Land Use/Land Cover (LULC)
Overview | Getting LULC Data | Documentation and Links
Overview
Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) data consists of historical land use and land cover classification data that was based primarily on the manual interpretation of 1970's and 1980's aerial photography. Secondary sources included land use maps and surveys. There are 21 possible categories of cover type. Along with the LULC files, associated maps are included which provide additional information on political units, hydrologic units, census county subdivisions, and Federal and State land ownership.
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) provides these data sets and associated maps as a part of its National Mapping
Program. LULC data is organized into 1:250,000 quadrangle tiles (in some cases, such as Hawaii, 1:100,000 scale maps are also used). See the USGS Land Use and Land Cover Data Guide for more information (including classification scheme).
Getting LULC Data
Arc/Info format
North Carolina LULC data is available in Arc/Info format on the campus network. This data was converted from GIRAS to Arc/Info format by the EPA (see metadata). The North Carolina data is the following locations:
Geodata Location: /lulc/
Filename: coverages are named by 1:250k quad Size: varies
For assistance in determining which quads to use see the North Carolina 1:250k quad map or load the CGIA 1:250k quad data layer from the campus network.
Shapefile format
LULC data is available and downloadable from the EPA in shapefile format (organized by river subbasin) as part of the BASINS Core data set. See the BASINS page for more information.
GIRAS and CTD formats
The "raw" LULC data is available by FTP from the USGS at: http://edcwww.cr.usgs.gov/products/landcover/lulc.html The data is available in Geographic Information Retrieval and Analysis System (GIRAS) and Composite Theme Grid (CTG) formats.
Documentation and Links
USGS Land Use and Land Cover Data Guide
EPA LULC metadata
USGS LULC FTP site (GIRAS and CTG formats)
USGS LULC Metadata
Go to the GIS Data List Page
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