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Potentially Undisturbed Land Cover of the Conterminous US: Grass, Shrub, and Bare Ground [U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service]

U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service · 2025 Full Details

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Full Details

Title
Potentially Undisturbed Land Cover of the Conterminous US: Grass, Shrub, and Bare Ground [U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service]
Description
We used GIS processing and supervised land cover classification to develop a spatial model that predicts undisturbed grass, shrub, and bare ground cover. We used a proprietary spatial time-series dataset from USDA called the Common Land Unit dataset to identify lands with a past cropping history; we erased these lands from a polygon representing the contiguous US, resulting in a layer representing the boundaries of potentially undisturbed lands. While the temporal resolution of the Common Land Unit dataset can date back to the 1950s in some regions, knowledge of cropping history is incomplete. To further refine this layer we conducted supervised land cover classification to predict seven cover classes using random forest models. Training data were derived from several data sources. Class labels for training the model were derived from the potentially undisturbed lands layer and other proprietary data from USDA; these include, spatial delineations of restored grasslands enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program, and class labels from 2017 National Resource Inventory, which is a long-term dataset used to monitor land cover change that contains sample points across the US with associated cover class labels derived from interpreted aerial imagery. We related these data to Sentinel-2 remote sensing derived indices from 2018-2021. Given the temporal mismatch between class labels and predictor data, we used a consensus approach to filter class labels, retaining only those that agreed with other more current land cover datasets, such as 2019 National Land Cover Dataset, 2020 ESA WorldCover, and 2021 Cropland Data Layer. Ultimately, the model was trained to predict the following land cover classes at a 90 m resolution: bare ground, developed, crop, open water, forest, shrub, restored grass, and potentially undisturbed grass. Class labels were related to predictor data that included a suite of indices from Sentinel-2 remote sensing mission, topographic data from GeoMorpho90m, soils data from SoilsGrids 250, and bioclimatic data from AdaptWest 30 year climate normals. Models were trained for each of 20 Major Land Resource Areas across the US and spatial model applications were mosaiced together. The final model was reclassified by land cover values and the potentially undisturbed lands layer; it contains the following cover classes within the potentially undisturbed lands layer: bare ground (value 1), grass with a spectral signature similar to restored grass (value 2), grass with a spectral signature similar to potentially undisturbed grass (value 3), and shrub (value 4). All disturbed lands (despite the predicted cover class) and all other cover classes were given the value zero
Creator
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
Temporal Coverage
Last Modified: 2025-03-07
Date Issued
2025-03-07
Rights
United States Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) shall not be held liable for improper or incorrect use of the data described and/or contained herein. While the Service makes every reasonable effort to ensure the accuracy and completeness of data provided for distribution, it may not have the necessary accuracy or completeness required for every possible intended use. The Service recommends that data users consult the associated metadata record to understand the quality and possible limitations of the data. The Service creates metadata records in accordance with the standards endorsed by the Federal Geographic Data Committee. As a result of the above considerations, the Service gives no warranty, expressed or implied, as to the accuracy, reliability, or completeness of the data. It is the responsibility of the data user to use the data in a manner consistent with the limitations of geospatial data in general and these data in particular. Although these data have been processed successfully on a computer system at the Service, no warranty, expressed or implied, is made regarding the utility of the data on another system or for general or scientific purposes, nor shall the act of distribution constitute any such warranty. This applies to the use of the data both alone and in aggregate with other data and information.
Access Rights
Public
Format
ArcGIS ImageMapLayer
Language
English
Date Added
August 10, 2025
Provenance Statement
The metadata for this resource was last retrieved from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Open Data on 2025-08-24.

Resource Class

Resource Type

Place

Local Collection

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Cite and Reference

  • Citation
    U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (2025). Potentially Undisturbed Land Cover of the Conterminous US: Grass, Shrub, and Bare Ground [U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service]. . https://gis-fws.opendata.arcgis.com/content/fws::potentially-undisturbed-land-cover-of-the-conterminous-us-grass-shrub-and-bare-ground (web service)
  • BTAA Geoportal Link

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