The “Biophysical assessment for indemnity selection of federal lands in Colorado: Development” dataset quantifies the estimated surface disturbance from development (urban, agriculture, energy and mineral extraction and transmission, and roads and railroads) at several analysis scales for each of 89 Indemnity Units. The Indemnity Units are federal lands, currently managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), under consideration for transfer of ownership to the State of Colorado in compensation for federal lands not available for transfer at the time of statehood. The companion data release (see "Cross Reference" section) was used to summarize the surface disturbance from development (development footprint) at three analysis scales: the estimated development footprint area (in hectares), as well as the terrestrial development index (TDI) using 1-kilometer and 5-kilometer radius moving windows. The TDI scores represents the percentage of the development footprint within a specified circular moving window size. The 1-kilometer TDI provides the broad-scale context for development patterns and is used in conjunction with the TDI calculated using a 5-km radius to evaluate development at multiple scales. The dataset format is a comma-separated values (CSV) text file, which can be joined with the “Indemnity Unit locations” dataset (via the IU_Code) or used independently.