For more information on the reference data set, see the LCMAP reference data page.
Land use and land cover attributes were assigned to 26,971 randomly-selected reference samples (30m x 30m) by trained interpreters across CONUS for each year of the time series (1984–2021). The interpreted attributes were crosswalked to the LCMAP annual land cover classes: Developed, Cropland, Grass/Shrub, Tree Cover, Wetland, Water, Ice/Snow and Barren.
The validation analysis directly compared reference data labels with annual LCMAP land cover map attributes by cross tabulation. The results of that assessment are reported as confusion matrices for land cover agreement and land cover change agreement. Overall, CONUS land cover agreement across all years was found to be 82.5% for Collection 1.0, 82.6% for Collection 1.1, 82.6% for Collection 1.2, and 82.5% for Collection 1.3. Annual and regional accuracies are also reported.
Product Contents
Validation Tables
- Portable Document Format (PDF) file containing validation tables
- Extensible markup language (xml) file containing validation tables metadata
Validation Data
- Zip file containing.csv files of data used to create the validation tables
- Extensible markup language (xml) file containing validation data metadata
Data Access
The Validation Tables and Validation Data are available through the USGS Science Data Catalog.
Collection 1.3
Collection 1.2
Collection 1.1
Collection 1.0
Reference data
Citation Information
Collection 1.3
Pengra, B.W., Stehman, S.V., Horton, J.A., and Wellington, D.F., 2023, Land Change Monitoring, Assessment, and Projection (LCMAP) Collection 1.3 Annual Land Cover and Land Cover Change Validation Tables (1985–2021) for the Conterminous United States: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9AQYZE0.
Collection 1.2
Pengra, B.W., Stehman, S.V., Horton, J.A., and Wellington, D.F., 2021, Land Change Monitoring, Assessment, and Projection (LCMAP) Collection 1.2 Annual Land Cover and Land Cover Change Validation Tables (1985–2018) for the Conterminous United States: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9M6T45Z.
Collection 1.1
Pengra, B.W., Stehman, S.V., Horton, J.A., and Wellington, D.F., 2021, Land Change Monitoring, Assessment, and Projection (LCMAP) Collection 1.1 Annual Land Cover and Land Cover Change Validation Tables (1985–2018) for the Conterminous United States: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9MLPFOH.
Collection 1.0
Pengra, B.W., Stehman, S.V., Horton, J.A., and Wellington, D.F., 2020, Land Change Monitoring, Assessment, and Projection (LCMAP) Version 1.0 Annual Land Cover and Land Cover Change Validation Tables: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P98EC5XR.
References
Card, D.H., 1982, Using Known Map Category Marginal Frequencies to Improve Estimates of Thematic Map Accuracy. Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing, 48.
Pengra, B.W., Stehman, S.V., Horton, J.A., Dockter, D.J., Schroeder, T.A., Yang, Z., Hernandez, A.J., Healey, S.P., Cohen, W.B., Finco, M.V., Gay, C., and Houseman, I.W., 2020, LCMAP Reference Data Product 1984-2018 land cover, land use and change process attributes: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9ZWOXJ7.
Stehman, S.V., 1997, Estimating Standard Errors of Accuracy Assessment Statistics Under Cluster Sampling. Remote Sensing of Environment, 60, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0034-4257(96)00176-9.
