryland (UMD) scheme.
• Land Cover Type 3: MODIS-derived LAI/fPAR scheme.
• Land Cover Type 4: MODIS-derived net primary production (NPP) scheme.
• Land Cover Type 5: Plant functional type (PFT) scheme.

Other layers include land cover type assessment SDS, land cover percentage SDS, and land cover quality control SDS.

Classes And Default Colors (Recommended Type 1: IGBP)

MCD12Q1 commonly uses Land Cover Type 1 (IGBP 17 classes).

Code	Class	Default color (RGB)	Color (HEX)
1	Evergreen Needleleaf Forests	(5, 69, 10)	#05450a
2	Evergreen Broadleaf Forests	(8, 106, 16)	#086a10
3	Deciduous Needleleaf Forests	(84, 167, 8)	#54a708
4	Deciduous Broadleaf Forests	(120, 210, 3)	#78d203
5	Mixed Forests	(0, 153, 0)	#009900
6	Closed Shrublands	(198, 176, 68)	#c6b044
7	Open Shrublands	(220, 209, 89)	#dcd159
8	Woody Savannas	(218, 222, 72)	#dade48
9	Savannas	(251, 255, 19)	#fbff13
10	Grasslands	(182, 255, 5)	#b6ff05
11	Permanent Wetlands	(39, 255, 135)	#27ff87
12	Croplands	(194, 79, 68)	#c24f44
13	Urban and Built-up Lands	(165, 165, 165)	#a5a5a5
14	Cropland/Natural Vegetation Mosaics	(255, 109, 76)	#ff6d4c
15	Permanent Snow and Ice	(105, 255, 248)	#69fff8
16	Barren	(249, 255, 164)	#f9ffa4
17	Water Bodies	(28, 13, 255)	#1c0dff
255	Unclassified / NoData	Transparent recommended	Transparent recommended

Spatial and temporal resolution: The spatial resolution is about 500 m. Temporally, it is annual, with one classification for each calendar year. Updates have continued since 2001, and Collection 6.1 extends to 2020 or later in some sources. NASA plans to continue land-cover production with subsequent satellites such as VIIRS to maintain time-series continuity.

Data format and access: NASA's official global products are published in HDF-EOS format by geographic tiles on a Sinusoidal grid. Users can download original HDF data by year and projection through NASA Earthdata platforms such as LP DAAC or LAADS. Although the official format is not TIFF, derived providers have mosaicked and reprojected annual data to GeoTIFF. For example, OpenGeoHub provides 2001-2022 global 500 m land cover time-series cloud-optimized GeoTIFF mosaics for batch download. NASA data is in the public domain and free to use, but users should cite NASA or LP DAAC as the source.

Accuracy and limitations: Because MODIS land cover has coarse resolution, it has limited ability to represent heterogeneous surfaces and small patches. Classification accuracy is generally around 70%, with an IGBP global average near 75%. Accuracy varies by class. Forest and grassland classes are usually more accurate, while urban and mixed classes have more errors. High-precision or fine-scale applications may require refinement or integration with higher-resolution data.

Soil Data

HWSD v2

HWSD (Harmonized World Soil Database) is a global soil-attribute database. The platform usually provides soil-parameter downloads through a soil mapping unit (SMU) raster plus attribute query workflow:

• Optional parameters: Examples include clay, sand, silt, organic carbon, calcium carbonate, and others depending on platform configuration.
• Soil depth layers: Common outputs include 7 depth layers: 0-20 cm, 20-40 cm, 40-60 cm, 60-80 cm, 80-100 cm, 100-150 cm, and 150-200 cm. Output is a multiband raster where each band corresponds to one soil layer.
• Output values: Usually weighted results for the selected soil parameter in each depth layer. Units and meanings follow the data source description.

Reference: Harmonized World Soil Database

Terrain Data

The tool supports downloading ASTER and AW3D30 terrain data with global coverage.

ASTER GDEM v3

ASTER GDEM is a global digital elevation model jointly released by NASA and Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI). It is derived from observations by ASTER on NASA's Terra satellite. ASTER GDEM covers land areas from 83 degrees north to 83 degrees south, representing about 99% of Earth's land surface.

ASTER GDEM was generated by automated processing of the ASTER archive, including stereo-correlation DEM generation, cloud removal, abnormal-value filtering, averaging, and tiling into global 1 degree by 1 degree products. It is available online for free through Japanese and NASA distribution channels, subject to registration and data application requirements.

iXGIS provides data sourced from NASA LP DAAC.

AW3D30 DSM

AW3D30 is a global digital surface model (DSM) generated by JAXA from images acquired by the PRISM optical stereo mapping instrument onboard the ALOS satellite, also known as DAICHI.

• Spatial resolution: About 30 m, or 1 arc-second grid.
• Coverage: Global land areas, with coverage details varying by version.
• License: The dataset can be used for commercial and non-commercial purposes for free, subject to its terms of use.

The provided data comes from JAXA's EORC official website.

Climate And Meteorological Data

MODIS Evapotranspiration Factor

The platform can provide annual MODIS evapotranspiration (ET) raster downloads, such as MOD16A3GF.061 layer ET_500m:

• Spatial resolution: About 500 m.
• Temporal resolution: Annual product. A year must be specified.
• Output value meaning: Annual cumulative evapotranspiration (ET). According to product definitions, raw cell values usually need to be multiplied by a scale factor, such as 0.1, to obtain final values. Invalid cells use fill values and are converted to NoData in the output.
• Coordinate system: Data sources are usually provided in WGS 84 geographic coordinates. The tool outputs according to the current project or view coordinate system.

attention

This type of data usually requires platform-side authorization or quota for services such as NASA Earthdata. Downloads may fail if the service is unavailable.

Steps

1. Start the tool: Open Geoprocessing Toolbox > Data Management Tools > Data Download, then start Basic Raster Data Download.
2. Select data: In Data information, select the data type and data source, then choose year, version, and resolution as needed.
3. Set the extent: Select the view extent or a layer extent, and manually adjust the bounds if needed.
4. Configure the output: Set the save location and file name for Output raster file.
5. Run the task: Click Run and view progress in Task List. After completion, load the output raster and check whether the extent and resolution are correct.

Notes

• Some data sources require a year parameter: If the selected data source provides a Year option, choose the correct year. Some data sources may use Version instead of Year.
• Large download extents may be restricted: Large areas at high resolution can produce very large rasters. The tool may limit output raster size. Reduce the extent or choose a coarser resolution when needed.
• Check output consistency: After downloading, verify spatial reference, cell size, and coverage before using the data in later analysis.