Coastal Services Center

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Data Sources

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The national baseline of land cover and change data being produced by C-CAP provides information for two dates. C-CAP is currently working to develop trend analysis techniques that accommodate additional dates of land cover information. To add additional dates of land cover information for testing, C-CAP utilized historical Landsat imagery distributed through the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) EROS Data Center. These additional dates of land cover data were developed for a small study area in Charleston, South Carolina.

North American Landscape Characterization (NALC)

NALC is a cooperative effort of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the USGS, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The program provides co-registered sets of remotely sensed data from the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s for the purpose of studying environmental change.

The standard NALC product includes three eras of Landsat Multispectral Scanner (MSS) data and a digital elevation model (DEM). The MSS data are georeferenced and terrain-corrected. To make them more compatible with Landsat Thematic Mapper data, NALC has resampled the MSS pixel size from 80 by 80 meters to 60 by 60 meters. Typical data sets consist of 1972, 1986, and 1992 MSS. To support change detection, an additional Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) layer is included with the 1986 and 1992 scenes.

NALC data are distributed through the USGS EROS Data Center.

This graphic shows the standard land cover products developed by C-CAP and standard imagery datasets available through NALC for adding additional dates of land cover data.

Use the following links to learn more about Land Cover Trend Analysis:

Trend Analysis Home | Why Trend Analysis? | Data Sources