Bringing high resolution land cover products to the Puget Sound region and U.S.

Understanding land cover patterns and their changes is essential to comprehensive natural resource management and conservation planning. Land cover products derived from satellite imagery and other remotely sensed data can provide information for resource inventories and assessments, track progress of management plans, and monitor impacts of ecosystem change at the landscape scale. For almost two decades, NOAA’s Office for Coastal Management has been using satellite imagery to produce standardized, regional land cover and change information for the coastal U.S. through its Coastal Change Analysis Program (C-CAP). C-CAP products are updated every five years and provide additional wetland categories for nearshore and coastal applications. Recent increases in high resolution imagery and LiDAR data availability combined with improvements in processing techniques are enabling more cost-effective production of high resolution land cover products. In recent years, NOAA has been working to establish an operational higher resolution land cover product line, bringing the national C-CAP framework to the local level and allowing for more site specific applications. The Puget Sound region is one of the few areas around the nation where this work is currently being piloted and made publicly available. This talk will highlight techniques NOAA is using to develop detailed land cover information, showcase example products from the Puget Sound, demonstrate how these products can be used for improved restoration and protection of coastal riparian habitats, and discuss partnership opportunities for producing high resolution land cover maps across broadening geographies