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Coefficient-based consistent mapping of imperviousness in the conterminous U.S. at 60-m resolution for 1974, 1982, 1992, 2002, and 2012

Metadata Updated: January 6, 2026

Anthropogenic impervious surfaces affect hydrology, water quality, and ecological health and are widely studied. Previous studies have been limited, however, by a lack of consistent representation of imperviousness nationally as a time series prior to 2001. This product presents estimated imperviousness at 60-meter spatial resolution, for the time periods 1974, 1982, 1992, 2002, and 2012. The mapping was derived by comparing imperviousness from the National Land Cover Database (NLCD) 2011 to national land use from the 2012 U.S. Geological Survey NAWQA Wall-to-wall Anthropogenic Land Use Trends (NWALT) product. The NWALT land use product includes a series of 60-m national rasters, containing 18 land use classes, for five time periods from 1974-2012. Coefficients of imperviousness were derived for each land use class for 2012, and then re-mapped back to the NWALT previous eras of 2002, 1992, 1982, and 1974. The impervious mapping is facilitated by the 7-class urban detail of the NWALT land use product. Coefficients were derived for each of 909 Census Core-Based Statistical Areas (CBSAs) in the conterminous U.S., and were thus tailored to the characteristics of specific metropolitan and rural areas. When measured over HUC-12 watershed areas, the coefficients provided very similar 2002 imperviousness estimates to those from the 2001 NLCD: r2 (RMSE) of 0.93 (0.6), and 96% of HUC-12s mapped to within 1% of their actual imperviousness value. The resultant rasters provide a tool from which consistent measurements of imperviousness can be made for zonal or watershed areas in the conterminous U.S. for the last 4 decades.

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 January 6, 2026
Metadata Updated Date January 6, 2026

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI USGS DCAT-US

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date January 6, 2026
Metadata Updated Date January 6, 2026
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer
Identifier http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/USGS_58701618e4b01a71ba0c5fe6
Data Last Modified 2022-08-05T00:00:00Z
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 46656268-5660-4961-a481-6043ebd0fa82
Harvest Source Id 2b80d118-ab3a-48ba-bd93-996bbacefac2
Harvest Source Title DOI USGS DCAT-US
Metadata Type geospatial
Old Spatial -127.977345175, 22.768690319, -65.25298988, 50.6283256
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 3b839f97ef9f6546242a866f9472d99627bd3305985ada64cf6683776c8766ae
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": -127.977345175, 22.768690319, -127.977345175, 50.6283256, -65.25298988, 50.6283256, -65.25298988, 22.768690319, -127.977345175, 22.768690319}

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