Land Cover Classes

Class

Class

Description

1 Developed High-density built-up areas typically associated with commercial, industrial and residential activities and transportation routes. These areas can be expected to contain a significant amount of impervious surfaces, roofs, roads, and other concrete and asphalt surfaces.
2 Turf & Grass A compound category of undifferentiated maintained grasses associated mostly with developed areas. This class contains cultivated lawns typical of residential neighborhoods, parks, cemeteries, golf courses, turf farms, and other maintained grassy areas. Also includes some agricultural fields due to similar spectral reflectance properties.
3 Other Grasses Includes non-maintained grassy areas commonly found along transportation routes and other developed areas, and within and surrounding airport properties. Also likely to include forested clear-cut areas, and some abandoned agricultural areas that appear to be undergoing conversion to woody scrub and shrub cover.
4 Agricultural Field Includes areas that are under agricultural uses such as crop production and/or active pasture. Also likely to include some abandoned agricultural areas that have not undergone conversion to woody vegetation.
5 Deciduous Forest Includes southern New England mixed hardwood forests. Also includes scrub areas characterized by patches of dense woody vegetation. May include isolated low density residential areas.
6 Coniferous Forest Includes southern New England mixed softwood forests. May include isolated low density residential areas.
7 Water Open water bodies and watercourses with relatively deep water.
8 Non-forested Wetland Includes areas that predominately are wet throughout most of the year and that have a detectable vegetative cover (therefore not open water). Also includes some small water courses due to spectral characteristics of mixed pixels that include both water and vegetation.
9 Forested Wetland Includes areas depicted as wetland, but with forested cover. Also includes some small water courses due to spectral characteristics of mixed pixels that include both water and vegetation.
10 Tidal Wetland Emergent wetlands, wet throughout most of the year, with distinctive marsh vegetation and located in areas influenced by tidal change.
11 Barren Mostly non-agricultural areas free from vegetation, such as sand, sand and gravel operations, bare exposed rock, mines, and quarries. Also includes some urban areas where the composition of construction materials spectrally resembles more natural materials. Also includes some bare soil agricultural fields.
12 Utility Rights-of-way (Forest) Includes utility rights-of-way. This category was manually digitized on-screen from rights-of-way visible in the Landsat satellite imagery. The class was digitized within the deciduous and coniferous categories only.

Change To Classes

Developed before 1985
Turf & Grass before 1985
Water
Undeveloped
Change to Developed between 1985 and 2010
Change to Turf & Grass between 1985 and 2010
Other

Change From Classes

Developed before 1985
Turf & Grass before 1985
Water
Undeveloped
Agricultural Field to Developed between 1985 and 2010
Agricultural Field to Turf & Grass between 1985 and 2010
Forest* to Developed between 1985 and 2010
Forest* to Turf & Grass between 1985 and 2010
Other Classes to Developed between 1985 and 2010
Other Classes to Turf & Grass between 1985 and 2010
Other
*Forest Combination of Deciduous Forest, Coniferous Forest, Forested Wetland and Utility Right-of-way. The Right-of-way class was created by hand digitizing through forest areas only. Therefore, it is appropriate to lump these linear areas with forest for the 8-class series.