Introduction:
This land cover map was created using imagery from the Landsat 5 satellite, which orbits the earth at an altitude of 438 miles. Multi-date images from spring, summer, and fall of 2005 were used, with some 2004 images where 2005 images were not available. In total, over 50 Landsat images were used. Employing data from the red, near-infrared, and shortwave infrared parts of the spectrum (Landsat bands 3, 4, 5, and 7) an “unsupervised,” or statistical clustering, approach was used to identify 11 land cover types. Refinement of field boundaries and the addition of Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) lands were performed using additional data provided by USDA.
Data:
This collection of files is intended to be a simple way to obtain and view the 2005 Land Use / Land Cover map developed for the State of Kansas. An ESRI ArcMap 9.2 document (.mxd) contains the land cover map and boundary files for Kansas. The document also links to an ESRI layer file (.lyr) that provides a color ramp and land cover class names.
Land Cover Dataset (16Mb, .zip archive file) (updated 05/05/08)
Instructions:
To use the ArcMap document, unzip the downloaded file to the desired location and open the .mxd document within the extracted folder. The .mxd document maintains the links between the source data files and the layer file that defines the land cover names and colors. These links are stored as 'relative links', meaning the folder can be placed anywhere and still work so long as the files remain within the folder. Individual data files can also be copied from the folder and moved around; simply apply the layer file (.lyr) to the source data files (Layer Properties --> Symbology tab --> Import button in ArcMap 9.2) to use the color ramp provided.
The Land Use / Land Cover data are clipped to an area slightly larger than than the Kansas boundary. Specifically, the state boundary was buffered to include an additional 300 meters and the land cover data were clipped to it. This was done to offset potential 'edge effects' in spatial analysis; additional explicit state and county boundaries are also included.
Contents:
ks_lulc_300m: ESRI Grid format (30m pixels), land cover data clipped to 300 meter buffer of Kansas boundary
ks_bnd_300m: ESRI Grid format, raster boundary file of the 300 meter buffer of Kansas boundary
ks_bnd.shp: ESRI shapefile, vector boundary of the Kansas boundary
ks_bnd_300m.shp: ESRI shapefile, vector boundary of 1 kilometer buffer of Kansas boundary
Tiger2000_County_Boundarires.shp: ESRI shapefile, county boundaries for all counties in Kansas
Kansas_LULC_2005.mxd: ESRI ArcMap 9.2 document
LULC_PhaseI_classes.txt: Text file containing the numerical code and name for each of the 11 landcover classes
LULC_PhaseI_classes.xls: Microsoft Excel file containing the numerical code and name for each of the 11 landcover classes
LULC of Kansas.lyr: ESRI Layer file containing the color ramp and names for each of the 11 landcover classes
This project is sponsored by the State of Kansas GIS Policy Board, the National Science Foundation (EPSCoR 0553722), and the Kansas Technology Enterprise Corporation.
If you have comments or questions about the KARS web site, please contact the web administrator.