The USGS, working in partnership with the Federal interagency Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics (MRLC) Consortium, is developing the National Land Cover Database (NLCD) 2016. NLCD serves as the definitive Landsat-based, 30-m pixel resolution, land cover database for the Nation. NLCD 2016 will feature new products of labeled land cover and fractional cover products of urban imperviousness, tree canopy, shrub canopy, grass canopy, and bare ground. In addition, previous NLCD labeled land cover releases from 2001, 2006, and 2011 will be re-harmonized with NLCD 2016 to ensure all products are spatially coherent and consistent among all four epochs for accurate capture of land cover change across time. NLCD 2016 will represent the most accurate and detailed NLCD products ever delivered. NLCD data are being used in a wide variety of applications including; hazard mitigation, resource management, and human safety applications. A recent literature search discovered hundreds of scientific journal articles that cite the use of the previous NLCD data.
For more information on NLCD and to download NLCD data, including shrub and grassland products, visit http://www.mrlc.gov/.
Overall Design of NLCD 2016.