Landsat satellite imagery and a variety of tools based on Landsat provide useful information for managing land, especially at a broad scale. One tool, the National Land Cover Database (NLCD), maps land cover consistently across the United States. This makes it easy for organizations to get reliable information they need for multiple states all in one place.

By distinguishing among 16 different land cover types, NLCD is well suited for analyzing complex landscape issues, and the uses of NLCD are vast and varied. For example, in and around cities, NLCD’s labeling of different intensity levels of urban development helps with flood projections. Meanwhile, classifying ecosystems such as forests, wetlands and grasslands indicates the presence of certain wildlife habitats.

Landsat’s annual value was calculated to be \$25.6 billion in 2023, and NLCD’s share of that is notable. But it would be difficult to put a dollar amount on some values related to the land—ecological value, for example.

How would you put a price on the ability to connect two separate habitats with a corridor for wildlife to easily move in between?  Or the value of a wetland surrounded by forest or grassland versus a wetland surrounded by parking lots and freeways?

Exelon Corporation, one of the largest utility companies in the United States, touches a significant amount of land in connection with its electric and natural gas transmission and distribution. The company decided to get a better idea of the quality of the ecosystems on its operational lands in support of its commitment to positive nature outcomes. 

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So Exelon’s sustainability team used publicly available information, especially NLCD, to create a baseline set of maps released in 2024 that characterize the level of biodiversity sensitivity, or the diversity of species, for the land in each of its service territories. Exelon owns utilities in the Mid-Atlantic and northern Illinois regions, including Washington, D.C., and Chicago.

Half of the analysis for the maps was weighted to rely on NLCD, and the other half included data on water drainage, protected areas, biodiversity hotspots, average species abundance and water stress, or water demand vs. supply.

NLCD provided the multistate coverage Exelon needed at a good resolution, explained Kevin Costello, Exelon’s senior manager of sustainability strategy. In addition, he said, NLCD “provides a broad representation of the physical and ecological characteristics of the landscapes that we work in and can provide more insight than just specific ecological data.”

Costello used wetlands as an example of why NLCD’s landscape distinctions are important. “While wetlands across our territory are providing ecological services, by layering multiple datasets together, we might be able to conclude that a wetland in an area of higher biological diversity is providing more ecological value than a wetland in an area of lower biological diversity.”

The baseline results ranked most areas of the land Exelon utilities pass through as having low to medium biodiversity sensitivity because of their use as metro areas or agricultural production. However, some areas in the Mid-Atlantic had high biodiversity sensitivity because of the presence of significant coastal and inland wetlands, forests, water stress, biodiversity hotpots and protected areas.

Opportunities to Improve Habitat 

With a baseline of ecological value, Exelon now can make better-informed decisions. 

“We’re able to strategically develop stewardship-based projects that could improve ecological quality in our service areas. Exelon performs multiple projects to expand and improve electric and gas service in our territories. While we are performing this work, we look for opportunities to improve the quality of the habitat above the state where we found it. We are leveraging our biodiversity maps to assist in these assessments,” Costello said.

“We’re also looking at things like, where do we have rights-of-way that are in between areas of very high biological quality habitat? Do we have a right-of-way that's connecting existing green spaces, for instance, a state or national park and a nearby land trust? If so, what can we do within that corridor to improve the quality of the habitat so that it helps connect those two ecosystems for the species that may be utilizing our land to migrate between them?”

NLCD and Landsat are tools to help companies consider the bigger picture for land management.

“Landsat can provide a significant value into our analysis on a large-scale assessment of our corporate lands from a stewardship and land management perspective,” Costello said.

Exelon’s intentions are an example of how NLCD and Landsat data are used to not just monitor but also improve the world around us.