This dataset represents land cover for southeastern Wyoming including the portion of Laramie County from Interstate 25 west, all of Albany and Carbon Counties and part of Sweetwater county. The landcover map was developed from Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper (ETM+) data acquired in the summer of 2002 using a series of unsupervised classifications and guided labeling of classes based on field data. The map was created between 2002 and 2004 for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department as part of a larger spatial database designed to be used to help guide their land management activities, particularly in shrublands. The original resolution of this map is 30 meters, the full resolution of the Landsat multispectral data. Map classes capture much of the variability in vegetation present in the study area. Overall map accuracy based on a stratified random sample of ground sites is 76.4%, but much of the confusion included in that number is between very similar cover types (e.g. wyoming big sage vs. wyoming big sage/black sage mix). If these classes are merged, map accuracy is higher. See map accuracy section of metadata for more detailed accuracy statistics.
