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Completion of the 2006 National Land Cover Database Update for the Conterminous United States
Citation:
Fry, J. A., G. Xian, S. Jin, J. A. Dewitz, C. G. Homer, L. Yang, C. A. Barnes, N. D. Herold, AND J. D. WICKHAM. Completion of the 2006 National Land Cover Database Update for the Conterminous United States. PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING AND REMOTE SENSING. American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, Bethesda, MD, 77:858-864, (2012).
Impact/Purpose:
National Land Cover Database (NLCD) products provide a valuable tool to recognize and evaluate types of changes, their patterns, and potential consequences of changes in land cover, land use, and land condition throughout the United States. The NLCD 2006 products represent the first phase in a shift of emphasis from characterizing land cover to monitoring land cover change over time. A change in mapping interval from 10 years to 5 years has also been implemented to meet the needs of MRLC partners and the broader user community for more frequent updates to land cover information for the nation.
Description:
Under the organization of the Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics (MRLC) Consortium, the National Land Cover Database (NLCD) has been updated to characterize both land cover and land cover change from 2001 to 2006. An updated version of NLCD 2001 (Version 2.0) is also provided. These NLCD 2006 products represent the first time land cover change has been produced for the continental United States within a 5-year interval based on Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) at its native 30 m2 resolution. From ca. 2001 and ca. 2006 land cover remained unchanged for 98.32 percent of the continental United States. The majority of the 1.68 percent of the land cover change occurred in the southeastern United States. Deciduous forest, evergreen forest, mixed forest and hay/pasture had the largest net declines. Shrub/scrub and grassland classes had the largest net gains. There were also the expected net gains in developed classes. The NLCD 2006 mapping effort will be used as a foundation for the planned NLCD 2011 mapping effort.