EnviroAtlas -- Virginia Beach/Williamsburg, VA -- Meter-Scale Urban Land Cover (MULC)

Description

The Virginia Beach, VA EnviroAtlas Meter-scale Urban Land Cover (MULC) dataset comprises 3,724 km2 of southeast Virginia and includes Hampton, Newport News, Suffolk, Virginia Beach and Williamsburg. The area was selected based on the US Census Bureau's 2010 Urban Area for Virginia Beach, VA with a 1 km buffer added. These MULC data and maps are an adaptation of data developed in succession by three organizations. First, WorldView Solutions Inc., a contractor of the Virginia Geographic Information Network (VGIN), created an original dataset for the state of Virginia that used 6 inch to 1 foot-resolution, four-band (red, green, blue, and near-infrared), leaf-off imagery collected in 2013 for the Virginia Base Mapping Program, as well as 2015 VGIN LiDAR, and ancillary data inputs. These data did not fully capture tree canopy. Second, the Chesapeake Conservancy amended the original dataset using 2014, leaf-on United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) and 2010 and 2013 LiDAR data. The amendments added some of the tree canopy missing from the original data. Third, EPA amended the data further by collapsing multiple land cover classes into the seven EnviroAtlas Meter-scale Urban Land Cover (MULC) classes, and making corrections to the Wetlands classes, also using 2010 and 2013 LiDAR. Seven land cover classes were mapped: Water, Impervious Surfaces, Soil/Barren, Tree/Forest, Grass/Herbaceous Non-Woody Vegetation, Agriculture (Cultivated Crops) and Wetlands (Woody and Emergent). An analysis of 712 photo-interpreted land cover reference points yielded an overall user's accuracy of 83.5% (MAX) and an overall fuzzy user's accuracy of 84.1% (RIGHT) (see confusion matrices below). This dataset was produced by Virginia Geographic Information Network and their contractor WorldView Solutions Inc. (WSI), in collaboration with the Chesapeake Bay High-Resolution Land Cover Project - a cooperative agreement between the Chesapeake Conservancy and the National Park Service. It was adapted by the US EPA to support research and online mapping activities related to EnviroAtlas. EnviroAtlas (https://enviroatlas.epa.gov/EnviroAtlas) allows the user to interact with a web-based, easy-to-use, mapping application to view and analyze multiple ecosystem services for the contiguous United States. The dataset is available as downloadable data (https://edg.epa.gov/data/Public/ORD/EnviroAtlas) or as an EnviroAtlas map service. Additional descriptive information about each attribute in this dataset can be found in its associated EnviroAtlas Fact Sheet (https://enviroatlas.epa.gov/EnviroAtlas/DataFactSheets).

Resources

Name Format Description Link
0 https://edg.epa.gov/data/PUBLIC/ORD/ENVIROATLAS/Communities/VirginiaBeachWilliamsburgVA
23 https://enviroatlas.epa.gov/arcgis/rest/services/Supplemental/Landcover_AllCommunities/ImageServer
0 https://www.epa.gov/enviroatlas/enviroatlas-data
0 https://www.epa.gov/enviroatlas

Tags

  • environment
  • impact
  • va
  • ecology
  • green space
  • agriculture
  • virginia
  • enviroatlas
  • ecosystem
  • ecosystem services
  • wetlands
  • water
  • environmental atlas
  • health
  • land
  • land cover
  • biophysical
  • virginia beach/williamsburg
  • surface water
  • communities

Topics

Categories