ESSDD Earth System Science Data Discussions ESSDD Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss. Göttingen, Germany 10.5194/essd-2026-791 Annual global terrestrial ecosystem maps from 1982 to 2024 aligned with the IUCN Global Ecosystem Typology Du Zhenrong 1 Yu Le https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3115-2042 2 3 4 Li Xiyu 2 Wu Hui 5 Chang Ruyue 1 Hughes Alice C. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4899-3158 6 Coomes David https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8261-2582 7 Ball James G. C. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0165-5290 7 Ma Xiaorui 1 Wang Hongyu 1 Wan Huawei 8 Gao Jixi 8 Ma Keping https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9112-5340 5 9 School of Information and Communication Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, China Department of Earth System Science, Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Earth System Modeling, Institute for Global Change Studies, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China Ministry of Education Ecological Field Station for East Asian Migratory Birds, Department of Earth System Science, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China Institute of Carbon Neutrality, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China Northeast Asia Biodiversity Research Center, College of Forestry, Northeast Forestry University, Harbin 150040, China School of BioSciences, University of Melbourne, Royal Parade, Parkville, VIC 3010, Australia Conservation Research Institute and the Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge, CB2 3EA Cambridge, U.K. Center for Satellite Applications on Ecology and Environment, Ministry of Ecology and Environment, Beijing 100101, China State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100093, China 09 11 2026 2026 1 21 Copyright: © 2026 Zhenrong Du et al. 2026 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This article is available from https://essd.copernicus.org/preprints/essd-2026-791/ The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://essd.copernicus.org/preprints/essd-2026-791/essd-2026-791.pdf

Spatially explicit and temporally consistent ecosystem data are needed for biodiversity assessment, ecosystem accounting, conservation planning, and Earth system analysis. Existing global products commonly provide either annual land cover without a functional ecosystem classification or ecosystem maps for a single reference period. In this research, we present annual global terrestrial ecosystem maps for 1982&ndash;2024 aligned with the IUCN Global Ecosystem Typology. The workflow combines annual land cover developed by Global Land Cover Change Monitoring Platform (FROM-GLC Plus) with 18 climate regions and four landform classes to define 507 World Terrestrial Ecosystem (WTE) types. These types are aggregated as fractions within 1 km grid cells and assigned to 41 terrestrial ecosystem functional groups (EFGs), together with three cross-realm categories, through an explicit rule-based crosswalk supported by indicative distribution maps and ancillary data. Validation used a pool of 100,500 globally distributed reference locations interpreted at the EFG level. Across the valid annual subsets for 1985&ndash;2024, overall accuracy ranged from 84.62 &plusmn; 0.55 % to 87.18 &plusmn; 0.40 %, with a mean of 86.14 &plusmn; 0.47 %. This dataset serves as a crucial resource for improving our understanding of long-term global terrestrial ecosystem dynamics, supporting biodiversity assessment and ecosystem accounting, informing conservation planning and policy decisions, and advancing Earth system research. The full archive of global annual EFGs is available at: <a href="https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19448555" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19448555</a> (Du et al., 2026).