About the Project

About Connecticut's Landscape Project

How the Maps Were Produced | Fact Sheets | FGDC Metadata | FAQ | Caution!

How the Maps Were Produced

Land cover, as its name implies, shows the "covering" of the landscape. This is to be distinguished from land use, which is what is permitted, practiced or intended for a given area. For example, a "forested" land cover area as detected by the satellite may appear as "rural residential" on your town's zoning map. CLEAR's land cover information comes from remotely sensed data from satellites, in this case several of the Landsat satellite series. Sensors aboard the satellite collect (sense) radiation in a number of different wavelengths that is reflected from the surface of the earth. The data are converted via computer programs and human expertise into land cover maps made up of many pieces, or pixels, of information that are 30 meters (or about 100 feet) square.

Although remotely sensed land cover maps have been around for quite some time, comparing different land cover datasets has been difficult. Satellite sensors are continually evolving along with the land cover information derived from them. Land cover derived from images from different years taken by different sensors (and perhaps at different times of the year) normally cannot be compared directly with any claim of accuracy. CLEAR's challenge was to solve this "apples and oranges" problem by using a new technique called "cross-correlation analysis." This allows us, for the first time, to provide state citizens and decision makers with reliable, comparable information which shows how Connecticut's landscape has changed over the last 17 years. Maps from four dates (1985, 1990, 1995 and 2002) were created, and can be explored in various ways from the Statewide Data page of this site. Soon, we will provide this information at a more detailed level for each of the 169 individual municipalities in Connecticut, as well as for regional watersheds.

Visit the fact sheets below for more detailed explanations of the data and techniques (you will need Adobe Acrobat free reader for this). If you really want the technical stuff, visit the FGDC-compliant metadata.

Fact Sheets
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Printer-friendly Pdf	Fact Sheet #1: Connecticut's New Land Cover Datasets Introduction to the land cover datasets produced by CLEAR.
Printer-friendly Pdf	Fact Sheet #2: Land Cover Category Descriptions Includes detailed descriptions of each land cover class. Information also available online.
Printer-friendly Pdf	Fact Sheet #3: Caution! Before You Use These Data . . . Important things to beware of applying, using, and analyzing these satellite-derived land cover data. Information also available online.
Printer-friendly Pdf	Fact Sheet #4: Frequently Asked Questions Includes questions (and answers) about the land cover data, what is (and isn't) visible, and an explanation of several land cover changes. Information also available online.

FGDC Metadata

The FGDC (Federal Geographic Data Committee) has a standard form for reporting metadata, or information about data. Visit the FGDC-compliant metadata for: