Landcover Mosaic map (LCM)
The Landcover Mosaic map (LCM) can be used to answer the question: What is the mixture of agricultural/urban/natural landcover types surrounding a given land parcel?
The LCM map is colored according to the mixture of agricultural, developed (or 'built-up'), and semi-natural landcover in a surrounding 15-hectare neighborhood (approximately 37 acres). The specific color of a place is determined by mixing the three primary colors (red, green, blue) according to the proportions of developed (more red), agriculture (more blue), and semi-natural (more green) in the neighborhood surrounding that place.
Compare the landcover mixture in these regional areas selected from the LCM map:
View the complete LCM in Google Earth. Detailed instructions and more information are available here.
Note: The LCM was created at a 15-hectare scale using input data from the 2001 National Landcover Database (NLCD). Differences between the NLCD-LCM product and Google Earth images are due to different spatial resolutions, date of maps, geographic projections, and definitions of forest. Land cover mosaic changes since 2001 are not represented in the 2001 NLCD-LCM product.
Photo by Larry Korhnak, www.interfacesouth.org
