Version 2.3 Land Cover
Version 2.3 is the latest version of the Changing Landscape series which is a time series of satellite-derived, 12 class, 30 meter pixels land cover datasets. All previous dates received minor modifications (1985, 1990, 1995, 2002, 2006, 2010) and a new date, 2015, was added.
Classes
Land Cover Classes
| Class |
Class |
Description |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Developed | High-density built-up areas typically associated with commercial, industrial and residential activities and transportation routes. These areas can be expected to contain a significant amount of impervious surfaces, roofs, roads, and other concrete and asphalt surfaces. | |
| 2 | Turf & Grass | A compound category of undifferentiated maintained grasses associated mostly with developed areas. This class contains cultivated lawns typical of residential neighborhoods, parks, cemeteries, golf courses, turf farms, and other maintained grassy areas. Also includes some agricultural fields due to similar spectral reflectance properties. | |
| 3 | Other Grasses | Includes non-maintained grassy areas commonly found along transportation routes and other developed areas, and within and surrounding airport properties. Also likely to include forested clear-cut areas, and some abandoned agricultural areas that appear to be undergoing conversion to woody scrub and shrub cover. | |
| 4 | Agricultural Field | Includes areas that are under agricultural uses such as crop production and/or active pasture. Also likely to include some abandoned agricultural areas that have not undergone conversion to woody vegetation. | |
| 5 | Deciduous Forest | Includes southern New England mixed hardwood forests. Also includes scrub areas characterized by patches of dense woody vegetation. May include isolated low density residential areas. | |
| 6 | Coniferous Forest | Includes southern New England mixed softwood forests. May include isolated low density residential areas. | |
| 7 | Water | Open water bodies and watercourses with relatively deep water. | |
| 8 | Non-forested Wetland | Includes areas that predominately are wet throughout most of the year and that have a detectable vegetative cover (therefore not open water). Also includes some small water courses due to spectral characteristics of mixed pixels that include both water and vegetation. | |
| 9 | Forested Wetland | Includes areas depicted as wetland, but with forested cover. Also includes some small water courses due to spectral characteristics of mixed pixels that include both water and vegetation. | |
| 10 | Tidal Wetland | Emergent wetlands, wet throughout most of the year, with distinctive marsh vegetation and located in areas influenced by tidal change. | |
| 11 | Barren | Mostly non-agricultural areas free from vegetation, such as sand, sand and gravel operations, bare exposed rock, mines, and quarries. Also includes some urban areas where the composition of construction materials spectrally resembles more natural materials. Also includes some bare soil agricultural fields. | |
| 12 | Utility Rights-of-way (Forest) | Includes utility rights-of-way. This category was manually digitized on-screen from rights-of-way visible in the Landsat satellite imagery. The class was digitized within the deciduous and coniferous categories only. |
Change To Classes
Change To Classes
| Developed before 1985 | |
| Turf & Grass before 1985 | |
| Water | |
| Undeveloped | |
| Change to Developed between 1985 and 2015 | |
| Change to Turf & Grass between 1985 and 2015 | |
| Other |
Change From Classes
Change From Classes
| Developed before 1985 | |
| Turf & Grass before 1985 | |
| Water | |
| Undeveloped | |
| Agricultural Field to Developed between 1985 and 2015 | |
| Agricultural Field to Turf & Grass between 1985 and 2015 | |
| Forest* to Developed between 1985 and 2015 | |
| Forest* to Turf & Grass between 1985 and 2015 | |
| Other Classes to Developed between 1985 and 2015 | |
| Other Classes to Turf & Grass between 1985 and 2015 | |
| Other |
| *Forest | Combination of Deciduous Forest, Coniferous Forest, Forested Wetland and Utility Right-of-way. The Right-of-way class was created by hand digitizing through forest areas only. Therefore, it is appropriate to lump these linear areas with forest for the 8-class series. |
Forest Fragmentation Classes
The forest fragmentation tool classifies forests in four general categories:
| Class | Class Name | Class Description | ||
| 1 | Patch Forest | small isolated fragments of forest that are surrounded by non-forest features and completely degraded by "edge effects" | ||
| 2 | Edge Forest | forest pixels along the exterior perimeter of a forest that are degraded by "edge effects" (for example the forest immediately along a major highway or large agricultural field) | ||
| 3 | Perforated Forest | forest pixels along the edge of an interior gap in a forest that are degraded by "edge effects" (for example the forest immediately surrounding a small house lot in the middle of the forest) | ||
| Core Forest | forest pixels that are not degraded by "edge effects" and are relatively far from the forest-nonforest boundary. The Landscape Fragmentation Tool further divides these by size. | |||
| 4 | Small core | smaller than 250 acres | ||
| 5 | Medium core | between 250 and 500 acres | ||
| 6 | Large core | larger than 500 acres |
Edge effects are abrupt changes in vegetative populations or community structures found at the boundary of two or more different habitats.
NOTE. Core forest sub-categories used in this analysis are based on scientific literature and suggest general thresholds for minimum viable forest patch sizes. The relationship between how viable a forest patch is and patch size is dependent on the species of interest.
Impervious Surface Estimate by Basin Classes
The layer shows impervious surface estimates created by applying coefficients to the land cover classes. The analysis was performed for each date of land cover using HUC 12 watersheds.
| Percent of Impervious Surface | |
| 1-5% | |
| 6-10% | |
| 11-15% | |
| 16-20% | |
| 21-25% | |
| 26-29% |
Percent Impervious Change by Basin
| Percent of Impervious Surface Change | |
| 0.1 - 0.5% | |
| 0.6 - 1.0% | |
| 1.1 - 1.5% | |
| 1.6 - 3.0% | |
| 3.1 - 5.0% | |
| 5.1 - 10.7% |
Metadata
The FGDC (Federal Geographic Data Committee) has a standard form for reporting metadata, or information about data. Visit the FGDC-compliant metadata for:
| 1985 Land Cover | 1990 Land Cover | 1995 Land Cover |
| 2002 Land Cover | 2006 Land Cover | 2010 Land Cover |
| 2015 Land Cover | ||
| Accuracy Assessment (CLEAR website) |