Conterminous United States Land Cover Projections - 1992 to 2100

Dates

Publication Date: 2018-09-27
Start Date: 1992
End Date: 2100

Citation

Sohl, T.L., Sayler, K.L., Bouchard, M.A., Reker, R.R., Freisz, A.M., Bennett, S.L., Sleeter, B.M., Sleeter, R.R., Wilson, T., Soulard, C., Knuppe, M., and Van Hofwegen, T., 2018, Conterminous United States Land Cover Projections - 1992 to 2100: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P95AK9HP.

Summary

The USGS’s FORE-SCE model was used to produce land-use and land-cover (LULC) projections for the conterminous United States. The projections were originally created as part of the "LandCarbon" project, an effort to understand biological carbon sequestration potential in the United States. However, the projections are being used for a wide variety of purposes, including analyses of the effects of landscape change on biodiversity, water quality, and regional weather and climate. The year 1992 served as the baseline for the landscape modeling. The 1992 to 2005 period was considered the historical baseline, with datasets such as the National Land Cover Database (NLCD), USGS Land Cover Trends, and US Department of Agriculture's Census [...]

Summary

The USGS’s FORE-SCE model was used to produce land-use and land-cover (LULC) projections for the conterminous United States. The projections were originally created as part of the "LandCarbon" project, an effort to understand biological carbon sequestration potential in the United States. However, the projections are being used for a wide variety of purposes, including analyses of the effects of landscape change on biodiversity, water quality, and regional weather and climate.

The year 1992 served as the baseline for the landscape modeling. The 1992 to 2005 period was considered the historical baseline, with datasets such as the National Land Cover Database (NLCD), USGS Land Cover Trends, and US Department of Agriculture's Census of Agriculture used to guide the recreation of historical land cover for this period. 2006 to 2100 was considered the future projection time frame. Four scenarios were modeled for 2006 to 2100, corresponding to four major scenario storylines from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES). The global IPCC SRES (A1B, A2, B1, and B2 scenarios) were downscaled to ecoregions in the conterminous United States, with the USGS Forecasting Scenarios of land use (FORE-SCE) model used to produce landscape projections consistent with the IPCC SRES. The land-use scenarios focused on socioeconomic impacts on anthropogenic land use (demographics, energy use, agricultural economics, and other socioeconomic considerations). The projections provided here are characterized by:
1) 250-meter spatial resolution (250-m pixels)
2) 17 land-cover classes, similar to classes from NLCD
3) Annual land cover maps from 1992 to 2100
4) Spatial coverage for the entire conterminous United States
5) An additional "forest stand age" layer for both the historical period (1992-2005) and the projected period (2006-2100). These data mark age in years since last land-use change or disturbance for forest pixels.

Data are provided here for 1) the historical 1992 to 2005 period, and 2) for each of the four scenarios from 2006 to 2100. 10 .zip files are available for download, 5 representing land-use and land-cover maps for both the historical period and the four future scenarios, and 5 representing forest stand age. Each zip file contains GeoTIFF files with annual maps for the given timeframe. The metadata associated with this data release provides a key for identifying file names associated with each of the .zip files, as well as definitions for the 17 land-cover classes.

A further description of these data can be found at: Sohl, T.L., Sayler, K.L., Bouchard, M.A., Reker, R.R., Freisz, A.M., Bennett, S.L., Sleeter, B.M., Sleeter, R.R., Wilson, T., Soulard, C., Knuppe, M., and Van Hofwegen, T, 2014, Spatially explicit modeling of 1992 to 2100 land cover and forest stand age for the conterminous United States. Ecological Applications 24(5):1115-1136. https://doi.org/10.1890/13-1245.1

Contacts

Point of Contact :: Terry L Sohl
Process Contact :: Terry L Sohl
Originator :: Terry L Sohl, Benjamin M Sleeter, Kristi L Sayler, Michelle Bouchard, Ryan Reker, Rachel Sleeter, Tamara Wilson, Aaron Friesz, Chris Soulard, Stacie Bennett, Michelle L Knuppe, Travis Van Hofwegen
Metadata Contact :: Terry L Sohl, U.S. Geological Survey - Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center
Publisher :: U.S. Geological Survey
Distributor :: U.S. Geological Survey - ScienceBase
SDC Data Owner :: Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center
USGS Mission Area :: Land Resources

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CONUS_1992_2100_LandCover_Projections.xml “Metadata - XML format” Original FGDC Metadata	View	39.96 KB	application/fgdc+xml
CONUS_Landcover_Historical.zip “Historical land cover, 1992-2005”		488.03 MB	application/zip
“Modeled land cover for B1 scenario, 2006-2100”		3.26 GB	application/zip
“Modeled land cover for B2 scenario, 2006-2100”		3.31 GB	application/zip
“Modeled land cover for A1B scenario, 2006-2100”		3.31 GB	application/zip
“Modeled land cover for A2 scenario, 2006-2100”		3.27 GB	application/zip
“Modeled forest stand age for A1B scenario, 2006-2100”		5.03 GB	application/zip
“Modeled forest stand age for A2 scenario, 2006-2100”		4.86 GB	application/zip
“Modeled forest stand age for B1 scenario, 2006-2100”		5.23 GB	application/zip
“Modeled forest stand age for B2 scenario, 2006-2100”		5.36 GB	application/zip
CONUS_Forest_History_Historical.zip “Historical forest stand age, 1992-2005”		716.48 MB	application/zip
FAQ.html “FAQ”		325.09 KB	text/html
CONUS_1992_2100_LandCover_Projections.html “Metadata - HTML format”		503.68 KB	text/html

Related External Resources

Type: Related Primary Publication

Sohl, TL, Sayler, KL, Bouchard, MA, Reker, RR, Freisz, AM, Bennett, SL, Sleeter, BM, Sleeter, RR, Wilson, T, Soulard, C, Knuppe, M, and Van Hofwegen, T, 2014, Spatially explicit modeling of 1992 to 2100 land cover and forest stand age for the conterminous United States. Ecological Applications 24(5):1115-1136. https://doi.org/10.1890/13-1245.1	https://doi.org/10.1890/13-1245.1

Purpose

The data were produced from the Forecasting Scenarios of land-use (FORE-SCE) model, for the purpose of facilitating research on interactions of land-use change with a host of societal and ecological processes.

Conterminous United States Land Cover Projections - 1992 to 2100

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