Images

The Annual National Land Cover Database (NLCD) land cover change legend contains all of the annual NLCD land cover classes plus the land cover classification change classes. Annual NLCD Land Cover Change land cover change product contains a total of 241 land cover classes.

Annual NLCD land cover change product shows the change between the current year’s primary land cover and the prior year’s land cover when there is a change in primary class. The area shown is around Marysville, WA.

The Annual National Land Cover Database (NLCD) impervious descriptor product generates a raster layer that differentiates between urban and road surfaces. The image shows an area around Marysville, WA.

Annual NLCD generates a product suite of six land use and land cover themes from 1985-2023. The Annual NLCD Land Cover product Depicts the predominant thematic land cover class within the mapping year with respect to broad categories of artificial or natural surface cover. The image shows an area around Marysville, WA.

Annual NLCD land cover change product shows the change between the current year’s primary land cover and the prior year’s land cover when there is a change in primary class. The image shows an area around Marysville, WA.

An Annual NLCD Land Cover map of centered around Lake Stevens, WA depicting 16 land cover classes.

An animation of images from the Annual National Land Cover Database (NLCD) for every year from 1985 through 2023 showing land cover changes and the progression of growth of urban areas (in red) in the northern Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, metropolitan area.

The Annual NLCD product suite offers six different land use and land cover products. The Annual NLCD Land Cover product depicts the predominant thematic land cover of 16 Anderson Level II classes within the current mapping year. The Annual NLCD Land Cover of the conterminous United States shows all Anderson Level II classes.

Western and Eastern region eVIIRS Remote Sensing Phenology Start of Season for 2023.

To assess the accuracy of Annual NLCD, Collection 1.0, a team of image interpreters review Landsat imagery, high resolution aerial photography, and other supporting data to make annual land cover classifications for thousands of 30-meter by 30-meter plot locations for the full 1985-2023 time series. This process is broken down into two phases.

Rangeland managers need information on the current vegetation condition and how the landscape has changed through time. To address this need, scientsist from the USGS and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) developed the Rangeland Condition Monitoring Assessment and Projection (RCMAP) project. These data classify U.S.

Clearcutting in a forest in the Ouachita Mountains of Arkansas and Oklahoma.  Heavy machinery is being used to cut trees and haul lumber away to another location. 

A map generated by 2023 Annual National Land Cover Database (Annual NLCD) depicting the different land cover classes.

The Park Fire north of Sacramento in California forced thousands of residents to evacuate in late July as it spread to over 370,000 acres. The fire started on July 24th. Landsat 8 captured an image of the fire two days later.

This infographic is from the report "Economic Valuation of Landsat and Landsat Next 2023," which shows that Landsat's direct value in 2023 was \$25.6 billion. The report and infographic also show well over \$1 billion in estimated indirect economic value.

Access the report

JACIE 2025 will be held April 7 - 11, 2025 at USGS Headquarters in Reston, Virginia. 

Annual JACIE Workshops are sponsored by government agencies and allow remote sensing experts to discuss system capabilities, calibration, and the impacts of data quality on various applications. 

Highlights of JACIE Workshops include:

The Phoenix, Arizona metropolitan area, also known as the Valley of the Sun, is comprised of more than 14,600 square miles and is considered the largest metropolitan area in the southwestern United States. The desert climate and abundant sunshine of the area are main factors in population growth and urban sprawl. 

The Railroad Valley Playa, located in east central Nevada, measures about 80 miles long and nearly 20 miles wide, and is a vast and wide-open landscape. 

Landsat 8 image of central California cropland and dairies, southeast of Fresno, on July 5, 2024.

Each year, June is National Ocean Month! 

A Land IQ map of crop types found in a small area of central California, southeast of Fresno, in July 2024. The classifications are based on remote sensing and ground data. Used with permission from Land IQ.