NAFD-ATT: Forest Canopy Loss Causes in CONUS, 1986-2010

North American Forest Dynamics (NAFD) products map the primary cause of forest canopy cover loss across the conterminous United States from 1986 to 2010. The dataset contains four raster layers derived from Landsat imagery, classifying change events such as fire, removals, stress, wind, and conversion. It also includes layers for event year and model confidence metrics, depicting the greatest magnitude disturbance per pixel over the 25-year period.

Use Cases

• Mapping historical fire disturbance footprints based on the classified change event layer.
• Analyzing temporal trends in deforestation (conversion) across CONUS using the event year layer.
• Assessing model prediction reliability for canopy loss using the provided dominance and diversity confidence layers.
• Studying the spatial distribution of forest stress agents like drought or pests.

Strengths

• Provides a 25-year time series (1986-2010) of forest canopy change for the entire conterminous United States.
• Classifies specific disturbance causes (fire, wind, conversion) rather than just detecting change.
• Includes qualitative confidence metrics (dominance, diversity) for model predictions.

Limitations

• Metadata completeness is low: column names, row counts, and specific file sizes are unknown across all platforms.
• Conflicting 'last updated' dates exist between sources (2010 on NASA Earthdata vs. 2026 on Data.gov), suggesting potential metadata inconsistency.
• The dataset depicts only the greatest magnitude event per pixel, potentially omitting smaller or overlapping disturbances.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Collection Method

Derived from Landsat satellite imagery and predictive modeling.

Time Range

1986-2010

Freshness

2026-04-10 00:01:16.644016

Geography

Conterminous United States (CONUS)