A Comparison of Imperviousness Derived from a Detailed Land Cover Dataset (DLCD) versus the National Land Cover Dataset (NLCD) at Two Time Periods

Abstract

To address accuracy concerns of the National Land Cover Dataset (NLCD), this case study compares impervious surface from the NLCD to a Detailed Land Cover Dataset (DLCD) for the Town of Blacksburg, Virginia over two time periods (2005/2006 and 2011) at spatial aggregation scales (fine to coarse) and scopes (site-specific to area-extent). When comparing the total impervious surface area, the NLCD overestimated the DLCD by appreciable amounts (12-27%) for the entire town and across all specified land use zones for both time periods examined. A binary pixel-wise accuracy assessment of impervious surface revealed that the NLCD performed well for all scopes except for the single family land use zone (user accuracy <40%). The spatial aggregation of pixels to 90-m led to improved agreement between the two datasets. Using the DLCD as a reference, an empirical normalization equation was successfully applied to the NLCD to further reduce overestimation and data skewness.