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Coincident maps of changing land cover, land use, and forest condition in the United States, 1985-present

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Abstract

Maps of land cover class are more common, and generally more accurate, than maps of land use because “use” implies management intent that may not be directly sensible by earth-observing satellites. However, many monitoring frameworks related to sustainability require land use and land cover to be explicitly differentiated. This is particularly true for forests, where natural and human-caused dynamics in tree cover often occur independently of long-term land use changes that signal deforestation. We used an extensive multi-temporal, multi-variate sample of reference points across the United States to calibrate and validate 30 m mapped time series (1985–present) of land cover, land use, and vegetation condition change. These maps comprise the Landscape Change Monitoring System (LCMS) and are served through: an interactive, open-access app; Google Earth Engine; image services; and the FSGeodata Clearinghouse. Here, we provide methods, validation metrics, and a usage example highlighting the value of differentiating use from cover in the context of model-assisted estimation of forest area using U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service inventory data.

Data availability

LCMS data are distributed in three different locations to meet different user needs. Please refer to Table 9 for detailed data location and descriptions.

Code availability

The full LCMS workflow is available as a training course developed as a collaboration between the Forest Service, RedCastle Resources Inc., and Google (https://github.com/redcastle-resources/lcms-training). This course allows users to reproduce LCMS outputs over the PRUSVI study area in a series of Python notebooks. It also provides users the ability to apply these methods across their own study areas.

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Acknowledgements

LCMS is a product of many years of research and development. Ken Brewer had the initial vision for LCMS. Warren Cohen, Mark Finco, Leah Campbell, Jennifer Lecker, Wendy Goetz, Nathan Pugh, Hayden Beck, Lila Leatherman, Mark Hammond, Scott McClarin, and numerous TimeSync analysts all contributed to the success of LCMS’ ongoing production. Steve Stehman has been instrumental in the initial vision for the sample design, as well as validation techniques we employ. The findings and conclusions in this publication are those of the authors and should not be construed to represent any official USDA or U.S. Government determination or policy.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. RedCastle Resources Inc, On-site contractor, U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service, Field Services & Innovation Center-Geospatial Office, Salt Lake City, USA

    Ian W. Housman, Joshua Heyer & Elizabeth Hardwick

  2. U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Riverdale, USA

    Sean P. Healey & Zhiqiang Yang

  3. U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service, Field Services & Innovation Center-Geospatial Office, Salt Lake City, USA

    Jennifer Ross & Kevin Megown

Authors

  1. Ian W. Housman
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  2. Sean P. Healey
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  3. Joshua Heyer
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  4. Elizabeth Hardwick
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  5. Zhiqiang Yang
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  6. Jennifer Ross
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  7. Kevin Megown
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Contributions

Ian Housman – Conceptualization, methodology, software, validation, formal analysis, data curation, writing – original draft, writing – review and editing, visualization. Sean Healey – Conceptualization, methodology, writing – original draft, funding acquisition. Joshua Heyer – Methodology, software, validation, formal analysis, data curation, writing – original draft, writing – review and editing. Elizabeth Hardwick – Methodology, software, validation, formal analysis, data curation, writing – review and editing, visualization. Zhiquiang Yang – Conceptualization, methodology, software, validation, formal analysis. Jennifer Ross – Conceptualization, funding acquisition, supervision. Kevin Megown – Conceptualization, funding acquisition.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to
Ian W. Housman or Sean P. Healey.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Table 1

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Housman, I.W., Healey, S.P., Heyer, J. et al. Coincident maps of changing land cover, land use, and forest condition in the United States, 1985-present.
Sci Data (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-026-06743-0

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