New York City Land Cover Classification from 2017 LiDAR

New York City land cover data provides an 8-class classification derived from 2017 LiDAR and 2016 orthoimagery, created for an urban tree canopy assessment. The dataset uses a 'top-down' mapping perspective where overhanging canopy is assigned to the Tree Canopy class, with vegetation below 8 feet classified as Grass/Shrub.

Use Cases

• Train a semantic segmentation model to classify 6-inch resolution raster pixels into the 8 land cover classes, including Tree Canopy and Buildings.
• Analyze the spatial distribution of impervious surfaces like Roads and Other Impervious to model urban heat island effects.
• Quantify urban green space by calculating the area and connectivity of Tree Canopy and Grass/Shrubs classes across city districts.
• Assess land cover change over time by comparing this 2017 classification with future or past datasets for classes like Bare Soil and Water.

Strengths

• High 6-inch spatial resolution enables detailed analysis of small urban features.
• Classification includes 8 distinct and relevant urban land cover classes.
• Derived from primary sources including 2017 LiDAR with 1-foot post spacing and 0.5-foot resolution orthoimagery.
• Integrated numerous authoritative vector GIS datasets from NYC agencies for classification accuracy.

Limitations

• The 'top-down' perspective may misrepresent ground-level land cover where Tree Canopy overhangs other features.
• Temporal mismatch exists between some source datasets (e.g., 2014 vector data used with 2017 LiDAR).
• Class definition for Tree Canopy excludes all vegetation under 8 feet, which may omit shorter trees or large shrubs.

Provenance

Source

City of New York, derived from NYC DoITT, NYC Parks, and ConEdison data.

Collection Method

Object-based image analysis (OBIA) automated using LiDAR point clouds, derivatives, orthoimagery, and vector GIS datasets.

Time Range

2017 (primary LiDAR capture), with supporting data from 2014-2018.

Freshness

Data represents conditions from 2017; metadata was last updated in 2023.

Geography

New York City, New York, USA.