High-Resolution (1 Meter) Land Cover for Portions of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 3 Outside of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, in West Virginia (2020), Virginia (2021), and Pennsylvania (2022)
This map shows high-resolution (1 meter) land cover in the EPA Region 3, covering the parts of West Virginia, Virginia, and Pennsylvania outside of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. It contains the following classes: Water, Tree Canopy, Scrub\Shrub, Low Vegetation, Barren, Impervious Structures, Other Impervious, Impervious Roads, Tree Canopy Over Impervious Structures, Tree Canopy Over Other Impervious, and Tree Canopy Over Impervious Roads. Using object-based image analysis mapping techniques, it was mapped from a combination of remote-sensing imagery and GIS datasets, including LiDAR, multispectral imagery, and thematic layers (e.g., roads, building footprints). Draft output was then manually reviewed and edited to eliminate obvious errors of omission and commission. The classification scheme closely follows a similar mapping effort for the Chesapeake Bay Watershed; together, maps from the two projects cover the entirety of the EPA Region 3 states. One difference between the projects, however, is that tidal wetlands were mapped in the Chesapeake Bay effort, included as the class Emergent Wetlands, but not in the EPA Region 3 zones outside of the watershed. The map is considered current as of 2020 for West Virginia, 2021 for Virginia, and 2022 for Pennsylvania.