CMS: Vegetative Lifeform Cover from Landsat SR for CONUS, 1984-2018

The estimates were derived using quantile regression forest models and indicate the percent of ground covered by a vertical projection of each lifeform class ranging from 0 to 100 percent. Model input data included Landsat surface reflectance (SR) data and 165 airborne LiDAR datasets covering eight of the eleven terrestrial biomes of the conterminous U.S. and Alaska.

Eighty-six of the LiDAR acquisitions are part of the NASA Goddard's LiDAR, Hyperspectral, and Thermal Imager (G-LiHT) airborne imager data collection; the remaining 79 sites were acquired by the National Science Foundation's National Ecological Observatory Network Airborne Observation Platform (NEON AOP). Acquisitions were selected based on the availability of the SR data for each G-LiHT and NEON dataset. The data are annual estimates from 1984 to 2018 and were tiled (425 tiles) using the CONUS Landsat Analysis Ready Data (ARD) grid scheme.