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Comparison of Land Use Area Estimates from Three Different Data Sources for the Upper Mississippi River Basin

This study presents the results of comparing land use estimates between three different data sets for the Upper Mississippi River Basin (UMRB). The comparisons were performed between the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) National Resource Inventory (NRI), the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Land Cover Data (NLCD) database, and a combined USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) Agricultural Census – NLCD dataset created to support applications of the Hydrologic Unit Model for the U.S. (HUMUS). The comparison was performed for 1992 versions of the datasets because that was the only consistent year available among all three data sources. The results show that differences in land use area estimates increased as comparisons shifted from the entire UMRB to smaller 4- and 8-digit watershed regions (as expected). However, the area estimates for the major land use categories remained generally consistent among all three data sets across each level of spatial comparison. Differences in specific crop and grass/forage land use categories were magnified with increasing refinement of the spatial unit of comparison, especially for close-grown crops, pasture, and alfalfa/hayland.

Author(s)
Santhi, Chinnisamy
Contact Person
Philip Gassman
Contact Organization
Center for Agricultural and Rural Development
Contact Phone
Contact Email
Bioenergy Category
Publication Date
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