Seasonal land-cover regions of the United States

Thomas R. Loveland; James W. Merchant; Jesslyn F. Brown; Donald O. Ohlen; Bradley C. Reed; Paul Olson; John Hutchinson

doi:10.1111/j.1467-8306.1995.tb01798.x

Seasonal land-cover regions of the United States

Annals of the Association of American Geographers

By: Thomas R. Loveland, James W. Merchant, Jesslyn F. Brown, Donald O. Ohlen, Bradley C. Reed, Paul Olson, and John Hutchinson

https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8306.1995.tb01798.x

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Abstract

Global-change investigations have been hindered by deficiencies in the availability and quality of land-cover data. The U.S. Geological Survey and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln have collaborated on the development of a new approach to land-cover characterization that attempts to address requirements of the global-change research community and others interested in regional patterns of land cover. An experimental 1 -kilometer-resolution database of land-cover characteristics for the coterminous U.S. has been prepared to test and evaluate the approach. Using multidate Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) satellite data complemented by elevation, climate, ecoregions, and other digital spatial datasets, the authors define 152, seasonal land-cover regions. The regionalization is based on a taxonomy of areas with respect to data on land cover, seasonality or phenology, and relative levels of primary production. The resulting database consists of descriptions of the vegetation, land cover, and seasonal, spectral, and site characteristics for each region. These data are used in the construction of an illustrative 1:7,500,000-scaIe map of the seasonal land-cover regions as well as of smaller-scale maps portraying general land cover and seasonality. The seasonal land-cover characteristics database can also be tailored to provide a broad range of other landscape parameters useful in national and global-scale environmental modeling and assessment.

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Additional publication details
Publication type	Article
Publication Subtype	Journal Article
Title	Seasonal land-cover regions of the United States
Series title	Annals of the Association of American Geographers
DOI	10.1111/j.1467-8306.1995.tb01798.x
Volume	85
Issue	2
Year Published	1995
Language	English
Publisher	Taylor & Francis
Contributing office(s)	Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center
Description	17 p.
First page	339
Last page	355
Country	United States
Other Geospatial	Conterminous United States
Google Analytic Metrics	Metrics page