Annual US Land Cover and Change Products from Landsat

Annual NLCD Land Cover Products provide four annual geospatial data layers for the United States: Land Cover, Land Cover Change, Land Cover Confidence, and Spectral Change Day of Year. The product suite is generated by the USGS Land Cover program using Landsat satellite data and modern geospatial deep learning. These products are designed to support scientists and resource managers in understanding land surface change.

Use Cases

• Analyze land cover change patterns over time using the annual Land Cover Change product.
• Assess mapping certainty for specific land cover classes using the Land Cover Confidence layer.
• Monitor the timing of surface changes by analyzing the Spectral Change Day of Year data.
• Train geospatial deep learning models for land cover classification using the annual Land Cover product as labeled data.

Strengths

• Includes four distinct, complementary annual data products for comprehensive land surface analysis.
• Generated by the authoritative USGS Land Cover program, ensuring methodological rigor.
• Covers the entire United States, including Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico.
• Utilizes the long-term Landsat data record for consistent historical and contemporary analysis.

Limitations

• Data is provided in XML format, which may require specialized geospatial tools for processing and analysis.
• Specific spatial resolution, temporal range, and validation metrics are not detailed in the provided input.
• The license is unspecified, which may create uncertainty for commercial or redistribution use cases.

Provenance

Source

U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Land Cover program.

Collection Method

Generated by combining established NLCD and LCMAP methodologies with modern geospatial deep learning, applied to Landsat satellite imagery.

Time Range

Annual coverage; specific start year not provided.

Freshness

Products are updated annually; metadata indicates a last updated date of 2026-01-07.

Geography

United States, including Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico.