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Spatial Extent of Data

USGS Data Source

ISO 19115 Topic Category

imageryBaseMapsEarthCover

Other Subject Keywords

US, United States, NLCD, Land cover, Accuracy assessment, Land cover change, U.S., Reference data quality

Place Keywords

United States

National Land Cover Database (NLCD) 2019 Accuracy Assessment Points Conterminous United States

The National Land Cover Database (NLCD), a product suite produced through the Multi-resolution Land Characteristics (MRLC) consortium, is an operational land cover monitoring program. The release of NLCD2019 extends the database to 18 years. We collected land cover reference data for the 2016 and 2019 components of the NLCD2019 database at Level II and Level I of the classification hierarchy. For both dates, Level II land cover overall accuracies (OA) were 77.5% ± 1% (± value is the standard error) when agreement was defined as a match between the map label and primary reference label only and increased to 87.1% ± 0.7% when agreement was defined as a match between the map label and either the primary or alternate reference label. At Level I of the classification hierarchy, land cover OA was 83.1% ± 0.9% for both 2016 and 2019 when agreement was defined as a match between the map label and primary reference label only and increased to 90.3% ± 0.7% when agreement also included the alternate reference label. The Level II and Level I OA for the 2016 land cover in the NLCD2019 database were 5% higher compared to the 2016 land cover component of the NLCD2016 database when agreement was defined as a match between the map label and primary reference label only. No improvement was realized by the NLCD2019 database when agreement also included the alternate reference label. User’s accuracies (UA) for forest loss and grass gain were 70% when agreement included either the primary or alternate label, and UA was generally 50% for all other change themes. Producer’s accuracies (PA) were 70% for grass loss and gain and water gain and generally 50% for the other change themes.

Get Data and Metadata
Author(s) Jon Dewitz orcid
Publication Date 2023-03-01
Beginning Date of Data 2019
Ending Date of Data 2019
Data Contact
U.S. Geological Survey
DOI https://doi.org/10.5066/P9KZCM54
Citation Dewitz, J., 2023, National Land Cover Database (NLCD) 2019 Accuracy Assessment Points Conterminous United States: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9KZCM54.
Metadata Contact
U.S. Geological Survey
Metadata Date 2024-11-25
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Harvest Source: ScienceBase
Harvest Date: 2024-11-26T04:54:25.012Z