Data
Use the interface below to filter and download available NLCD products. Click (here) for NLCD Science Research Products which offer more comprehensive delineation of shrub and grass classes and information about change disturbance. For access to dynamic MRLC viewer applications and tools, click (here).
Dataset Type
Region
Time Period
Land Cover
The National Land Cover Database (NLCD) provides nationwide data on land cover and land cover change at a 30m resolution with a 16-class legend based on a modified Anderson Level II classification system. NLCD 2019 represents the latest evolution of NLCD land cover products focused on providing innovative land cover and land cover change data for the Nation. NLCD 2019 offers 8 integrated epochs of land cover for years 2001, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2011, 2013, 2016, and 2019. Developed classes in these years are directly derived from percent developed impervious surface and include a descriptor label that identifies the type of each impervious surface pixel. The NLCD Land Cover change index combines information from all years of land cover change and provides a simple and comprehensive way to visualize change from all 8 dates of land cover in a single layer. The change index was designed to assist NLCD users to understand complex land cover change with a single product. NLCD 2019 does not yet contain updated products for Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. (Read More)
Urban Imperviousness
NLCD imperviousness products represent urban impervious surfaces as a percentage of developed surface over every 30-meter pixel in the United States. NLCD 2019 updates all previously released versions of impervious products for CONUS and provides integrated analysis for all Land Cover dates. It also includes a matching impervious surface descriptor layer. This descriptor layer identifies types of roads, wind tower sites, building locations, and energy production sites to allow a deeper analysis of developed features. No new imperviousness products for Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico are available from NLCD 2019. (Read More)
Exotic Annual Grass
The Exotic Annual Grass (EAG) abundance dataset provides early season percent cover estimate of the exotic grass species in 30m spatial resolution for a mapped year in rangeland ecosystems of western United States. We plan to release these EAG estimates multiple times each year in early growing season. EAG is a continuous field consisting of abundance of non-native grass species whose life history is complete in one growing season. Cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum) is a dominant species, but this dataset also includes Bromus arvensis L., Bromus briziformis Fisch. & C.A. Mey. Bromus catharticus Vahl, Bromus commutatus Schrad, Bromus diandrus Roth, Bromus hordeaceus L., Bromus hordeaceus spp. Hordeaceus, Bromus japonicus Thunb, Bromus madritensis L., Bromus madritensis L. ssp. rubens (L.) Duvin, Bromus racemosus L., Bromus rubens L., Bromus secalinus L., Bromus texensis (Shear) Hitchc, and medusahead (Taeniatherum caput-medusae (L.) Nevski). A main objective of releasing these maps is to provide a tool for better monitoring EAG dynamics and informing conservation and management efforts at local to regional scales. (Read More)
Tree Canopy
NLCD tree canopy cover is a 30 m raster geospatial dataset that is available for the conterminous United States, coastal Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico. These data contain percent tree canopy estimates, as a continuous variable, for each pixel across all land covers and types and are generated by the United States Forest Service (USFS). The USFS derives tree canopy cover from multi-spectral Landsat imagery and other available ground and ancillary information. 2011 and 2016 Forest canopy products are available for the Continental United States, coastal Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico. (Read More)
RCMAP – Basemap (2016)
RCMAP base component products characterize the percentage of each 30-meter pixel in the Western United States covered by shrub, herbaceous, bare ground, litter, sagebrush, big sagebrush and annual herbaceous, along with estimating shrub height and sagebrush height. These products have been produced by USGS in collaboration with the Bureau of Land Management. Component products are designed to be used individually or combined to support a broad variety of applications. Please note these new Revised (071520) rangeland products will differ from the first generation of circa 2016 fractional cover maps, a more aggressive masking of tree canopy cover was applied to each rangeland component. Specifically, we have lowered the tree canopy cover threshold for exclusion from 40 to 25%. For pixels with 1-25% tree canopy cover we ensured that our primary components (shrub, herbaceous, litter, and bare ground) cover summed to 100% when added with the tree canopy. And, for the secondary components (sagebrush, big sagebrush, sagebrush height and shrub height) we reconciled to the primary component (shrub), excluding any pinyon-juniper woodlands. (Read More)
RCMAP - Time-Series - Trends
Currently available trends statistics are for the 1985-2021 time-series. The RCMAP product suite consists of nine fractional components: annual herbaceous, bare ground, herbaceous, litter, non-sagebrush shrub, perennial herbaceous, tree, sagebrush and shrub, rule-based error maps, and the temporal trends of each. Data characterize the percentage of each 30-meter pixel in the Western United States covered by each component for each year from 1985-2021 - providing change information for 35 years (imagery for 2012 was unavailable). Because of file size limitations, individual component products are packaged in three historic intervals including 1985-1995, 1996-2006, and 2007-2021. Trend analysis for each component is also available as a zip file for the full 1985-2021 period to help users understand the magnitude of change. (Read More)
RCMAP - Future Projections - 2020s, 2050s, and 2080s
RCMAP projected cover products characterize the fractional (i.e. percentage) cover of shrub, herbaceous, bare ground, litter, sagebrush, and annual herbaceous in each 30-meter pixel in the Western United States. Projected data include three time periods (2020s, 2050s, and 2080s) and two climate scenarios (Representative Concentration Pathways [RCP] 4.5 and 8.5). Component cover were harmonized so that the sum of bare ground, shrub, herbaceous, and litter cover adds to ~100% and secondary components sagebrush and annual herbaceous cover were harmonized to their respective primary components of shrub and herbaceous cover, (so their cover could not be greater than their primary component). These products have been produced by USGS in collaboration with the Bureau of Land Management. Component products are designed to be used individually or combined to support a broad variety of applications. Data are packaged by time-period and climate scenarios (six). Please note that some suspect increases in sagebrush cover are projected in the Southern Great Basin and Southern Colorado Plateau, which we interpret as model error. We have developed a mask (see below) to apply to the future sagebrush cover layers. Masked areas meet three criteria: 1) they are within the sagebrush biome (Jeffries and Finn 2019), 2) within the following EPA level 3 ecoregions: Arizona/New Mexico Mountains, Arizona/New Mexico Plateau (excluding the San Luis Valley from the mask), Colorado Plateaus (excluding the Uinta Basin from the mask), Mojave Basin and Range, and Sonoran Basin and Range, and 3) have a maximum of 0% sagebrush cover observed over the 1985-2020 RCMAP time-series. (Read More)
RCMAP - Time-Series - Cover
V5 RCMAP Factsheet.pdf2.14 MBThe RCMAP product suite includes nine fractional components: annual herbaceous, bare ground, herbaceous, litter, non-sagebrush shrub, perennial herbaceous, sagebrush, shrub, and tree and the temporal trends of each component. Data characterize the percentage of each 30-meter pixel in the Western United States covered by each component for each year from 1985-2021 - providing change information for 37 years. Because of file size limitations, individual years of component cover data are packaged in three time intervals including 1985-1995, 1996-2006, and 2007-2021. (Read More)
Ecological Potential
Rangeland Ecological Potential - Component Cover, Cover Departure, and Vegetation States. Ecological Potential rangeland fractional cover data products represent the potential cover given the most productive, least disturbed, portion of the 1985-2020 Landsat archive. Models used to predict Ecological Potential cover were trained on ecologically intact sites where annual herbaceous cover is low, no known disturbance or land treatment has occurred over the study period, and bare ground cover is relatively lower than expectations (Read More)
