World Terrestrial Ecosystems 2020 data in the WTE Explorer

World Terrestrial Ecosystems 2020 data in the WTE Explorer

The World Terrestrial Ecosystems (WTE) is a global raster dataset at a 250-meter spatial resolution identifying 431 ecosystem types including both ‘natural’ ecosystems (e.g., different kinds of forests, shrublands, grasslands, bare areas, etc.) and ‘converted’ landscapes (e.g., croplands, settlements). WTE’s were conceptualized and delineated as areas with unique combinations of climate setting, landforms, and vegetation/land cover. They were produced from a spatial combination of three input data layers; World Climate Regions (eighteen classes produced from thirty years of WorldClim v. 2.0 temperature and precipitation data), World Landforms (plains, hills, mountains, and tablelands produced from a DEM-derived Hammond landforms layer), and World Vegetation/Land Cover (8 classes produced from 2015 European Space Agency global land cover data).