The New Annual (1985-2023) National Land Cover Database: Improving on a 30-Year Legacy

This video is a recording of a previous webinar entitled: “The New Annual (1985-2023) National Land Cover Database: Improving on a 30-year Legacy.” This webinar was recorded on October 24, 2024 at the USGS EROS.

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center maintains one of the largest civilian collection of images of the Earth’s land surface. At EROS we study land change and produce land change data products used by researchers, resource managers, and policy makers across the nation and around the world. The EROS User Services team provides assistance and outreach to help users in the data community access and work with data distributed from EROS. As part of the outreach effort, the EROS User Services team provides the EROS User Experience webinar series, where we talk to staff at EROS to learn more about the data, tools, and services provided by the USGS EROS. This webinar was part of that series.

The genesis of the National Land Cover Database (NLCD) began in the early 1990s, when a group of Federal agencies with a common need for Landsat data established the Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics (MRLC) Consortium. MRLC partners quickly identified the need for shared, consistent, national-scale land cover to support partner needs and initiated development of 1992 NLCD, the first Landsat-based, national-scale land cover product for the US. Since that first product, NLCD has been the gold standard for US land cover mapping and monitoring. Based on advances in cloud computing, improved sensor technologies, and AI-based algorithm development, USGS has now developed the next generation of the NLCD, with the October 2024 release of the new Annual NLCD 1.0. The new NLCD uses an ensemble of deep-learning based algorithms to map, monitor, and synthesize the complexities of land use, cover, and condition change through time, characterizing annual change from 1985 through 2023 for the conterminous United States. Annual NLCD includes a suite of six products: 

1. Land Cover
2. Land Cover Change
3. Land Cover Confidence
4. Fractional Impervious Surface
5. Impervious Descriptor
6. Spectral Change.

The newest iteration of NLCD provides a much longer historical record than past NLCD versions, while new cloud-based deep learning methodologies facilitate annual data updates and position USGS to continually improve NLCD products over time. As with past products, NLCD will continue to provide scientists, land managers, and decision makers with foundational, accurate and timely land cover and land change data for the Nation, feeding the countless government and private sector applications of NLCD including human health, natural hazards and safety, water quality, climate and weather, biodiversity, economic development, and risk management and mitigation. "The New Annual (1985-2023) National Land Cover Database: Improving on a 30-year Legacy.” webinar provided information on the history of NLCD, details on the new Annual NLCD release, plans for future datasets, and impacts NLCD data have had on science applications, land managers, and decision-makers.

Learn about the new Annual NLCD data

Access the data:

a.     MRLC website

b.     EarthExplorer

c.     Cloud S3 Bucket:

1. Mosaic products and metadata are located at:
   1. S3 URI s3://usgs-landcover/annual-nlcd/c1/v0/cu/mosaic/
2. Tile products and metadata are at:
   1. S3 URI s3://usgs-landcover/annual-nlcd/c1/v0/cu/tile/

Learn more about NLCD

Join the MRLC listserv to receive emails about future data releases. 

Join the EROS User Group and to sign up to be notified of future webinars in this series.