National Land Cover Dataset 2001(NLCD) Contents: Description Specifications Format Information Download Information

NLCD 2001 subset image (Louisville,KY)

Description

The USGS National Land Cover Characterization 2001 project is compiled of land cover data (NLCD 2001) across all 50 states and Puerto Rico using Landsat 5 and 7 data. NLCD 2001 is a cooperative effort involving several Federal agencies: USGS, EPA, USFS, and NOAA. The key component of this land-cover mapping effort is a database approach, which provides flexibility in developing and applying suites of independent data layers. These independent standardized data layers or themes, will be useful not only within the land-cover classification but as data components for other applications.

Three derivative layers including, imperviousness, canopy, and land cover were classified from the database and are products offered. To view availability on The National Map Seamless Server, got to the interactive map, open Layer Extent from the Display list. Check one of the NLCD 2001 indexes.

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Specifications

National Land Cover Data (NLCD) 2001
Resolution	1 arc-second (approx. 30m) - Conterminous U.S.
Projection	Albers Equal Area Conic
Horizontal Datum	NAD83

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Format Information

ArcGrid is an Arc/Info proprietary format. Some other software packages can read the ArcGrid format. Customers who specify ArcGrid will be delivered a workspace. The workspace is not tarred or gzipped.

BIL is a non-proprietary format made by running the GRIDIMAGE command in Arc. The data is a simple binary raster format (signed integer data). There is an accompanying ASCII header file that provides file size information (number of rows and columns). The data are stored in row major order (all the data for row 1, followed by all the data for row 2, etc.).

TIFF with world file for NLCD is a non-proprietary format.

It is essentially a floating-point binary data file with accompanying ASCII descriptor files including a world file containing geographic extents for the file.

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Download Information

National Landcover Characterization Dataset (NLCD) 2001
Delivery Options	Cost	Format	Availability
Free Download in 250 MB increments	No Charge	ArcGrid , Bil*, TIFF with world file	Conterminous US

* Bil is a binary integer point format

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