MRLC

The Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics (MRLC) Consortium is a prominent source for land cover and land change data across the United States. It is best known for developing and distributing the National Land Cover Database (NLCD), a foundational dataset for environmental monitoring, resource management, and scientific research.

Since its inception in the early 1990s, MRLC has been instrumental in providing consistent, high-resolution land cover products derived primarily from Landsat satellite imagery. These datasets are crucial for understanding landscape dynamics, urbanization, forest changes, and water resources, supporting a wide range of geospatial applications and analyses for various federal, state, and local agencies, as well as academic and private sectors.

The data available through MRLC supports critical analyses related to climate change impacts, biodiversity, water quality, and land management planning. It represents a collaborative effort among federal agencies to ensure a standardized and regularly updated national land cover dataset.