FLORIDA GEOGRAPHIC DATA LIBRARY DOCUMENTATION

TITLE: U.S. Geological Survey: Enhanced Historical Land-Use and Land-Cover Data for the State of Florida - 1970s

Geodataset Name:       LU_USGS_1974
Geodataset Type:       SHAPEFILE
Geodataset Feature:    Polygon
Feature Count:         63822
GENERAL DESCRIPTION:
This data set depicts land use and land cover from the 1970s and 1980s and has been previously published by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in other file formats. This version has been reformatted to other file formats and includes minor edits applied by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) and USGS scientists. This data set was developed to meet the needs of the USGS National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) Program. Please note: The field names in the original attribute table from the USGS were renamed by the GeoPlan Center. The original field names from the USGS are listed in the Process Steps (Data Quality Section) and in the Attribute Definitions (Entity and Attribute Information section). All land use datasets distributed via FGDL will contain these standardized field names, for ease of using land use data at the statewide extent. This is an update to the FGDL USGSLU_1974.shp data layer.
DATA SOURCE(S):                    U.S. Geological Survey
SCALE OF ORIGINAL SOURCE MAPS:     250000
GEODATASET EXTENT:                 State of Florida
PUBLICATION DATE: 20050102 TIME PERIOD OF CONTENT: Begin Date: 1970 End Date: 1985 DOWNLOAD LINK: http://www.fgdl.org/metadataexplorer/explorer.jsp

FEATURE ATTRIBUTE TABLES:

Datafile Name: LU_USGS_1974.DBF
ITEM NAME WIDTH TYPE
OBJECTID
4 OID
Shape
4 Geometry
FLUCCS
2 SmallInteger
OTHER
6 String
FLUCSDESC
55 String
LUCODE1
4 Integer
LANDUSE1
50 String
LUCODE2
4 Integer
LANDUSE2
50 String
DATESTAMP
36 Date
SOURCE
6 String
SOURCE2
13 String
FLUCCS_L1
2 SmallInteger
LEVEL1
50 String
FLUCCS_L2
2 SmallInteger
LEVEL2
75 String
FLUCCS_L3
2 SmallInteger
LEVEL3
100 String
FLUCCSCOMP
2 SmallInteger
ACRES
8 Double
DESCRIPT
125 String
FGDLAQDATE
36 Date
AUTOID
4 Integer
SHAPE.AREA
0 Double
SHAPE.LEN
0 Double

FEATURE ATTRIBUTE TABLES CODES AND VALUES:

Item
Item Description
OBJECTID Internal feature number.

Shape Feature geometry.

FLUCCS The land use and land cover classification code as defined in the Florida DOT's FLUCCS classification system.

OTHER Land use classification code number, derived from the original USGS field LUCODE.

FLUCSDESC Land use and land cover class description, derived from the original USGS field LANDUSE

LUCODE1 Level 1 Land use classification code number
1 = Urban or built-up land

2 = Agricultural land

3 = Rangeland

4 = Forest land

5 = Water

6 = Wetland

7 = Barren land

8 = Tundra

9 = Perennial snow or ice


LANDUSE1 Level 1 Land use and land cover class description

LUCODE2 Level 2 Land use classification code number
11 = Residental

12 = Commercial and services

13 = Industrial

14 = Transportation, communication, utilities

15 = Industrial and commercial complexes

16 = Mixed urban or built-up land

17 = Other urban or built-up land

21 = Cropland and pasture

22 = Orchards, groves, vineyards, nurseries, and ornamental horticultural

23 = Confined feeding operations

24 = Other agricultural land

31 = Herbaceous rangeland

32 = Shrub and brush rangeland

33 = Mixed rangeland

41 = Deciduous forest land

42 = Evergreen forest land

43 = Mixed forest land

51 = Streams and canals

52 = Lakes

53 = Reservoirs

54 = Bays and estuaries

61 = Forested wetland

62 = Nonforested wetland

72 = Beaches

73 = Sandy areas not beaches

75 = Strip mines, quarries, gravel pits

76 = Transitional areas


LANDUSE2 Level 2 Land use and land cover class description

DATESTAMP The date the feature was last edited.

SOURCE Primary Contributing Source of Coverage/Origin

SOURCE2 Other Contributing Source.

FLUCCS_L1 The highest level (level 1) designation in a hierarchical coding scheme containing 4 levels.

LEVEL1 Level 1 land use description, based on the FDOT classification schema.

FLUCCS_L2 The second highest level (level 2) designation in a hierarchical coding scheme containing 4 levels.

LEVEL2 Level 2 land use description, based on the FDOT classification schema.

FLUCCS_L3 The third highest level (level 3) designation in a hierarchical coding scheme containing 4 levels.

LEVEL3 Level 3 land use description, based on the FDOT classification schema. There is a possibility that the FDOT Level 3 description does not match that of the Water Management District, for those occurrences this discrepancy has been identified in the FLUCCSCOMP field.

FLUCCSCOMP This field represents a comparison between the dataset's FLUCCS code description and the FDOT FLUCCS code description. Where these two descriptions differed a number one was inserted.

ACRES Number of Acres.

DESCRIPT Based on field FLUCSDESC.

FGDLAQDATE The date FGDL acquired the data from the Source.

AUTOID Unique ID added by GeoPlan

SHAPE.AREA Area in meters

SHAPE.LEN Length in meters

A Land Use And Land Cover Classification System For Use With Remote Sensor Data

By JAMES R. ANDERSON, ERNEST E. HARDY, JOHN T. ROACH, and RICHARD E. WITMER
Geological Survey Professional Paper 964
A revision of the land use classification system as presented in U.S. Geological Survey Circular 671
United States Government Printing Office, Washington: 1976
United States Department of the Interior
James G. Watt, Secretary
Geological Survey
Dallas L. Peck Director
First Printing 1976
Conversion to Digital 2001
(Optical Character Recognition)

  Definitions
    Urban or Built-up Land
    Agricultural Land
    Rangeland
    Forest Land
    Water
    Wetland
    Barren Land

1. URBAN OR BUILT-UP LAND
Urban or Built-up Land is comprised of areas of intensive use with much of the land covered by
structures. Included in this category are cities, towns, villages, strip developments along highways,
transportation, power, and communications facilities, and areas such as those occupied by mills, shopping
centers, industrial and commercial complexes, and institutions that may, in some instances, be isolated
from urban areas.
As development progresses, land having less intensive or nonconforming use may be located in the midst
of Urban or Built-up areas and will generally be included in this category. Agricultural land, forest,
wetland, or water areas on the fringe of Urban or Built-up areas will not be included except where they
are surrounded and dominated by urban development. The Urban or Builtup category takes precedence
over others when the criteria for more than one category are met. For example, residential areas that have
sufficient tree cover to meet Forest Land criteria will be placed in the Residential category.

11. RESIDENTIAL
Residential land uses range from high density, represented by the multiple-unit structures of urban cores,
to low density, where houses are on lots of more than an acre,, on the periphery of urban expansion.
Linear residential developments along transportation routes extending outward from urban areas should
be included as residential appendages to urban centers, but care must be taken to distinguish them from
commercial strips in the same locality. The residential strips generally have a uniform size and spacing of
structures, linear driveways, and lawn areas; the commercial strips are more likely to have buildings of
different sizes and spacing, large driveways, and parking areas. Residential development along shorelines
is also linear and sometimes extends back only one residential parcel from the shoreline to the first road.
Areas of sparse residential land use, such as farmsteads, will be included in categories to which they are
related unless an appropriate compilation scale is being used to indicate such uses separately Rural
residential and recreational subdivisions, however, are included in this category, since the land is almost
totally committed to residential use, even though it may have forest or range types of cover. In some
places, the boundary will be clear where new housing developments abut against intensively used
agricultural areas, but the boundary may be vague and difficult to discern when residential development
occurs in small isolated units over an area of mixed or less intensive uses. A careful evaluation of density
and the overall relation of the area to the total urban complex must be made.
Residential sections which are integral parts of other uses may be difficult to identify. Housing situations
such as those existing on military bases, at colleges and universities, living quarters for laborers near a
work base, or lodging for employees of agricultural field operations or resorts thus would be placed
within the Industrial, Agricultural, or Commercial and Services categories.

12. COMMERCIAL AND SERVICES
Commercial areas are those used predominantly for the sale of products and services. They are often
abutted by, residential, agricultural, or other contrasting uses which help define them. Components of the
Commercial and Services category are urban central business districts; shopping centers, usually in
suburban and outlying areas; commercial strip developments along major highways and access routes to
cities; junkyards; resorts; and so forth. The main buildings, secondary structures, and areas supporting the
basic use are all included office buildings, warehouses, driveways, sheds, parking lots, landscaped areas,
and waste disposal areas.
Commercial areas may include some noncommercial uses too small to be separated out. Central business
districts commonly include some institutions, such as churches and schools, and commercial strip
developments may include some residential units. When these noncommercial uses exceed one-third-of
the total commercial area, the Mixed Urban or Builtup category should be used. There is no separate
category for recreational land uses at Level II since most recreational activity is pervasive throughout
many other land uses. Selected areas are predominantly recreation oriented, and some of the more
distinctive occurrences such as drive-in theaters can. be identified on remote sensor imagery. Most
recreational activity, however, necessarily will be identified using supplemental information.
Recreational facilities that form an integral part of an institution should be included in this category.
There is usually a major visible difference in the form of parking facilities, arrangements for traffic flow,
and the general association of buildings and facilities. The intensively developed sections of recreational
areas would be included in the Commercial and Services category, but extensive parts of golf courses,
riding areas, ski areas, and so forth would be included in the Other Urban or Built-up category.
Institutional land uses, such as the various educational, religious, health, correctional, and military
facilities are also components of this category. All buildings, grounds, and parking lots that compose the
facility are included within the institutional unit, but areas not specifically related to the purpose of the
institution should be placed in the appropriate category. Auxiliary land uses, particularly residential,
commercial and services, and other supporting land uses on a military base would be included in this
category, but agricultural] areas not specifically associated with correctional], educational, or religious
institutions are placed in the appropriate agricultural category. Small institutional units, as, for example,
many churches and some secondary and elementary schools, would be mappable only at large scales and
will usually be included within another category, such as Residential.

13. INDUSTRIAL
Industrial areas include a wide array of land uses from light manufacturing to heavy manufacturing
plants. Identification of light industries those focused on design, assembly, finishing, processing, and
packaging of products can often be based on the type of building, parking, and shipping arrangements.
Light industrial areas may be, but are not necessarily, directly in contact with urban areas; many are now
found at airports or in relatively open country. Heavy industries use raw materials such as iron ore,
timber, or coal. Included are steel mills, pulp and lumber mills, electric power generating stations, oil
refineries and tank farms, chemical plants, and brick making plants. Stockpiles of raw materials and
waste-product disposal areas are usually visible, along with transportation facilities capable of handling
heavy materials.
Surface structures associated with mining operations are included in this category. Surface structures and
equipment may range from a minimum of a loading device and trucks to extended areas with access
roads, processing facilities, stockpiles, storage sheds, and numerous vehicles. Spoil material and slag
heaps usually are found within a short trucking distance of the major mine areas and may be the key
indicator of underground mining operations. Uniform identification of all these diverse extractive uses is
extremely difficult from remote sensor data alone. Areas of future reserves are included in the appropriate
present-use category, such as Agricultural Land or Forest Land, regardless of the expected future use.

14. TRANSPORTATI0N, COMMUNICATIONS, AND UTILITIES
The land uses included in the Transportation, Communications, and Utilities category occur to some
degree within all of the other Urban or Buildup categories and actually can be found within many other
categories. Unless they can be mapped separately at whatever scale is being employed, they usually are
considered an integral part of the land use within which they occur. For that reason, any statistical
summary of the area of land uses in this category typically represents only a partial data set. Statistical
area summaries of such land uses aggregated from Levels III and IV, though, would include more
accurate area estimates.
Major transportation routes and areas greatly influence other land uses, and many land use boundaries are
outlined by them. The types and extent of transportation facilities in a locality determine the degree of
access and affect both the present and potential use of the area.
Highways and railways are characterized by areas of activity connected in linear patterns. The highways
include rights-of-way, areas used for interchanges, and service and terminal facilities. Rail facilities
include stations, parking lots, roundhouses, repair and switching yards, and related areas, as well as
overland track and spur connections of sufficient width for delineation at mapping scale.
Airports, seaports, and major lake ports are isolated areas of high utilization, usually with no well-defined
intervening connections, although some ports are connected by canals. Airport facilities include the
runways, intervening land, terminals, service buildings, navigation aids, fuel storage, parking lots, and a
limited buffer zone. Terminal facilities generally include the associated freight and warehousing
functions. Small airports (except those on rotated farmland), heliports, and land associated with seaplane
bases may be identified if mapping scale permits. Port areas include the docks, shipyards, drydocks,
locks, and waterway control structures.
Communications and utilities areas such as those involved in processing, treatment, and transportation of
water, gas, oil, and electricity and areas used for airwave communications are also included in this
category. Pumping stations, electric substations, and areas used for radio, radar, or television antennas are
the major types. Small facilities, or those associated with an industrial or commercial land use, are
included within the larger category with which they are associated. Long-distance gas, oil, electric,
telephone, water, or other transmission facilities rarely constitute the dominant use of the lands with
which they are associated.

15. INDUSTRIAL AND COMMERCIAL COMPLEXES
The Industrial and Commercial Complexes category includes those industrial and commercial land uses
that typically occur together or in close functional proximity. Such areas commonly are labeled with
terminology such as "Industrial Park," but since functions such as warehousing, wholesaling, and
occasionally retailing may be found in the same structures or nearby, the more inclusive category title has
been adopted.
Industrial and Commercial complexes have a definite remote sensor image signature which allows their
separation from other Urban or Built-up land uses. Because of their intentional development as discrete
units of land use, they may border on a wide variety of other land use types, from Residential Land to
Agricultural Land to Forest Land. If the separate functions included in the category are identified at
Levels III or IV using supplemental data or with ground survey, the land use researcher has the discretion
of aggregating these functions into the appropriate Level II Urban or Built-up categories or retaining the
unit as an Industrial and Commercial Complex.

16. MIXED URBAN OR BUILT-UP LAND
The Mixed Urban or Built-up category is used for a mixture of Level II Urban or Built-up uses where
individual uses cannot be separated at mapping scale. Where more than one-third intermixture of another
use or uses occurs in a specific area, it is classified as Mixed Urban or Built-up Land. Where the
intermixed land use or uses total less than one-third of the specific area, the category appropriate to the
dominant land use is applied.
This category typically includes developments along transportation routes and in cities, towns, and builtup
areas where separate land uses cannot be mapped individually. Residential, Commercial, Industrial,
and occasionally other land uses may be included. A mixture of industrial and commercial uses in
Industrial and Commercial Complexes as defined in category 15 are not included in this category.
Farmsteads intermixed with strip or cluster settlements will be included within the built-up land, but other
agricultural land uses should be excluded.

17. OTHER URBAN OR BUILT-UP LAND
Other Urban or Built-up Land typically consists of uses such as golf driving ranges, zoos, urban parks,
cemeteries, waste dumps, water-control structures and spillways, the extensive parts of such uses as golf
courses and ski areas, and undeveloped land within an urban setting. Open land may be in very intensive
use but a use that does not require structures, such as urban playgrounds, botanical gardens, or arboreta.
The use of descriptions such as "idle land," "vacant land," or "open land" should be avoided in
categorizing undeveloped lands within urban areas on the basis of the use of remote sensor data, since
information generally is not available to the interpreter to make such a refinement in categorization.

2. AGRICULTURAL LAND
Agricultural Land may be defined broadly as land used primarily for production of food and fiber. On
high-altitude imagery, the chief indications of agricultural activity will be distinctive geometric field and
road patterns on the landscape and the traces produced by livestock or mechanized equipment. However,
pasture and other lands where such equipment is used infrequently may not show as well defined shapes
as other areas. These distinctive geometric patterns are also characteristic of Urban or Built-up Lands
because of street layout and development by blocks. Distinguishing between Agricultural and Urban or
Built-up Lands ordinarily should be possible on the basis of urban-activity indicators and the associated
concentration of population. The number of building complexes is smaller and the density of the road and
highway network is much lower in Agricultural Land than in Urban or Built-up Land. Some urban land
uses, such as parks and large cemeteries, however, may be mistaken for Agricultural Land, especially
when they occur on the periphery of the urban areas.
The interface of Agricultural Land with other categories of land use may sometimes be a transition zone
in which there is an intermixture of land uses at first and second levels of categorization. Where farming
activities are limited by wetness, the exact boundary also may be difficult to locate, and Agricultural
Land may grade into Wetland. When the production of agricultural crops is not hindered by wetland
conditions, such cropland should be included in the Agricultural category. This latter stipulation also
includes those cases in which agricultural crop production depends on wetland conditions, such as the
flooding of ricefields or the development of cranberry bogs. When lands produce economic commodities
as a function of their wild state such as wild rice, cattails, or certain forest products 'commonly associated
with wetland, however, they should be included in the Wetland category. Similarly, when wetlands are
drained for agricultural purposes, they should be included in the Agricultural Land category. When such
drainage enterprises fall into disuse and if wetland vegetation is reestablished, the land reverts to the
Wetland category.
The Level II categories of Agricultural Land are: Cropland and Pasture; Orchards, Groves, Vineyards,
Nurseries, and Ornamental Horticultural Areas; Confined Feeding Operations; and Other Agricultural
Land.

21. CROPLAND AND PASTURE
The several components of Cropland and Pasture now used for agricultural statistics include: cropland
harvested, including bush fruits; cultivated summer fallow and idle cropland; land on which crop failure
occurs; cropland in soil- improvement grasses and legumes; cropland used only for pasture in rotation
with crops; and pasture on land more or less permanently used for that purpose. From imagery alone, it
generally is not possible to make a distinction between Cropland and Pasture with a high degree of
accuracy and uniformity, let alone a distinction among the various components of Cropland (Hardy,
Belcher, and Phillips, 1971). Moreover, some of the components listed represent the condition of the land
at the end of the growing season and will not apply exactly to imagery taken at other times of the year.
They will, however, be a guide to identification of Cropland and Pasture. Brushland in the Eastern States,
typically used to some extent for pasturing cattle, is included in the Shrub- Brushland Rangeland category
since the grazing activity is usually not discernible on remote sensor imagery appropriate to Levels I and
II. This activity possibly might be distinguished on low-altitude imagery. Such grazing activities
generally occur on land where crop production or intensive pasturing has ceased, for any of a variety of
reasons, and which has grown up in brush. Such brushlands often are used for grazing, somewhat
analogous to the extensive use of rangelands in the West.
Certain factors vary throughout the United States, and this variability also must be recognized; field size
depends on topography, soil types, sizes of farms, kinds of crops and pastures, capital investment, labor
availability, and other conditions. Irrigated land in the Western States is recognized easily in contrast to
Rangeland, but in the Eastern States, irrigation by use of overhead sprinklers generally cannot be detected
from imagery unless distinctive circular patterns are created. Drainage or water control on land used for
cropland and pasture also may create a recognizable pattern that may aid in identification of the land use.
In areas of quick-growing crops, a field may appear to be in nonagricultural use unless the temporary
nature of the inactivity is recognized.

22. ORCHARDS, GROVES, VINEYARDS, NURSERIES, AND ORNAMENTAL
HORTICULTURAL AREAS
Orchards, groves, and vineyards produce the various fruit and nut crops. Nurseries and horticultural
areas, which include floricultural and seed-and-sod areas and some greenhouses, are used perennially for
those purposes. Tree nurseries which provide seedlings for plantation forestry also are included here.
Many of these areas may be included in another category, generally Cropland and Pasture, when
identification is made by use of small-scale imagery alone. Identification may be aided by recognition of
the combination of soil qualities, topography, and local climatological factors needed for these
operations: water bodies in close proximity which moderate the effects of short duration temperature
fluctuations; site selection for air drainage on sloping land; and deep well-drained soils on slopes
moderate enough to permit use of machinery. Isolated small orchards, such as the fruit trees on the family
farm, usually are not recognizable on high-altitude imagery and are, therefore, not included.

23. CONFINED FEEDING OPERATIONS
Confined Feeding Operations are large, specialized livestock production enterprises, chiefly beef cattle
feedlots, dairy operations with confined feeding, and large poultry farms, but also including hog feedlots.
These operations have large animal populations restricted to relatively small areas. The result is a
concentration of waste material that is an environmental concern. The waste-disposal problems justify a
separate category for these relatively small areas. Confined Feeding Operations have a built-up
appearance, chiefly composed of buildings, much fencing, access paths, and waste-disposal areas. Some
are located near an urban area to take advantage of transportation facilities and proximity to processing
plants.
Excluded are shipping corrals and other temporary holding facilities. Such occurrences as thoroughbred
horse farms generally do not have the animal population densities which would place them in this
category.

24. OTHER AGRICULTURAL LAND
Other land uses typically associated with the first three categories of Agricultural Land are the principal
components of the Other Agricultural Land category. They include farmsteads, holding areas for
livestock such as corrals, breeding and training facilities on horse farms, farm lanes and roads, ditches
and canals, small farm ponds, and similar uses. Such occurrences generally are quite small in area and
often uninterruptible by use of high-altitude data. Even when they are interpretable from such data, it may
not be feasible to map them at smaller presentation scales, which generally results in their inclusion with
adjacent agricultural use areas. This category should also be used for aggregating data for land uses
derived at more detailed levels of classification.

3. RANGELAND
Rangeland historically has been defined as land where the potential natural vegetation is predominantly
grasses, grasslike plants, forbs, or shrubs and where natural herbivory was an important influence in its
pre-civilization state. Management techniques which associate soil, water, and forage-vegetation
resources are more suitable for rangeland management than are practices generally used in managing
pastureland. Some rangelands have been or may be seeded to introduced or domesticated plant species.
Most of the rangelands in the United States are in the western range, the area to the west of an irregular
north-south line that cuts through the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. Rangelands also
are found in certain places historically not included in the western range, such as the Flint Hills, the
Southeastern States, and Alaska. The historical connotation of Rangeland is expanded in this
classification to include those areas in the Eastern States which commonly are called brushlands.
The Level II categories of Rangeland are: Herbaceous Range, Shrub and Brush Rangeland, and Mixed
Rangeland.

31. HERBACEOUS RANGELAND
The Herbaceous Rangeland category encompasses lands dominated by naturally occurring grasses and
forbs as well as those areas of actual rangeland which have been modified to include grasses and forbs as
their principal cover, when the land is managed for rangeland purposes and not managed using practices
typical of pastureland. It includes the tall grass (or true prairie), short grass, bunch grass or palouse grass,
and desert grass regions. Respectively, these grass regions represent a sequence of declining amounts of
available moisture. Most of the tall grass region has been plowed for agriculture and the remaining tall
grass range is now in North Dakota, Nebraska, southern Kansas and Oklahoma, and the Texas Coastal
Plain. Short grass rangeland occurs in a strip about 300 miles (500 km) wide from the Texas Panhandle
northward to the Dakotas where it widens to cover the western half of the Dakotas, the eastern threefourths
of Montana, and the eastern third of Wyoming. Bunch grass and desert grass are found in many
locations, representing transitional situations to desert shrub. Typical occurrences of grasslands include
such species as the various bluestems (Andropogon) grama grasses (Bouteloua) wheatgrasses
(Agropyron), needlegrasses (Stipa), and fescues (Festuca)
This category also includes the palmetto prairie areas of south-central Florida, which consist mainly of
dense stands of medium length and tall grasses such as wiregrass (Aristida stricta) and saw palmettos
(Seronoa ripens), interspersed occasional palms (Sabal palmetto), and shrubs (Shelford, 1963). Those
palmetto prairie areas now in improved pasture would not be included in this category, nor would the
herbaceous varieties of tundra vegetation.

32. SHRUB AND BRUSH RANGELAND
The typical shrub occurrences are found in those arid and semiarid regions characterized by such
xerophytic vegetative types with woody stems as big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata), shadscale
(Atriplex confertifolia), greasewood (Sarcobatus vermiculatus), or creosotebush (Larrea divaricata) and
also by the typical desert succulent xerophytes, such as the various forms of Cactus (Kuchler, 1964).
When bottom lands and moist flats are characterized by dense stands of typical wetland species such as
mesquite (Prosopis), they are considered Wetland. Where highly alkaline soils are present, halophytes
such as desert saltbush (Atriplex) may occur. The type, density, and association of these various species
are useful as indicators of the local hydrologic and pedologic environments. Also included in this
category are chaparral, a dense mixture of broadleaf evergreen schlerophyll shrubs, and the occurrences
of mountain mahogany (Cercocarpus ledifolius) and scrub oaks (Quercus).
The eastern brushlands are typically former croplands or pasture lands (cleared from original forest land)
which now have grown up in brush in transition back to forest land to the extent that they are no longer
identifiable as cropland or pasture from remote sensor imagery. Many of these brushlands are grazed in
an extensive manner by livestock and provide wildlife habitat. These areas usually remain as part of the
farm enterprise, even though not being used at their former levels of intensity. Eastern brushland areas
traditionally have not been included in the rangeland concept because of their original forested state prior
to clearing for cropland or pasture and generally have been summarized statistically with pastureland.
Because they function now primarily as extensive grazing land, they are included here as part of the
Rangeland category. After sufficient forest growth has occurred, they should be classified as either
Deciduous, Evergreen, or Mixed Forest Land. Those occurrences of shrubs and brush which are part of
the Tundra are not included under Rangeland.

33. MIXED RANGELAND
When more than one-third intermixture of either herbaceous or shrub and brush rangeland species occurs
in a specific area, it is classified as Mixed Rangeland. Where the intermixed land use or uses total less
than one-third of the specific area, the category appropriate to the dominant type of Rangeland is applied.
Mixtures of herbaceous and shrub or brush tundra plants are not considered Rangeland.

4. FOREST LAND
Forest Lands have a tree-crown areal density (crown closure percentage) of 10 percent or more, are
stocked with trees capable of producing timber or other wood products, and exert an influence on the
climate or water regime. Forest Land generally can be identified rather easily on high-altitude imagery,
although the boundary between it and other categories of land may be difficult to delineate precisely.
Lands from which trees have been removed to less than 10 percent crown closure but which have not
been developed for other uses also are included. For example, lands on which there are rotation cycles of
clearcutting and blockplanting are part of Forest Land. On such lands, when trees reach marketable size,
which for pulpwood in the Southeastern United States may occur in 2 to 3 decades, there will be large
areas that have little or no visible forest growth. The pattern can sometimes be identified by the presence
of cutting operations in the midst of a large expanse of forest. Unless there is evidence of other use, such
areas of little or no forest growth should be included in the Forest Land category. Forest land which is
grazed extensively, as in the Southeastern States, would be included in this category because the
dominant cover is forest and the dominant activities are forest related. Such activities could form the
basis for Levels III or IV categorization " . Lands that meet the requirements for Forest Land and also for
an Urban or Built-up category should be placed in the latter category. The only exceptions in classifying
Forest Land are those areas which would otherwise be classified as Wetland if not for the forest cover.
Since the wet condition is of much interest to land managers and planning groups and is so important as
an environmental surrogate and control, such lands are classified as Forested Wetland.
Auxiliary concepts associated with Forest Land, such as wilderness reservation, water conservation, or
ownership classification, are not detectable using remote sensor data. Such concepts may be used for
creating categories at the more detailed levels when supplemental information is available.
At Level II, Forest Land is divided into three categories: Deciduous, Evergreen, and Mixed. To
differentiate these three categories effectively, sequential data, or at least data acquired during the period
when deciduous trees are bare, generally will be necessary.

41. DECIDUOUS FOREST LAND
Deciduous Forest Land includes all forested areas having a predominance of trees that lose their leaves at
the end of the frost-free season or at the beginning of a dry season. In most parts of the United States,
these would be the hardwoods such as oak (Quercus), maple (Acer), or hickory (Carya) and the "soft"
hardwoods, such as aspen (Populus tremuloides) (Shelford, 1963). Tropical hardwoods are included in
the Evergreen Forest Land category. Deciduous forest types characteristic of Wetland, such as tupelo
(Nyssa) or cottonwood (Populus deltoids), also are not included in this category.

42. EVERGREEN FOREST LAND
Evergreen Forest Land includes all forested areas in which the trees are predominantly those which
remain green throughout the year. Both coniferous and broadleaved evergreens are included in this
category. In most areas, the coniferous evergreens predominate, but some of the forests of Hawaii are
notable exceptions. The coniferous evergreens are commonly referred to or classified as softwoods. They
include such eastern species as the longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) slash pine (Pinus ellioti), shortleaf pine
(Pinus echinata), loblolly pine (Pinus taeda), and other southern yellow pines; various spruces (Picea) and
balsam fir (Abies balsamea); white pine (Pinus strobus), red pine (Pinus resinosa) and jack pine (Pinus
banksiana); and hemlock (Tsuga canadensis); and such western species as Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga
menziesii) redwood (Sequoia sempervirens), ponderosa pine (Pinus monticola), Sitka spruce (Picea
sitchensis), Engelmann spruce (Picea engelmanni), western redcedar (Tsuga plicata), and western
hemlock (Tsuga heterophylia)(Shelford, 1963). Evergreen species commonly associated with Wetland,
such as tamarack (Larix laricina) or black spruce (Picea mariana) are not included in this category (
Kuchler, 1964).

43. MIXED FOREST LAND
Mixed Forest Land includes all forested areas where both evergreen and deciduous trees are growing and
neither predominates. When more than one third intermixture of either evergreen or deciduous species
occurs in a specific area, it is classified as Mixed Forest Land. Where the intermixed land use or uses
total less than one-third of the specified area, the category appropriate to the dominant type of Forest
Land is applied, whether Deciduous or Evergreen.

5. WATER
The delineation of water areas depends on the scale of data presentation and the scale and resolution
characteristics of the remote sensor data used for interpretation of land use and land cover. (Water as
defined by the Bureau of the Census includes all areas within the land mass of the United States that
persistently are water covered, provided that, if linear, they are at least 1/8 mile (200 m) wide and, if
extended, cover at least 40 acres (16 hectares) .) For many purposes, agencies need information on the
size and number of water bodies smaller than Bureau of the Census minimums. These frequently can be
obtained from small-scale remote sensor data with considerable accuracy.

51. STREAMS AND CANALS
The Streams and Canals category includes rivers, creeks, canals, and other linear water bodies. Where the
water course is interrupted by a control structure, the impounded area will be placed in the Reservoirs
category.
The boundary between streams and other bodies of water is the straight line across the mouth of the
stream up to 1 nautical mile (1.85 km). Beyond that limit, the classification of the water body changes to
the appropriate category, whether it be Lakes, Reservoirs, or Bays and Estuaries. These latter categories
are used only if the water body is considered to be "inland water " and therefore included in the total area
of the United States. No category is applied to waters classified as "other than inland water " or offshore
marine waters beyond the mouths of rivers '(U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1970).

52. LAKES
Lakes are nonflowing, naturally enclosed bodies of water, including regulated natural lakes but excluding
reservoirs. Islands that are too small to delineate should be included in the water area. The delineation of
a lake should be based on the areal extent of water at the time the remote sensor data are acquired.

53. RESERVOIRS
Reservoirs are artificial impoundments of water used for irrigation, flood control, municipal water
supplies, recreation, hydroelectric power generation, and so forth. Dams, levees, other water-control
structures, or the excavation itself usually will be evident to aid in the identification, although the water
control structures themselves and spillways are included in the Other Urban or Built-up Land category.
In most cases, reservoirs serve multiple purposes and may include all of the land use functions just
mentioned. In certain cases like the Tennessee River, the entire length of the trunk stream is impounded.
In such a situation, the stream exists as a stairstep series of impoundments with waterway, flood- control,
recreation, and power-generation functions but is still considered a reservoir, since the additional
functions are the result of impoundment.

54. BAYS AND ESTUARIES
Bays and Estuaries are inlets or arms of the sea that extend inland. They are included in this system only
when they are considered to be inland water and therefore are included within the total area of the United
States. Those bay and estuarine water areas classified as "other than inland water" are not included within
the total area of the United States. These "other than inland water" areas are adjacent to certain States and
fall under their jurisdiction. They occur in primary bodies of water such as the Atlantic Ocean coastal
waters, Chesapeake Bay, Delaware Bay, Long Island Sound, Gulf of Mexico, Pacific Ocean coastal
waters, Puget Sound, the Straits of Georgia and Juan de Euca, Gulf of Alaska, Bering Sea, Arctic Ocean
coastal waters, and the Great Lakes (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1970). Only those bays and estuaries
classified as inland water are included in this category. No category is applied to offshore waters beyond
the limits of Bays and Estuaries.

6. WETLAND
Wetlands are those areas where the water table is at, near, or above the land surface for a significant part
of most years. The hydrologic regime is such that aquatic or hydrophytic vegetation usually is
established, although alluvial and tidal flats may be nonvegetated. Wetlands frequently are associated
with topographic lows, even in mountainous regions. Examples of wetlands include marshes, mudflats,
and swamps situated on the shallow margins of bays, lakes, ponds, streams, and manmade impoundments
such as reservoirs. They include wet meadows or perched bogs in high mountain valleys and seasonally
wet or flooded basins, playas, or potholes with no surface-water outflow. Shallow water areas where
aquatic vegetation is submerged are classed as open water and are not included in the Wetland category.
Extensive parts of some river flood plains qualify as Wetlands, as do regularly flooded irrigation
overflow areas. These do not include agricultural land where seasonal wetness or short-term flooding
may provide an important component of the total annual soil moisture necessary for crop production.
Areas in which soil wetness or flooding is so short-lived that no typical wetlands vegetation is developed
properly belong in other categories.
Cultivated wetlands such as the flooded fields associated with rice production and developed cranberry
bogs are classified as Agricultural Land. Uncultivated wetlands from which wild rice, cattails, or wood
products, and so forth are harvested, or wetlands grazed by livestock, are retained in the Wetland
category.
Remote sensor data provide the primary source of land use and vegetative cover information for the more
generalized levels of this classification system. Vegetation types and detectable surface water or soil
moisture interpreted from such data provide the most appropriate means of identifying wetlands and
wetland boundaries. Inasmuch as vegetation responds to changes in moisture conditions, remote sensor
data acquired over a period of time will allow the detection of fluctuations in wetland conditions. Ground
surveys of soil types or the duration of flooding may provide supplemental information to be employed at
the more detailed levels of classification.
Wetland areas drained for any purpose belong to other land use and land cover categories such as
Agricultural Land, Rangeland, Forest Land, or Urban or Built-up Land. When the drainage is
discontinued and such use ceases, classification may revert to Wetland. Wetlands managed for wildlife
purposes may show short-term changes in land use as different management practices are used but are
properly classified Wetland.
Two separate boundaries are important with respect to wetland discrimination: the upper wetland
boundary above which practically any category of land use or land cover may exist, and the boundary
between wetland and open water beyond which the appropriate Water category should be employed.
Forested Wetland and Nonforested Wetland are the Level II categories of Wetland.

61. FORESTED WETLAND
Forested Wetlands are wetlands dominated by woody vegetation. Forested Wetland includes seasonally
flooded bottomland hardwoods, mangrove swamps, shrub swamps, and wooded swamps including those
around bogs. Because Forested Wetlands can be detected and mapped by the use of seasonal
(winter/summer) imagery, and because delineation of Forested Wetlands is needed for many
environmental planning activities, they are separated from other categories of Forest Land.
The following are examples of typical vegetation found in Forested Wetland. Wooded swamps and
southern flood plains contain primarily cypress (Taxodium) tupelo (Nyssa), oaks (Quercus) and red
maple (Acer rubrum). Mangroves (Avicennia and Rhizophora) are dominant in certain subtropical
Forested Wetland areas. Central and northern flood plains are dominated by cottonwoods (Populus) ash
(Fraxinus), alder (Alnus) and willow (Salix). Flood plains of the Southwest may be dominated by
mesquite (Prosopis), saltcedar (Tamarix), seepwillow (Baccharis), and arrowweed (Pluchea). Northern
bogs typically contain tamarack or larch (Larix) black spruce (Picea mariana), and heath shrubs
(Ericaceae). Shrub swamp vegetation includes alder (Alnus), willow (Salix), and buttonbush
(Cephalanthus accidentalis).

62. NONFORESTED WETLAND
Nonforested Wetlands are dominated by wetland herbaceous vegetation or are nonvegetated. These
wetlands include tidal and nontidal fresh, brackish, and salt marshes and nonvegetated flats and also
freshwater meadows, wet prairies, and open bogs.
The following are examples of vegetation associated with Nonforested Wetland. Narrow-leaved
emergents such as cordgrass (Spartina) and rush (Juncus) are dominant in coastal salt marshes. Both
narrow-leaved emergents such as cattail (Typha), bulrush (Scirpus) sedges (Carex), sawgrass (Cladium)
and other grasses (for example, Panicum and Ziraniopsis miliacea), and broad-leaved emergents such as
waterlily (Nuphar, Nymphea), pickerelweed (Pontederia), arrow arum (Peltandra), arrowhead
(Sagittaria), water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes), and alligatorweed (Alternanthera philoxeroides) are
typical of brackish to freshwater locations. Mosses (Sphagnum) and sedges (Carex) grow in wet
meadows and bogs.

7.BARREN LAND
Barren Land is land of limited ability to support life and in which less than one-third of the area has
vegetation or other cover. In general, it is an area of thin soil, sand, or rocks. Vegetation, if present, is
more widely spaced and scrubby than that in the Shrub and Brush category of Rangeland. Unusual
conditions, such as a heavy rainfall, occasionally result in growth of a short- lived, more luxuriant plant
cover. Wet, nonvegetated barren lands are included in the Nonforested Wetland category.
Land may appear barren because of man's activities. When it may reasonably be inferred from the data
source that the land will be returned to its former use, it is not included in the Barren category but
classified on the basis of its site and situation. Agricultural land, for example, may be temporarily without
vegetative cover because of cropping season or tillage practices. Similarly, industrial land may have
waste and tailing dumps, and areas of intensively managed forest land may have clear cut blocks evident.
When neither the former nor the future use can be discerned and the area is obviously in a state of land
use transition, it is considered to be Barren Land, in order to avoid inferential errors.
Level II categories of Barren Land are: Dry Salt Flats, Beaches, Sandy Areas other than Beaches; Bare
Exposed Rock; Strip Mines, Quarries, and Gravel Pits; Transitional Areas; and Mixed Barren Land.

71. DRY SALT FLATS
Dry Salt Flats occurring on the flat-floored bottoms of interior desert basins which do not qualify as
Wetland are included in this category. On aerial photographs, Dry Salt Flats tend to appear white or light
toned because of the high concentrations of salts at the surface as water has been evaporated, resulting in
a higher albedo than other adjacent desert features.

72. BEACHES
Beaches are the smooth sloping accumulations of sand and gravel along shorelines. The surface is stable
inland, but the shoreward part is subject to erosion by wind and water and to deposition in protected
areas.

73. SANDY AREAS OTHER THAN BEACHES
Sandy areas other than Beaches are composed primarily of dunes accumulations of sand transported by
the wind. Sand accumulations most commonly are found in deserts although they also occur on coastal
plains, river flood plains, and deltas and in periglacial environments. When such sand accumulations are
encountered in tundra areas, they are not included here but are placed in the Bare Ground Tundra
category.

74. BARE EXPOSED ROCK
The Bare Exposed Rock category includes areas of bedrock exposure, desert pavement, scarps, talus,
slides, volcanic material, rock glaciers, and other accumulations of rock without vegetative cover, with
the exception of such rock exposures occurring in tundra regions.

75. STRIP MINES, QUARRIES AND GRAVEL PITS
Those extractive mining activities that have significant surface expression are included in this category.
Vegetative cover and overburden are removed to expose such deposits as coal, iron ore, limestone, and
copper. Quarrying of building and decorative stone and recovery of sand and gravel deposits also result in
large open surface pits. Current mining activity is not always distinguishable, and inactive, unreclaimed,
and active strip mines, quarries, borrow pits, and gravel pits are included in this category until other cover
or use has been established, after which the land would be classified in accordance with the resulting use
or cover. Unused pits or quarries that have been flooded, however, are placed in the appropriate Water
category.

76. TRANSITIONAL AREAS
The Transitional Areas category is intended for those areas which are in transition from one land use
activity to another. They are characterized by the lack of any remote sensor information which would
enable the land use interpreter to predict reliably the future use or discern the past use. All that actually
can be determined in these situations is that a transition is in progress, and inference about past or future
use should be avoided. This transitional phase occurs when, for example, forest lands are cleared for
agriculture, wetlands are drained for development, or when any type of land use ceases as areas become
temporarily bare as construction is planned for such future uses as residences, shopping centers, industrial
sites, or suburban and rural residential subdivisions. Land being altered by filling, such as occurs in spoil
dumps or sanitary landfills, also is indicative of this transitional phase.

77. MIXED BARREN LAND
The Mixed Barren Land category is used when a mixture of Barren Land features occurs and the
dominant land use occupies less than two-thirds of the area. Such a situation arises, for example, in a
desert region where combinations of salt flats, sandy areas, bare rock, surface extraction, and transitional
activities could occur in close proximity and in areal extent too small for each to be included at mapping
scale. Where more than one-third intermixture of another use or uses occurs in a specific area, it is
classified as Mixed Barren Land. Where the intermixed land use or uses total less than onethird of the
specific area, the category appropriate to the dominant type of Barren Land is applied.
USER NOTES:
USGS
Polygon consistency checked in ArcInfo. (No overlaps or seams present.)
USGS
Visually checked against land use and land cover data sets.
GeoPlan relied on the integrity of the attribute information within
the original data.
USGS:
This data set is released as part of an enhanced version of previously published 
USGS land-use and land-cover data, edited to perform attribute and geographic 
corrections, recast to the North American Horizontal Datum of 1983, and 
reformatted to the commonly used geospatial data file formats. 

BACKGROUND

The following background information is extracted from:

U.S. Geological Survey, 1986, Land use and land cover digital data from 
1:250,000- and 1:100,000-scale maps: Data User Guide 4, 25 p. 

(This document is out of print, but was available online on July 1, 2005 at 
http://www.vterrain.org/Culture/LULC/Data_Users_Guide_4.html)

--- begin quote 

> "The characteristics of the digital cartographic data base for land Use
> and land cover and associated maps reflect the parameters used in
> compiling the maps. The Land Use and Land Cover mapping program is
> designed so that standard topographic maps at a scale of l:250,000 can
> be used as a base for compilation and reproduction. In a few cases, the
> U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has prepared Land Use and Land Cover and
> associated maps at a scale of 1:100,000 when the 1:100,000-scale
> topographic map base was available...

> Land Use and Land Cover maps provide data to be used either by
> themselves or in combination with the other data sets produced in the
> program. The basic sources of land use compilation data are NASA
> high-altitude aerial photographs, and National High-Altitude Photography
> (NHAP) program photographs, usually at scales smaller than l:60,000. The
> l:250,000-scale topographic map series is generally used as the base map
> for the compilation of the Land Use and Land Cover maps and the
> associated overlays; 1:100,000-scale topographic map bases have been
> used on rare occasions. Although compilation of Land Use and Land Cover
> data is performed on a film-positive base usually enlarged to a scale of
> approximately l:l25,000, the associated overlays are both compiled and
> digitized at a scale of l:250,000. 

> Land Use and Land Cover data compilation is based upon the
> classification system and definitions of Level II Land Use and Land
> Cover [codes, (see below)]...  All features are delineated by curved or
> straight lines that depict the actual boundaries of the areas (polygons)
> being described. The minimum size of polygons depicting all Urban or
> Built-up Land (categories 11-17), Water (51-54), Confined Feeding
> Operations (23), Other Agricultural Land (24), Strip Mines, Quarries,
> and Gravel Pits (75) and urban Transitional areas (76), is 4 hectares
> (ha). All other categories of Land Use and Land Cover have a minimum
> polygon size of 16 ha. (Those sizes also are considered the minimum
> sizes to which polygons are digitized.) In the Urban or Built-up Land
> and Water categories, the minimum width of a feature to be shown is 200 m;
> (that is, if a square with sides 200 m in length is delineated, the
> area will be 4 ha). Although the minimum-width consideration precludes
> the delineation of very narrow and very long 4-ha polygons, triangles or
> other polygons are acceptable if the base of the triangle or minimum
> width of the polygon is 200 m in length and if the area of the polygon
> is 4 ha. Exceptions to this specification are limited access highways
> (14) and all double line rivers (51) on the 1:250,000-scale base which
> shall have a minimum width of 92 m. For categories other than Urban or
> Built-up Land and Water, the 16-ha minimum size for delineation requires
> a minimum-width polygon of 400 m. Line weight for delineating Land Use
> and Land Cover polygons and for neatlines is 0.l0 mm at the production
> scale of l:250,000."

--- end quote

LAND-USE AND LAND-COVER CODES

These data sets represent land use and land cover using an integer value that 
references the Anderson level II classification system. 

The first digit represents the level 1 land-use and land-cover code, and the second 
digit (ones place) represents a subdivision, or level 2 code. 

The Anderson Level II land use codes used in this data set are listed below:

>
> 1  Urban or built-up land
>
>  11 Residental
>  12 Commercial and services
>  13 Industrial
>  14 Transportation, communication, utilities
>  15 Industrial and commercial complexes
>  16 Mixed urban or built-up land
>  17 Other urban or built-up land
>
> 2  Agricultural land
>
>  21 Cropland and pasture
>  22 Orchards, groves, vineyards, nurseries, and ornamental horticultural
>  23 Confined feeding operations
>  24 Other agricultural land
>
> 3  Rangeland
>
>  31 Herbaceous rangeland
>  32 Shrub and brush rangeland
>  33 Mixed rangeland
>
> 4  Forest land
>
>  41 Deciduous forest land
>  42 Evergreen forest land
>  43 Mixed forest land
>
> 5  Water
>
>  51 Streams and canals
>  52 Lakes
>  53 Reservoirs
>  54 Bays and estuaries
>
> 6  Wetland
>
>  61 Forested wetland
>  62 Nonforested wetland
>
> 7  Barren land
>
>  71 Dry salt flats
>  72 Beaches
>  73 Sandy areas not beaches
>  74 Bare exposed rock
>  75 Strip mines, quarries, gravel pits
>  76 Transitional areas
>  77 Mixed Barren Land
>
> 8  Tundra
>
>  81 Shrub and brush tundra
>  82 Herbaceous tundra
>  83 Bare ground
>  84 Wet tundra
>  85 Mixed tundra
>
> 9  Perennial snow or ice
>
>  91 Perennial snowfields
>  92 Glaciers

PROCESSING DETAILS

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) received the USGS land-use and 
and land-cover data files from USGS in 9-track ASCII format, one file per quadrangle.  
Files were loaded onto the hard disk of the computer from tape. The data were then 
processed with the GIRASARC2 program written in Arc Macro Language (AML), which 
is part of the ArcInfo Geographic Information System (GIS) software. This program was 
developed by the USGS to process the data into a consistent ArcInfo format. 

The GIRASARC2 AML 
<http://www.epa.gov/ngispgm3/spdata/EPAGIRAS/meta/girasarc2.aml> 
program does the following:

> -- Converts the USGS data files to polygon coverage format.
> -- Reconstructs topology, creating line and polygon features.
> -- Linearly scales the map coordinates to UTM  using the registration points 
>    listed in the USGS data file, and then modifies the coordinates to 
>    Albers Equal Area projection.
> -- Generates a quadrangle boundary polygon based on the mathematically-determined
>    corners of the map.
> -- Loads available documentation into a series of companion documentation
>    files with each data set.
> 

Another AML program 
(GIRASNEAT,  <http://www.epa.gov/ngispgm3/spdata/EPAGIRAS/meta/girasneat.aml>) 
does the following:

> --clips the data to the neatline data set.
> --dissolves polygon boundaries between polygons with the same land use code.
> --snaps exterior arcs to the arcs of the neatline cover with a tolerance of
>   40 meters.

Data were reviewed visually by the user responsible for executing the GIRASARC2 program. 

The GIRASARC2 and GIRASNEAT programs were executed in AML to create each quadrangle data set. 

The processing described above was completed by the USEPA in the early 1990s. In 2001, 
the USGS National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) Program needed a seamless data 
base of the conterminous United States, so data sets were further enhanced for use in the 
Program, as described below. 

Additional land use and land cover data sets for Hawaii and one map sheet in Alaska were 
converted using the same AML programs and edited in a similar manner.  The Hawaii data 
sets were joined together into a single data set as they all are documented with the same 
source date and are more easily handled as a single data file. 

These data files were then further edited to correct land-use coding errors caused by the 
misplacement of labels have also been corrected by visual inspection, checking the codes 
against the original labels in the GIRAS data files and ancillary land-cover data sets.  An AML 
menu-based application was used to assist in this process. 

In addition to the processing describe above, the data were processed to fill in all gaps between 
quadrangles so that the data fits together seamlessly.  The polygon data were then transformed 
so that the horizontal coordinate data reference the North American Datum of 1983.  (The raw 
GIRAS-format data and the USEPA version of it is referenced to the North American Datum of 
1927.) The geographic data files were also projected into geographic coordinates (decimal 
degrees of latitude and longitude).   Additional polygon data sets that document the land-use 
and land-cover data sets in a geographic context were created from the USEPA quadrangle 
index coverages with further editing based on information in the USGS data files posted on the 
USGS FTP site at the USGS EROS Data Center at:  ftp://edcftp.cr.usgs.gov/pub/data/LULC  
A summary of this effort was published as:  Price, C., Naomi, N., Hitt, K., and Clawges, R., 2003, 
Mining GIRAS: Improving on a national treasure of land use data, _in_ Proceedings of the 2004 
ESRI International User Conference, July 7-11, 2003, Environmental Systems Research Institute, 
Redlands Calif., 11p., available online at http://gis.esri.com/library/userconf/proc03/p0904.pdf

DATA FILE DESCRIPTIONS

Note that all data sets are referenced to the North American Datum of 1983.

1. tilepoly: Polygons representing each quadrangle tile.

2. src_poly: Polygons representing the extent of source files, with metadata about the source files 
used for each area. Some land-use files were merged from multiple GIRAS source files, some of 
which have different source dates. 

3. gAABBB: Polygons for each 1:250,000 tile, where "AA" represents the latitude of the lower right 
corner and "BBB" represents the longitude of the lower right corner of the map tile.  
These tile names are referenced in the polygon attributes of the tilepoly and src_poly polygon data 
sets described above. 

The polygon data sets above are distributed as a collection of related files that make up the publicly 
documented ESRI shapefile format:

> filename.shp ESRI shapefile geographic data file
> filename.shx ESRI shapefile index data file
> filename.dbf ESRI shapefile attribute file
> filename.prj "Well-Known-Text" (WTK) format projection file
> filename.shp..xml   metadata file 

The shapefiles use geographic (decimal degree) coordinate data referenced to the 
North American Datum of 1983. 

4. girasX Raster-format data, stored in six image files,
in GeoTIFF format (with georeferencing included in the
internal image header file). 

>  IMAGE      XMIN     YMIN     XMAX     YMAX  DESCRIPTION
>  giras1 -2380005  1874985       15  3200000  NW Conterminous US (Albers)
>  giras2       15  1874985  2300000  3172005  NE Conterminous US (Albers)
>  giras3 -2380005   199995       15  1874985  SW Conterminous US (Albers)
>  giras4       15   199995  2300000  1874985  SE Conterminous US (Albers)
>  giras5   369285  2081265  955575   2460585  Hawaii         (UTM Zone 4)
>  giras6   499875 6762705   662145   6877755  Valdez, Alaska (UTM Zone 6)

The raster data sets are referenced to locations specified in projected coordinates (in meters). 
Image tiles giras1 through giras4 use standard parameters for the conterminous United States:

>  Projection    ALBERS
>  Datum         NAD83
>  Units         METERS
>  Spheroid      GRS1980
>  Xshift        0.0000000000
>  Yshift        0.0000000000
>  Parameters
>   29 30  0.000 /* 1st standard parallel
>   45 30  0.000 /* 2nd standard parallel
>  -96  0  0.000 /* central meridian
>   23  0  0.000 /* latitude of projection's origin
>  0.00000 /* false easting (meters)
>  0.00000 /* false northing (meters)

giras5 (Hawaii) uses these projection parameters:

>  Projection    UTM
>  Zone          6
>  Datum         NAD83
>  Units         METERS
>  Spheroid      GRS1980

giras6 (Valdez, Alaska) uses these projection parameters:

>  Projection    UTM
>  Zone          4
>  Datum         NAD83
>  Units         METERS
>  Spheroid      GRS1980

The raster data sets are distributed as a collection of related files:
 
>  girasX.tif  Tagged-Image Format File (TIFF) with GeoTIFF georeferencing
>  girasX.tfw  ESRI "World file", used for georeferencing
>  girasX.aux  ESRI "aux file" file used by ArcGIS software
>  girasX.prj  ESRI ArcInfo projection file 
>  girasX.tif.xml metadata file 

USGS DISCLAIMERS:

The use of trade, product, or firm names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply 
endorsement by the U.S. Government. 

Although this Federal Geographic Data Committee-compliant metadata file is intended to document 
the data set in nonproprietary form, as well as in ArcInfo format, this metadata file may include some 
ArcInfo-specific terminology.  

Although these data have been used by the U.S. Geological Survey, U.S.  Department of the Interior, 
no warranty expressed or implied is made by the U.S. Geological Survey as to the accuracy of the data.

Land-use and land-cover data collected by the U.S. Geological Survey are useful 
for environmental assessment of land-use patterns with respect to water-quality 
analysis, growth management, and other types of environmental impact 
assessment. 

The data are meant to be normally used by quadrangle, or among adjacent 
quadrangles where temporally contiguous. The data can be used in any 
geographic application where intermediate scale land-use data are appropriate 
and the source land-cover map dates are representative of the time period of 
interest.

This data is provided 'as is' and its horizontal positional accuracy
has not been verified by GeoPlan

This data is provided 'as is' and its vertical positional accuracy
has not been verified by GeoPlan

USGS
Not for use at scales greater than 1:250,000. Please note the data set depicts 
historical land use and is not suitable for applications requiring current land use 
information.

The Florida Geographic Data Library is a collection of Geospatial Data
compiled by the University of Florida GeoPlan Center with support from
the Florida Department of Transportation. GIS data available in FGDL is
collected from various state, federal, and other agencies (data sources)
who are data stewards, producers, or publishers. The data available in
FGDL may not be the most current version of the data offered by the
data source. University of Florida GeoPlan Center makes no guarantees
about the currentness of the data and suggests that data users check
with the data source to see if more recent versions of the data exist.

Furthermore, the GIS data available in the FGDL are provided 'as is'.
The University of Florida GeoPlan Center makes no warranties, guaranties
or representations as to the truth, accuracy or completeness of the data
provided by the data sources. The University of Florida GeoPlan Center
makes no representations or warranties about the quality or suitability
of the materials, either expressly or implied, including but not limited
to any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular
purpose, or non-infringement. The University of Florida GeoPlan Center
shall not be liable for any damages suffered as a result of using,
modifying, contributing or distributing the materials.

A note about data scale: 

Scale is an important factor in data usage.  Certain scale datasets
are not suitable for some project, analysis, or modeling purposes.
Please be sure you are using the best available data. 

1:24000 scale datasets are recommended for projects that are at the
county level.
1:24000 data should NOT be used for high accuracy base mapping such
as property parcel boundaries.
1:100000 scale datasets are recommended for projects that are at the
multi-county or regional level.
1:125000 scale datasets are recommended for projects that are at the
regional or state level or larger.

Vector datasets with no defined scale or accuracy should be
considered suspect. Make sure you are familiar with your data
before using it for projects or analysis. Every effort has been
made to supply the user with data documentation. For additional
information, see the References section and the Data Source Contact
section of this documentation. For more information regarding
scale and accuracy, see our webpage at:
http://geoplan.ufl.edu/education.html

REFERENCES:
Enhanced Historical Land-Use and Land-Cover Data Sets of the U.S. Geological Survey: polygon format files
http://water.usgs.gov/GIS/metadata/usgswrd/XML/ds240_landuse_poly.xml

DATA LINEAGE SUMMARY:
The data was reformatted from the USGS published
information to ArcInfo coverage format, edited and
polygon topology built, followed by conversion to
ArcInfo EXPORT format.

See Supplemental_Information element of this metadata record more details.
Process Date: 20030101

The ArcInfo EXPORT format data sets were retrieved from the EPA server, and edited by USGS to correct minor attribute and geography errors, followed by coordinate projection and data format translation. The final data set is seamless and very closely match together at quad boundaries (although exact edgematching processing was not done, only tiny gaps exist between quadrangle tiles). The quadrangles from Alaska and Hawaii were not available from EPA's collection of EXPORT files. They were downloaded from the USGS EROS ftp site at ftp://edcftp.cr.usgs.gov/pub/data/LULC. The GIRAS format files were converted to ArcInfo Coverage format. The Hawaii files were into a single data ArcInfo coverage, which was given the tile label G18154. This work was completed by Curtis Price, Naomi Nakagaki, Kerie Hitt, and Rick Clawges in support of the USGS National Water-Quality Assessment Program. A description of this process has been published in Price, C., Naomi, N., Hitt, K., and Clawges, R., 2003, Mining GIRAS: Improving on a national treasure of land use data, in Proceedings of the 2004 ESRI International User Conference, Environmental Systems Research Institute, Redlands Calif. [on-line] (Accessed November 3, 2004, from http://gis.esri.com/library/userconf/proc03/p0904.pdf) "name".dbf where "name" a geographic identifier of the form "GAABBB", where "AA" is that latitude and "BB" is the longitude of the lower right corner of the tile covered by the data set. See the Supplemental Information element of this metadata record for more details. Process Date: 20030101
The GeoPlan Center downloaded the USGS Enhanced Historical Land-Use and Land-Cover Data Sets from the following website on February 3rd, 2011. USGS DS 240: Enhanced Historical Land-Use and Land-Cover Data Sets of the U.S. Geological Survey Data download index http://water.usgs.gov/GIS/dsdl/ds240/index.html GeoPlan downloaded the following Land Use and Land Cover Data Set Tiles (polygon format). g26080: WEST PALM BEACH g25080: MIAMI g24080: KEY WEST g24082: KEY WEST INSERT g26082: TAMPA g27080: FT. PIERCE g28082: PLANT CITY g28080: ORLANDO g29084: APPALACHICOLA g29082: GAINESVILLE g29080: DAYTONA BEACH g30086: PENSACOLA g30084: TALLAHASSEE g30082: VALDOSTA g30080: JACKSONVILLE When downloaded the files were in the following naming convention format example: g24080.shp All files were also in the following projection: Original Spatial Reference Information: Horizontal_Coordinate_System_Definition: Geographic: Latitude_Resolution: 0.000001 Longitude_Resolution: 0.000001 Geographic_Coordinate_Units: Decimal degrees Geodetic_Model: Horizontal_Datum_Name: North American Datum of 1983 Ellipsoid_Name: Geodetic Reference System 80 Semi-major_Axis: 6378137.000000 Denominator_of_Flattening_Ratio: 298.257222 All files were reprojected to the FGDL Albers projection. Next all the files were merged to create one statewide layer. Next the Integrate Command was run at a tolerance of 1m, then the Repair Geometry Command was then run to fix any geometry issues resulting from the Integrate procedure. A Dissolve was then performed on the LUCODE field to clean up tile borders. Below is the original USGS file structure: Original Attribute Table Codes and Values: Item Item Description LUCODE Land use classification code number LANDUSE Land use and land cover class description Below is the crosswalk table between the original file structure and the new file structure: ORIGINAL NAME NEW NAME LUCODE OTHER LANDUSE FLUCSDESC Additionally GeoPlan added and populated the following fields: FLUCCS LUCODE1 LANDUSE1 LUCODE2 LANDUSE2 DATESTAMP SOURCE SOURCE2 FLUCCS_L1 LEVEL1 FLUCCS_L2 LEVEL2 FLUCCS_L3 LEVEL3 FLUCCSCOMP ACRES DESCRIPT FGDLAQDATE One error was noted and fixed. For the entire State of Florida there was only one feature with the land use land cover value of 71 (Dry salt flats). Parcel data was reviewed for this area and it was determined that the location contained homes built in the 1960's before the original study was performed. Based on this evidence the feature's value was updated to 11 (Residential). Please note: The field names in the original attribute table from the USGS were renamed by the GeoPlan Center. The original field names from the USGS are listed in the Process Steps (Data Quality Section) and in the Attribute Definitions (Entity and Attribute Information section). All land use datasets distributed via FGDL will contain these standardized field names, for ease of using land use data at the statewide extent. This is an update to the FGDL USGSLU_1974.shp data layer. Process Date: 20110203
Data imported to ArcSDE and exported as a shapefile. Process Date: 20110309
MAP PROJECTION PARAMETERS:

Projection                          ALBERS
Datum                               HPGN
Units                               METERS
Spheroid                            GRS1980
1st Standard Parallel               24  0  0.000
2nd Standard Parallel               31 30  0.000
Central Meridian                   -84 00  0.000
Latitude of Projection's Origin     24  0  0.000
False Easting (meters)              400000.00000
False Northing (meters)             0.00000

DATA SOURCE CONTACT (S):

Name:
Abbr. Name:
Address:


Phone:

Web site:
E-mail:
Contact Person:
         Phone:
        E-mail:
U.S. Geological Survey
USGS
507 National Center
Reston, VA
20192
1-888-275-8747 (1-888-ASK-USGS)

http://water.usgs.gov/GIS/dsdl/ds240/index.html http://water.usgs.gov/user_feedback_form.html

FGDL CONTACT:
Name:                   FLORIDA GEOGRAPHIC DATA LIBRARY
Abbr. Name:             FGDL
Address:                Florida Geographic Data Library
                        431 Architecture Building
                        PO Box 115706
                        Gainesville, FL  32611-5706
Web site:               http://www.fgdl.org

Contact FGDL: 

      Technical Support:	        http://www.fgdl.org/fgdlfeed.html
      FGDL Frequently Asked Questions:  http://www.fgdl.org/fgdlfaq.html
      FGDL Mailing Lists:		http://www.fgdl.org/fgdl-l.html
      For FGDL Software:                http://www.fgdl.org/software.html