National Land Cover Dataset

The National Land Cover Database (NLCD) serves as the definitive Landsat-based, 30-meter resolution, land cover database for the Nation. NLCD provides spatial reference and descriptive data for characteristics of the land surface such as thematic class (for example, urban, agriculture, and forest), percent impervious surface, and percent tree canopy cover. NLCD supports a wide variety of Federal, State, local, and nongovernmental applications that seek to assess ecosystem status and health, understand the spatial patterns of biodiversity, predict effects of climate change, and develop land management policy. NLCD products are created by the Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics (MRLC) Consortium, a partnership of Federal agencies led by the U.S. Geological Survey.

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Toxic Release Inventory by County

This layer displays the amount of toxic releases based on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Toxics Release Inventory (TRI), a national program which tracks the management of over 650 toxic chemicals that pose a threat to human health and the environment. Facilities must report how each chemical is managed through recycling, energy recovery, treatment, and releases to the environment. A “release” of a chemical means that it is emitted to the air or water, or placed in some type of land disposal. The information submitted by facilities to the EPA and states is compiled annually as the Toxics Release Inventory or TRI, and is stored in a publicly accessible database ( Envirofacts. For more information, please visit the EPA Toxics Release Inventory web page.

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Cropland Data Layer

This layer displays the Cropland Data Layer (CDL) developed by the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS). The CDL is a raster, geo-referenced, crop-specific land cover data layer created annually for the continental United States using moderate resolution satellite imagery and extensive agricultural ground truth. The CDL has a ground resolution of 30 meters, and is validated using data from the USDA Farm Services Agency and United States Geological Survey. Historical CDL products are available for use and free for download through CropScape (https://nassgeodata.gmu.edu/CropScape/).

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