Linking remote-sensing estimates of land cover and census statistics on land use to produce maps of land use of the conterminous United States

Human use of the land has a large effect on the structure of terrestrial ec osystems and the dynamics of biogeochemical cycles. For this reason, terres trial ecosystem and biogeochemistry models require moderate resolution (e.g ., less than or equal to0.5 degrees) information on land use in order to ma ke realistic predictions. Few such data sets currently exist. To create a l and use data set of sufficient resolution, we developed models relating lan d cover data derived from optical remote sensing and a census database on l and use for the conterminous United States. The land cover product used was from the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme DISCover global produ ct, derived from I km advanced very high resolution radiometer imagery, wit h 16 land cover classes. Land use data at state-level resolution came from the U. S. Department of Agriculture's Major Land Uses database, aggregated into four general land use categories: Cropland, Pasture/Range, Forest, and Other. We developed and applied models relating these data sets to generat e maps of land use in 1992 for the conterminous United States at 0.5 degree s spatial resolution.