Zone 20 (covering parts of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and
Wyoming) of the contiguous U.S. land cover dataset, NLCD
2006, released 2/16/2011. The full dataset is divided into
25 zones, which can all be found in the
NLCD
2006 gallery.
The National Land Cover Database products are created through a
cooperative project conducted by the Multi-Resolution Land
Characteristics (MRLC) Consortium. The MRLC Consortium is a
partnership of federal agencies (www.mrlc.gov), consisting of the U.S.
Geological Survey (USGS), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA),
the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the U.S. Forest Service
(USFS), the National Park Service (NPS), the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service (FWS), the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the USDA
Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). Previously, NLCD
consisted of three major data releases based on a 10-year cycle.
These include a circa 1992 conterminous U.S. land cover dataset
with one thematic layer (NLCD 1992), a circa 2001 50-state/Puerto Rico
updated U.S. land cover database (NLCD 2001) with three layers
including thematic land cover, percent imperviousness, and percent
tree canopy, and a 1992/2001 Land Cover Change Retrofit Product.
With these national data layers, there is often a 5-year time
lag between the image capture date and product release. In some
areas, the land cover can undergo significant change during production
time, resulting in products that may be perpetually out of date.
To address these issues, this circa 2006 NLCD land cover product
(NLCD 2006) was conceived to meet user community needs for more
frequent land cover monitoring (moving to a 5-year cycle) and to
reduce the production time between image capture and product release.
NLCD 2006 is designed to provide the user both updated land
cover data and additional information that can be used to identify the
pattern, nature, and magnitude of changes occurring between 2001 and
2006 for the conterminous United States at medium spatial resolution.
For NLCD 2006, there are 3 primary data products: 1) NLCD
2006 Land Cover map; 2) NLCD 2001/2006 Change Pixels labeled with the
2006 land cover class; and 3) NLCD 2006 Percent Developed
Imperviousness. Four additional data products were developed to
provide supporting documentation and to provide information for land
cover change analysis tasks: 4) NLCD 2001/2006 Percent Developed
Imperviousness Change; 5) NLCD 2001/2006 Maximum Potential Change
derived from the raw spectral change analysis; 6) NLCD 2001/2006
From-To Change pixels; and 7) NLCD 2006 Path/Row Index vector file
showing the footprint of Landsat scene pairs used to derive 2001/2006
spectral change with change pair acquisition dates and scene
identification numbers included in the attribute table.
In addition to the 2006 data products listed in the paragraph
above, two of the original release NLCD 2001 data products have been
revised and reissued. Generation of NLCD 2006 data products
helped to identify some update issues in the NLCD 2001 land cover and
percent developed imperviousness data products. These issues
were evaluated and corrected, necessitating a reissue of NLCD 2001
data products (NLCD 2001 Version 2.0) as part of the NLCD 2006
release. A majority of NLCD 2001 updates occur in coastal
mapping zones where NLCD 2001 was published prior to the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Coastal Change Analysis
Program (C-CAP) 2001 land cover products. NOAA C-CAP 2001 land
cover has now been seamlessly integrated with NLCD 2001 land cover for
all coastal zones. NLCD 2001 percent developed imperviousness
was also updated as part of this process.
Land cover maps, derivatives and all associated documents are
considered "provisional" until a formal accuracy assessment
can be conducted. The NLCD 2006 is created on a path/row basis
and mosaicked to create a seamless national product. Questions
about the NLCD 2006 land cover product can be directed to the NLCD
2006 land cover mapping team at the USGS/EROS, Sioux Falls, SD (605)
594-6151 or mrlc@usgs.gov.