The USGS, working in partnership with the interagency Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics (MRLC) Consortium, completed a new version of the National Land Cover Database (NLCD). NLCD 2006 is a land cover update for the conterminous United States and quantifies the amount of land cover and urban imperviousness change between 2001 and 2006. NLCD program focus now shifts from characterizing land cover to monitoring land cover change over time. Monitoring addresses the increasing need for land change information to support Federal, State, local, and non-governmental organizations’ efforts to assess the impacts of land change on water quality and availability, the spread of invasive species, habitats and biodiversity, carbon fluxes, climate variability and the development of land management policy across the United States. The NLCD 2011 version is scheduled for delivery in 2013, with future updates planned for delivery at five-year intervals. All NLCD information can be assessed at www.mrlc.gov
The National Land Cover Database (NLCD) land cover layer is one of several primary and supplementary layers in NLCD 2006. NLCD 2006 is the most recent 30-meter, seamless, wall-to-wall land cover database for the conterminous United States.
NLCD provides seamless, land cover information, including land cover change throughout time, for the conterminous U.S. for a wide variety of applications for Federal, State, local, and non-governmental organizations. This image demonstrates the detail of land cover change (magenta) in an area where forest harvest cycles dominate the changing landscape along a segment of the Columbia River near Longview, Washington.