Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)

Mountain Green Cover Index (MGCI) is defined as the percentage of green cover over the total surface of the mountain region of a given country and for given reporting year. MGCI is designed to measure the extent and the changes of green vegetation in mountain areas - i.e. forest, shrubs, trees, pasture land, cropland, etc. The aim of the index is to assess the status of conservation of mountain ecosystems.

The Mountain Green Cover index is based on two descriptor layers of information:

The global mountain descriptor layer is based on the mountain classification proposed by Kapos et al. (2000):

• Class 1: elevation > 4500 meters

• Class 2: elevation 3500 - 4500 meters

• Class 3: elevation 2500 – 3500 meters

• Class 4: elevation 1500 – 2500 meters and slope ≥ 2

• Class 5: elevation 1,000–1,500 meters and slope ≥ 5 or local elevation range (7 kilometers radius) ≥ 300 meters

• Class 6: elevation 300–1,000 meters and local elevation range (7 kilometres radius) ≥ 300 meters outside 23°N—19°S

• Class 0: Defined to represent the non-mountainous areas.

The mountain description layer used to derive the global estimates was created by the US Geological Survey from a 250 m DEM (Sayre et al. 2018)