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Western Gulf Coastal Plain Louisiana Land Use and Land Cover ground truth observations from 2016 to 2017

Metadata Updated: November 12, 2025

Collaborative landscape conservation planning is largely limited by the quality of spatial data which can be applied to decision support tools to inform conservation decisions. Conservation entities across the Western Gulf Coastal Plain are taking a collaborative, strategic, landscape scale approach to conservation planning. This effort encourages communication and implementation of restoration and habitat enhancement actions within water sheds. Land cover datasets available within this geography hinder the efficiency of such efforts due to low resolution quality and limited details associated with land use categories. In collaboration with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and the Gulf Coast Prairie Landscape Conservation Cooperative, U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is developing three map products to 1) improve the resolution of current reference for land use land cover, 2) identify high priority areas for pollinator conservation, and 3) define pre-settlement vegetation types to serve as a reference for restoration efforts. The Land Use Land Cover (LULC) product will attempt to utilize data training methods such as e-cognition software using the 2015 National Aerial Imagery Program (NAIP) dataset (1m) as the basemap. If this is not successful, several data sources will be referenced to produce a refined version of land cover data across the Western Gulf Coastal Plain which includes additional land use categories at a higher resolution (10m). Other data sources will include ~12,000 aerial points assigned to image objects, National Wetlands Inventory (NWI) 2008, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) marsh classes, National Land Cover Database (NLCD) urban areas, and Cropland Data Layer (CDL) data. The aerial points will also contribute to the development of the conservation priority map. Potential pollinator habitat will be derived by ranking land use classifications resulting from the new LULC product, and grassland quality will be based on ground truthing and remotely sensed features indicative of remnant prairie. All known prairie remnants, prairie plantings, and clusters of mima mounds will be detected from high resolution LiDar data (3m). Mima mounds are indicative of areas in which the topsoil has not been significantly disturbed, and therefore have a higher potential to contain native prairie vegetation. The third map product, pre-settlement vegetation types, were compiled using Soil Survey Geographic Database (SSURGO) data, to predict appropriate vegetation associations for plantings across southwest Louisiana based on expert elicitation, and historic references. Natural vegetation associations were examined and documented for each soil series individually using multiple references, including U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Soil Series descriptions, expert elicitation, and historical spatial references. This work provides high resolution references for conservation efforts in the Chenier Eco-Region in Southwest Louisiana.

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.

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Dates

Metadata Created Date September 13, 2025
Metadata Updated Date November 12, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI USGS DCAT-US

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date September 13, 2025
Metadata Updated Date November 12, 2025
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer
Identifier http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/usgs-60078402d34e162231fb1cc5
Data Last Modified 2021-01-22T00:00:00Z
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 93092312-e581-4b7e-a92c-7e60d7fbf3ee
Harvest Source Id 2b80d118-ab3a-48ba-bd93-996bbacefac2
Harvest Source Title DOI USGS DCAT-US
Metadata Type geospatial
Old Spatial -93.6405, 29.7265, -91.8739, 30.7762
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 8742683597d2f84cc88242cda2c0bceacb87ce31e510240b344dc32b81fe5f4b
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": -93.6405, 29.7265, -93.6405, 30.7762, -91.8739, 30.7762, -91.8739, 29.7265, -93.6405, 29.7265}

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