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100-Meter Resolution Land Cover of the United States |
What this map layer shows:
Twenty-one classes of land cover, such as deciduous and evergreen forests, shrubland, orchards, and cropland at a ground resolution of 100 meters. This map layer is comprised of four separate Land Cover files for the conterminous United States, Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Impervious Surface and Tree Canopy map layers generated from this one are also available.
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Background Information |
Sample Map
Land cover data describe the nature of the land surface at a particular
location. The staff at the U.S.
Geological Survey (USGS), National
Center for Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) compile land cover
data as part of the USGS
Land Cover Characterization Program (LCCP).
The LCCP was started in 1995 to address National and International requirements
for land cover data that were becoming increasingly sophisticated and
diverse. The program develops multi-scale land cover characteristics
databases; studies the patterns, characteristics, and dynamics of land
cover across the Nation and the Earth; pursues research that improves
the utility and efficiency of large-area land cover characterization
and land cover characteristics databases; and serves as a central facility
for access to, or information about, land cover data.
Land cover data are used for a wide variety of global, national, and
regional applications, including global change research, environmental
inventories, watershed management, and land use planning.
The USGS, in cooperation with the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency,
National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, and the U.S.
Forest Service, has produced a land cover data set for the conterminous
United States, derived from 2001 Landsat
thematic mapper imagery and supplemental
data. This National
Land Cover Database 2001 (NLCD) is a component of the
LCCP. The seamless NLCD contains 21 categories of land cover information
based on a modified
Anderson land cover classification, and has been
subjected to a rigorous accuracy assessment. Further information on
collection and accuracy assessment procedures can be found on the National
Land Cover Data: Mapping Procedures page.
The 100-Meter Resolution Land Cover of the United States
map layer is an image showing 21 classes of land cover, with an additional
class identifying non-U.S. land. Included are water, barren land, shrubland,
grasslands, developed land, forests, orchards, cropland, and wetlands.
Staff at EROS derived the map layer from the NLCD. Detailed information
on the classification scheme can be found on the NLCD
Land Cover Class Definitions page.
The National Map Small-Scale Collection also includes a 1 kilometer resolution image showing
general North American Land Cover Characteristics, with classification
based on the Anderson
classification scheme.
An outgrowth of our efforts with Canada and Mexico to make the Environmental Atlas of North America is the North American Land Change Monitoring System (NALCMS). The NALCMS offers land cover and land cover change data for this entire continent.
The 100-Meter Resolution Land Cover of the United States map layer is delivered in the Albers Equal-Area Conic map projection. This map layer is part of The National Map Small-Scale Collection of fundamental digital cartographic data and includes base map data in vector format at 1:1,000,000-scale and an image format at 100-meter ground resolution.
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