URL originale : https://books.openedition.org/ifpo/4858

Jordan’s Land Cover. A Land of Contrasts

Myriam Ababsa

p. 40-41

Texte intégral

1In 2006, the Royal Jordanian Geographic Center released a series of land cover Maps interpreting Landsat 5 Satellite Images (30 m resolution), at a scale of 250,000. These maps were projected using the Jordan Transverse Mercator projection and the geodesic system JGD 82. The 18 land cover categories follow the Corine (Coordination of information on the environment) land cover classification system developed by the European Environment Agency.

2As part of Ifpo’s collaboration with the RJGC for the Atlas of Jordan, a single map document without contour lines was drawn up. Statistics for each of the 18 categories of land cover were then extracted from the map.

3According to this interpretation of satellite images, less than 9 % of Jordanian territory is covered by pasture land, forest and fields. The true figure could be even lower, as it is unlikely that field crops really cover 3 % of land. Bare rocks, chert plains, granite rock, sand and bare soil cover over three quarters of the country. In the desert, vegetation is concentrated in the wadis and the mudflats that cover more than 14 % of the country. It is striking that in 2011 half of the country’s population was concentrated in the Amman-Ruseifa-Zarqa conurbation (3 million out of 6.5 million inhabitants) (fig. I.1).

Figure I.1 - Jordan Landcover based on Landsat Satellites Images

Image 1.jpg

RJGC and IFPO 2010

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