A satellite flying over this area northwest of Dallas, TX will capture a wide variety of urban and rural activity. The 80-odd square miles seen in the Landsat image on the left includes airports, dense urban centers, suburban and exurban neighborhoods, manufacturing and distribution centers, oil and gas production sites, lakes, forests, wetlands and more.
National Land Cover Database
Completed
By Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center
September 11, 2018
Annual NLCD Now Available!
EROS is central to the creation of the National Land Cover Database (NLCD) which stands as the definitive land cover database for the United States.
NOTE: This webpage refers to the Legacy National Land Cover Database (NLCD). Please visit Annual NLCD for the latest release.
Sources/Usage: Public Domain. View Media Details
Legacy NLCD includes map products characterizing land cover and land cover change across nine epochs from 2001 to 2021 (2001, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2011, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021) for the conterminous U.S. The 2021 suite of NLCD products follow the same protocols and procedures of the previously released NLCD epochs (2001-2019), are directly comparable to the 2019 release across the full time series, and are suitable for multi-temporal analysis. Science products and the change index, however, will need to be reacquired for the additional 2021 change information.
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) works closely with the Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics (MRLC) Consortium—a collaborative group of federal agencies—to produce the National Land Cover Database (NLCD) for the conterminous U.S. The MRLC, a consortium of federal agencies who coordinate and generate consistent and relevant land cover information at the national scale for a wide variety of environmental, land management, and modeling applications, have been providing the scientific community with detailed land cover products for more than 30 years. Over that time, NLCD has been one of the most widely used geospatial datasets in the U.S., serving as a basis for understanding the Nation’s landscapes in thousands of studies and applications, trusted by scientists, land managers, students, city planners, and many more as a definitive source of U.S. land cover.
Specific map products include:
- Land cover – Conterminous U.S. land cover at a 30-meter spatial resolution with a 16-class legend based on a modified Anderson Level II classification system
- Land cover change index – Provides a simple and comprehensive way to visualize change that occurred across all the NLCD epochs of land cover
- Urban imperviousness – Indicates urban impervious surfaces as a percentage of developed surface over every 30-meter pixel in the Conterminous U.S.
- Urban impervious descriptor – Classifies specific types of roads, wind tower sites, building locations, and energy production sites to allow a deeper analysis of developed features
- NLCD Science Products
- Land Cover Change Disturbance Date – Identifies the first land cover classification change event between any two adjacent target years across all NLCD epochs at the 30-meter pixel level
- Forest Disturbance Date – Identifies the most recent year of forest disturbance between the years 1984–2021
- Land Cover Change Count – Calculates an integer count total of any change recorded between two consecutive epochs
- Land Cover with additional Forest Transition Classes – Delineates spectrally stable grass and shrub areas from those that are transitional forest classes, which tend to be represented by forest harvest, burns, regrowth, and other disturbances
- U.S. Forest Service Science Tree Canopy Cover – The original, unmasked Tree Cover Canopy data produced by the U.S. Forest Service, an MRLC partner
For more information about Legacy NLCD visit the National Land Cover Database (NLCD) Products - ScienceBase-Catalog
Below are other science projects associated with this project.
Eyes on Earth Episode 54 – National Land Cover Database 2019
Eyes on Earth is a podcast on remote sensing, Earth observation, land change and science, brought to you by the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center. In this episode, we learn about the latest land cover release from EROS.
Eyes on Earth Episode 42 – Rangelands of the U.S.
Eyes on Earth is a podcast on remote sensing, Earth observation, land change and science, brought to you by the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center. In this episode, we hear how Landsat helps monitor vulnerable rangelands in the Western U.S.
LCMAP and NLCD: Complementary Data for Understanding the Geography of the United States
Land Change Monitoring, Assessment, and Projection (LCMAP) Collection 1 science products provide unprecedented monitoring of past changes occurring in land cover and condition across the conterminous U.S. over more than 30 years at an annual timestep.
Eyes on Earth Episode 3 - National Land Cover Database
Eyes on Earth is a podcast on remote sensing, Earth observation, land change and science, brought to you by the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center. In this episode, we talk about the National Land Cover Database.
Western U.S. Cheatgrass and Shrubland Monitoring
The USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center National Land Cover Database team in collaboration with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has produced the most comprehensive remote-sensing based quantification of western United States shrublands to date.
National Land Cover Database Visualization and Information Tool
The National Land Cover Database (NLCD) serves as the definitive Landsat-based, 30-meter resolution, land cover database for the Nation. NLCD supports a wide variety of Federal, State, local, and nongovernmental applications that seek to assess ecosystem status and health, understand the spatial patterns of biodiversity, predict effects of climate change, and develop land management policy. Howeve
Below are multimedia items associated with this project.
A satellite flying over this area northwest of Dallas, TX will capture a wide variety of urban and rural activity. The 80-odd square miles seen in the Landsat image on the left includes airports, dense urban centers, suburban and exurban neighborhoods, manufacturing and distribution centers, oil and gas production sites, lakes, forests, wetlands and more.
Eyes on Earth Episode 54 - National Land Cover Database 2019
The National Land Cover Database, or NLCD, was the first and remains the most well-known set of satellite-based land cover mapping products released by EROS. It sorts the each 30-by-30-meter plot of land in the United States into a land cover class, such as cropland, pasture, high-intensity developed, deciduous forest, and the like.
The National Land Cover Database, or NLCD, was the first and remains the most well-known set of satellite-based land cover mapping products released by EROS. It sorts the each 30-by-30-meter plot of land in the United States into a land cover class, such as cropland, pasture, high-intensity developed, deciduous forest, and the like.
Eyes on Earth Episode 42 – Rangelands of the U.S.
The extensive rangelands across the Western United States are threatened by invasive grasses, climate change, and altered fire regimes that can disturb the landscape. The largely semi-arid lands are also important for the survival of species that need undisturbed sagebrush ecosystems to thrive.
The extensive rangelands across the Western United States are threatened by invasive grasses, climate change, and altered fire regimes that can disturb the landscape. The largely semi-arid lands are also important for the survival of species that need undisturbed sagebrush ecosystems to thrive.
Eyes on Earth - Episode 3 - The National Land Cover Database
Sorting Landsat data into an accurate and reliable record of land cover in the United States is one of the most important jobs at EROS. This episode of Eyes on Earth explores the what, how, and why of the National Land Cover Database (NLCD).
Sorting Landsat data into an accurate and reliable record of land cover in the United States is one of the most important jobs at EROS. This episode of Eyes on Earth explores the what, how, and why of the National Land Cover Database (NLCD).
Below are news stories associated with the National Land Cover Database.
NLCD’s Path from Early Landscape Snapshot to Decades of Change
The widely used National Land Cover Database (NLCD) has long been the foundational land cover source for scientists, resource managers, and decision-makers across the United States, trusted for its accurate and unbiased data.
Here, we’re exploring the evolution of NLCD through its reinvention this year as Annual NLCD.
EROS is central to the creation of the National Land Cover Database (NLCD) which stands as the definitive land cover database for the United States.
NOTE: This webpage refers to the Legacy National Land Cover Database (NLCD). Please visit Annual NLCD for the latest release.
Sources/Usage: Public Domain. View Media Details
Legacy NLCD includes map products characterizing land cover and land cover change across nine epochs from 2001 to 2021 (2001, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2011, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021) for the conterminous U.S. The 2021 suite of NLCD products follow the same protocols and procedures of the previously released NLCD epochs (2001-2019), are directly comparable to the 2019 release across the full time series, and are suitable for multi-temporal analysis. Science products and the change index, however, will need to be reacquired for the additional 2021 change information.
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) works closely with the Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics (MRLC) Consortium—a collaborative group of federal agencies—to produce the National Land Cover Database (NLCD) for the conterminous U.S. The MRLC, a consortium of federal agencies who coordinate and generate consistent and relevant land cover information at the national scale for a wide variety of environmental, land management, and modeling applications, have been providing the scientific community with detailed land cover products for more than 30 years. Over that time, NLCD has been one of the most widely used geospatial datasets in the U.S., serving as a basis for understanding the Nation’s landscapes in thousands of studies and applications, trusted by scientists, land managers, students, city planners, and many more as a definitive source of U.S. land cover.
Specific map products include:
- Land cover – Conterminous U.S. land cover at a 30-meter spatial resolution with a 16-class legend based on a modified Anderson Level II classification system
- Land cover change index – Provides a simple and comprehensive way to visualize change that occurred across all the NLCD epochs of land cover
- Urban imperviousness – Indicates urban impervious surfaces as a percentage of developed surface over every 30-meter pixel in the Conterminous U.S.
- Urban impervious descriptor – Classifies specific types of roads, wind tower sites, building locations, and energy production sites to allow a deeper analysis of developed features
- NLCD Science Products
- Land Cover Change Disturbance Date – Identifies the first land cover classification change event between any two adjacent target years across all NLCD epochs at the 30-meter pixel level
- Forest Disturbance Date – Identifies the most recent year of forest disturbance between the years 1984–2021
- Land Cover Change Count – Calculates an integer count total of any change recorded between two consecutive epochs
- Land Cover with additional Forest Transition Classes – Delineates spectrally stable grass and shrub areas from those that are transitional forest classes, which tend to be represented by forest harvest, burns, regrowth, and other disturbances
- U.S. Forest Service Science Tree Canopy Cover – The original, unmasked Tree Cover Canopy data produced by the U.S. Forest Service, an MRLC partner
For more information about Legacy NLCD visit the National Land Cover Database (NLCD) Products - ScienceBase-Catalog
Below are other science projects associated with this project.
Eyes on Earth Episode 54 – National Land Cover Database 2019
Eyes on Earth is a podcast on remote sensing, Earth observation, land change and science, brought to you by the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center. In this episode, we learn about the latest land cover release from EROS.
Eyes on Earth Episode 42 – Rangelands of the U.S.
Eyes on Earth is a podcast on remote sensing, Earth observation, land change and science, brought to you by the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center. In this episode, we hear how Landsat helps monitor vulnerable rangelands in the Western U.S.
LCMAP and NLCD: Complementary Data for Understanding the Geography of the United States
Land Change Monitoring, Assessment, and Projection (LCMAP) Collection 1 science products provide unprecedented monitoring of past changes occurring in land cover and condition across the conterminous U.S. over more than 30 years at an annual timestep.
Eyes on Earth Episode 3 - National Land Cover Database
Eyes on Earth is a podcast on remote sensing, Earth observation, land change and science, brought to you by the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center. In this episode, we talk about the National Land Cover Database.
Western U.S. Cheatgrass and Shrubland Monitoring
The USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center National Land Cover Database team in collaboration with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has produced the most comprehensive remote-sensing based quantification of western United States shrublands to date.
National Land Cover Database Visualization and Information Tool
The National Land Cover Database (NLCD) serves as the definitive Landsat-based, 30-meter resolution, land cover database for the Nation. NLCD supports a wide variety of Federal, State, local, and nongovernmental applications that seek to assess ecosystem status and health, understand the spatial patterns of biodiversity, predict effects of climate change, and develop land management policy. Howeve
Below are multimedia items associated with this project.
Mapping Roadways at Landsat Scale
A satellite flying over this area northwest of Dallas, TX will capture a wide variety of urban and rural activity. The 80-odd square miles seen in the Landsat image on the left includes airports, dense urban centers, suburban and exurban neighborhoods, manufacturing and distribution centers, oil and gas production sites, lakes, forests, wetlands and more.
A satellite flying over this area northwest of Dallas, TX will capture a wide variety of urban and rural activity. The 80-odd square miles seen in the Landsat image on the left includes airports, dense urban centers, suburban and exurban neighborhoods, manufacturing and distribution centers, oil and gas production sites, lakes, forests, wetlands and more.
Eyes on Earth Episode 54 - National Land Cover Database 2019
The National Land Cover Database, or NLCD, was the first and remains the most well-known set of satellite-based land cover mapping products released by EROS. It sorts the each 30-by-30-meter plot of land in the United States into a land cover class, such as cropland, pasture, high-intensity developed, deciduous forest, and the like.
The National Land Cover Database, or NLCD, was the first and remains the most well-known set of satellite-based land cover mapping products released by EROS. It sorts the each 30-by-30-meter plot of land in the United States into a land cover class, such as cropland, pasture, high-intensity developed, deciduous forest, and the like.
Eyes on Earth Episode 42 – Rangelands of the U.S.
The extensive rangelands across the Western United States are threatened by invasive grasses, climate change, and altered fire regimes that can disturb the landscape. The largely semi-arid lands are also important for the survival of species that need undisturbed sagebrush ecosystems to thrive.
The extensive rangelands across the Western United States are threatened by invasive grasses, climate change, and altered fire regimes that can disturb the landscape. The largely semi-arid lands are also important for the survival of species that need undisturbed sagebrush ecosystems to thrive.
Eyes on Earth - Episode 3 - The National Land Cover Database
Sorting Landsat data into an accurate and reliable record of land cover in the United States is one of the most important jobs at EROS. This episode of Eyes on Earth explores the what, how, and why of the National Land Cover Database (NLCD).
Sorting Landsat data into an accurate and reliable record of land cover in the United States is one of the most important jobs at EROS. This episode of Eyes on Earth explores the what, how, and why of the National Land Cover Database (NLCD).
Below are news stories associated with the National Land Cover Database.
NLCD’s Path from Early Landscape Snapshot to Decades of Change
The widely used National Land Cover Database (NLCD) has long been the foundational land cover source for scientists, resource managers, and decision-makers across the United States, trusted for its accurate and unbiased data.
Here, we’re exploring the evolution of NLCD through its reinvention this year as Annual NLCD.