Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Skip to content

Temporal and Spatio-Temporal High-Resolution Satellite Data for the Validation of a Landsat Time-Series of Fractional Component Cover Across Western United States (U.S.) Rangelands

Metadata Updated: November 13, 2025

Western U.S. rangelands have been quantified as six fractional cover (0-100%) components over the Landsat archive (1985-2018) at 30-m resolution, termed the “Back-in-Time” (BIT) dataset. Robust validation through space and time is needed to quantify product accuracy. We leverage field data observed concurrently with HRS imagery over multiple years and locations in the Western U.S. to dramatically expand the spatial extent and sample size of validation analysis relative to a direct comparison to field observations and to previous work. We compare HRS and BIT data in the corresponding space and time. Our objectives were to evaluate the temporal and spatio-temporal relationships between HRS and BIT data, and to compare their response to spatio-temporal variation in climate. We hypothesize that strong temporal and spatio-temporal relationships will exist between HRS and BIT data and that they will exhibit similar climate response. We evaluated a total of 42 HRS sites across the western U.S. with 32 sites in Wyoming, and 5 sites each in Nevada and Montana. HRS sites span a broad range of vegetation, biophysical, climatic, and disturbance regimes. Our HRS sites were strategically located to collectively capture the range of biophysical conditions within a region. Field data were used to train 2-m predictions of fractional component cover at each HRS site and year. The 2-m predictions were degraded to 30-m, and some were used to train regional Landsat-scale, 30-m, “base” maps of fractional component cover representing circa 2016 conditions. A Landsat-imagery time-series spanning 1985-2018, excluding 2012, was analyzed for change through time. Pixels and times identified as changed from the base were trained using the base fractional component cover from the pixels identified as unchanged. Changed pixels were labeled with the updated predictions, while the base was maintained in the unchanged pixels. The resulting BIT suite includes the fractional cover of the six components described above for 1985-2018. We compare the two datasets, HRS and BIT, in space and time. Two tabular data presented here correspond to a temporal and spatio-temporal validation of the BIT data. First, the temporal data are HRS and BIT component cover and climate variable means by site by year. Second, the spatio-temporal data are HRS and BIT component cover and associated climate variables at individual pixels in a site-year.

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 September 13, 2025
Metadata Updated Date November 13, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI USGS DCAT-US

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date September 13, 2025
Metadata Updated Date November 13, 2025
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer
Identifier http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/usgs-5de7de8fe4b02caea0eb9917
Data Last Modified 2020-08-18T00:00:00Z
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 8c39d02e-bd53-452f-82a6-ddf22f784c05
Harvest Source Id 2b80d118-ab3a-48ba-bd93-996bbacefac2
Harvest Source Title DOI USGS DCAT-US
Metadata Type geospatial
Old Spatial -119.9472, 39.7848, -104.2109, 46.8470
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash cba1e57fb8ece66c5eb129a9bcc59335bcce14411161a4b4e2970a2adaf94037
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": -119.9472, 39.7848, -119.9472, 46.8470, -104.2109, 46.8470, -104.2109, 39.7848, -119.9472, 39.7848}

Didn't find what you're looking for? Suggest a dataset here.