Land Use Land Cover Modeling
News
New Land Cover Maps Depict 15 Years of Change across America
Today, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) released the latest edition of the National Land Cover Database (NLCD) for the U.S. – the most comprehensive land cover database that the USGS has ever produced. The NLCD 2016 documents land cover change in the Lower 48 states from 2001 to 2016. During this 15-year period, 7.6 percent of the conterminous U.S. changed land cover at least once.
USGS Accurately Projects Impacts of Transforming Agricultural Landscapes
When a forest gives way to a potato field, when landscapes once teeming with wheat and barley disappear into seas of switchgrass, there are always implications.
Environmental implications. Economic ones. Land use change can affect local climate. It can alter biodiversity, even the quality of groundwater. Any number of new realities emerge when land—especially that used for agriculture—...