High-Resolution Land Cover Mapping of the Lake Champlain Basin

University of Vermont (2018). High-Resolution Land Cover Mapping
of the Lake Champlain Basin (Technical Report No. 87). Grand Isle, VT: Lake Champlain Basin Program.

• Dataset 1
• Dataset 2

This project yielded the most detailed and accurate land-cover dataset ever produced for the United States portion of the Lake Champlain Basin (LCB). It leveraged the considerable investments made by state, regional, and federal organizations in high-resolution imagery and LiDAR for the LCB. Over a year-long period of intensive work, land cover in the Lake Champlain Basin was mapped at a resolution 900-times more detailed than any existing Basin-wide product. This project yielded two principal output datasets. The first is a 1-meter resolution land-cover dataset. The second is a 10-meter land cover layer in which the 1- meter classes were aggregated to the National Land Cover Database (NCLD) classification
schema. These related and complementary products ensure that all stakeholders in the LCB have the land-cover data they need to assess landscape status and process, from conservation managers seeking to evaluate riparian buffers to researchers modelling nonpoint source pollution. Land cover was mapped using advanced object-based image analysis techniques using high-performance computing. A detailed accuracy assessment was carried out and the overall accuracy was 91%. All products were documented with compliant metadata. These land cover products will be immediately useful to the Lake Champlain Basin Program and its collaborators and will serve as crucial input data for efforts seeking to address the issues raised in the Lake Champlain Opportunities for Action Management Plan.