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    • Changes in imperviousness for U.S. urban areas, 1974-2012

    Metadata Updated: January 8, 2026

    This product consists of two sets of imperviousness calculations for 3,535 urban areas and urban clusters in the conterminous United States. Imperviousness is given as the percent of the area covered by impervious surfaces, such as roads, buildings, or parking lots. One set of calculations is for the time periods 2001, 2006, and 2011, based on the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Land Cover Dataset (NLCD) imperviousness data layer. The second set of calculations is for the time periods 1974, 1982, 1992, 2002, and 2012, based on landuse-based coefficients from the USGS NAWQA Wall-to-wall Anthropogenic Landuse Trends (NWALT) product. Urban area boundaries are based on the U.S. Census Bureau 2015 Urban Areas boundaries. The Census Bureau polygon shapefile on which the calculations were based is also provided.

    Access & Use Information

    Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

    Downloads & Resources

    Dates

    Metadata Created Date January 8, 2026
    Metadata Updated Date January 8, 2026

    Metadata Source

    Harvested from DOI USGS DCAT-US

    Other Data Resources

    Additional Metadata

    Resource Type Dataset
    Metadata Created Date January 8, 2026
    Metadata Updated Date January 8, 2026
    Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
    Maintainer
    Identifier http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/USGS_5acbeb40e4b0e2c2dd13d4da
    Data Last Modified 2020-08-26T00:00:00Z
    Category geospatial
    Public Access Level public
    Bureau Code 010:12
    Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
    Metadata Catalog ID https://ddi.doi.gov/usgs-data.json
    Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
    Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
    Harvest Object Id ed940dc1-b202-4433-9b2f-4566bd147abc
    Harvest Source Id 2b80d118-ab3a-48ba-bd93-996bbacefac2
    Harvest Source Title DOI USGS DCAT-US
    Metadata Type geospatial
    Old Spatial -124.886, 24.381, -66.879, 49.384
    Source Datajson Identifier True
    Source Hash 48130902e46c952427f5d1b2845a0c17ee3d75939c79c155184228e02e4b6d6e
    Source Schema Version 1.1
    Spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": -124.886, 24.381, -124.886, 49.384, -66.879, 49.384, -66.879, 24.381, -124.886, 24.381}

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