This 30-meter resolution raster data set of land cover for the conterminous United States ("NLCDep0905") was designed to describe conditions representative of the year 2000 and is the result of overlaying enhanced 1992 National Land Cover Data with 2000 population data at the block group geographic level. Any area (excluding water, developed land, or wetlands) with population density of at least 1,000 people per square mile was reclassified as "newly urbanized" land in the derivative product. Areas of water, developed land, or wetlands existing in the original national land-cover data set were preserved.

This data set has been superseded by the one called "Enhanced National Land Cover Data 1992 revised with 1990 and 2000population data to indicate urban development between 1992 and 2000" ("NLCDep0306") dated March 2006. The approach used in developing NLCDep0905 was determined to have misclassified lands that already were urban in 1990 as newly urbanized and therefore greatly overrepresented new urban land. Although the NLCDep0905 data set has been superseded, some water-quality assessment projects utilized this data set to characterize basins before the NLCDep0306 data set was developed. Therefore, the NLCDep0905 is being published to document the land cover data set used in these analyses.