Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

This site is currently in beta, and your feedback is helping shape its ongoing development.

National Land Cover Database (NLCD) 2006 Accuracy Assessment Points Conterminous United States

Published by U.S. Geological Survey | Department of the Interior | Metadata Last Checked: January 27, 2026 | Last Modified: 2024-07-18T00:00:00Z
Release of NLCD 2006 provides the first land-cover change database for the Conterminous United States (CONUS) from Landsat Thematic Mapper data. Accuracy assessment of NLCD 2006 focused on four primary products: 2001 land cover, 2006 land cover, land-cover change between 2001 and 2006, and impervious surface change between 2001 and 2006. The accuracy assessment was conducted by selecting a stratified random sample of pixels with the reference classification interpreted from multi-temporal high resolution digital imagery. The NLCD Level II (16 classes) overall accuracies for the 2001 and 2006 land cover were 79% and 78%, respectively, with Level II user's accuracies exceeding 80% for water, high density urban, all upland forest classes, shrubland, and cropland for both dates. Level I (8 classes) accuracies were 85% for NLCD 2001 and 84% for NLCD 2006. The high overall and user's accuracies for the individual dates translated into high user's accuracies for the 2001–2006 change reporting themes for water gain and loss, forest loss, urban gain, and the no-change reporting themes for water, urban, forest, and agriculture.

data.gov

An official website of the GSA's Technology Transformation Services

Looking for U.S. government information and services?
Visit USA.gov