Completion of the 2011 National Land Cover Database for the conterminous United States – Representing a decade of land cover change information

Abstract

The National Land Cover Database (NLCD) provides nationwide data on land cover and land cover change at the native 30-m spatial resolution of the Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM). The database is designed to provide five-year cyclical updating of United States land cover and associated changes. The recent release of NLCD 2011 products now represents a decade of consistently produced land cover and impervious surface for the Nation across three periods: 2001, 2006, and 2011 (Homer et al., 2007; Fry et al., 2011). Tree canopy cover has also been produced for 2011 (Coluston et al., 2012; Coluston et al., 2013). With the release of NLCD 2011, the database provides the ability to move beyond simple change detection to monitoring and trend assessments. NLCD 2011 represents the latest evolution of NLCD products, continuing its focus on consistency, production, efficiency, and product accuracy. NLCD products are designed for widespread application in biology, climate, education, land management, hydrology, environmental planning, risk and disease analysis, telecommunications and visualization, and are available for no cost at http://www.mrlc.gov. NLCD is produced by a Federal agency consortium called the Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics Consortium (MRLC) (Wickham et al., 2014). In the consortium arrangement, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) leads NLCD land cover and imperviousness production for the bulk of the Nation; the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) completes NLCD land cover for the conterminous U.S. (CONUS) coastal zones; and the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) designs and produces the NLCD tree canopy cover product. Other MRLC partners collaborate through resource or data contribution to ensure NLCD products meet their respective program needs (Wickham et al., 2014).