The Cooperative Land Cover Map is a project to develop an improved statewide land cover map from existing sources and expert review of aerial photography. The project is directly tied to a goal of Florida's State Wildlife Action Plan (SWAP) to represent Florida's diverse habitats in a spatially-explicit manner. The Cooperative Land Cover Map integrates 3 primary data types: 1) 6 million acres are derived from local or site-specific data sources, primarily on existing conservation lands. Most of these sources have a ground-truth or local knowledge component. We collected land cover and vegetation data from 37 existing sources. Each dataset was evaluated for consistency and quality and assigned a confidence category that determined how it was integrated into the final land cover map. 2) 1.4 million acres are derived from areas that FNAI ecologists reviewed with high resolution aerial photography. These areas were reviewed because other data indicated some potential for the presence of a focal community: scrub, scrubby flatwoods, sandhill, dry prairie, pine rockland, rockland hammock, upland pine or mesic flatwoods. 3) 3.2 million acres are represented by Florida Land Use Land Cover data from the FL Department of Environmental Protection and Water Management Districts (FLUCCS). The Cooperative Land Cover Map integrates data from the following years: NWFWMD: 2006 - 07 SRWMD: 2005 - 08 SJRWMD: 2004 SFWMD: 2004 SWFWMD: 2008 All data were crosswalked into the Florida Land Cover Classification System. This project was funded by a grant from FWC/Florida's Wildlife Legacy Initiative (Project 08009) to Florida Natural Areas Inventory. The current dataset is provided in 10m raster grid format. Changes from Version 1.1 to Version 2.3:CLC v2.3 includes updated Florida Land Use Land Cover for four water management districts as described above: NWFWMD, SJRWMD, SFWMD, SWFWMDCLC v2.3 incorporates major revisions to natural coastal land cover and natural communities potentially affected by sea level rise. These revisions were undertaken by FNAI as part of two projects: Re-evaluating Florida's Ecological Conservation Priorities in the Face of Sea Level Rise (funded by the Yale Mapping Framework for Biodiversity Conservation and Climate Adaptation) and Predicting and Mitigating the Effects of Sea-Level Rise and Land Use Changes on Imperiled Species and Natural communities in Florida (funded by an FWC State Wildlife Grant and The Kresge Foundation). FNAI also opportunistically revised natural communities as needed in the course of species habitat mapping work funded by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. CLC v2.3 also includes several new site specific data sources: New or revised FNAI natural community maps for 13 conservation lands and 9 Florida Forever proposals; new Florida Park Service maps for 10 parks; Sarasota County Preserves Habitat Maps (with FNAI review); Sarasota County HCP Florida Scrub-Jay Habitat (with FNAI Review); Southwest Florida Scrub Working Group scrub polygons. Several corrections to the crosswalk of FLUCCS to FLCS were made, including review and reclassification of interior sand beaches that were originally crosswalked to beach dune, and reclassification of upland hardwood forest south of Lake Okeechobee to mesic hammock. Representation of state waters was expanded to include the NOAA Submerged Lands Act data for Florida.
Changes from Version 2.3 to 3.0: All land classes underwent revisions to correct boundaries, mislabeled classes, and hard edges between classes. Vector data was compared against high resolution Digital Ortho Quarter Quads (DOQQ) and Google Earth imagery. Individual land cover classes were converted to .KML format for use in Google Earth. Errors identified through visual review were manually corrected. Statewide medium resolution (spatial resolution of 10 m) SPOT 5 images were available for remote sensing classification with the following spectral bands: near infrared, red, green and short wave infrared. The acquisition dates of SPOT images ranged between October, 2005 and October, 2010. Remote sensing classification was performed in Idrisi Taiga and Erdas Imagine. Supervised and unsupervised classifications of each SPOT image were performed with the corrected polygon data as a guide. Further visual inspections of classified areas were conducted for consistency, errors, and edge matching between image footprints. CLC v3.0 now includes state wide Florida NAVTEQ transportation data. CLC v3.0 incorporates extensive revisions to scrub, scrubby flatwoods, mesic flatwoods, and upland pine classes. An additional class, scrub mangrove – 5252, was added to the crosswalk. Mangrove swamp was reviewed and reclassified to include areas of scrub mangrove. CLC v3.0 also includes additional revisions to sand beach, riverine sand bar, and beach dune previously misclassified as high intensity urban or extractive. CLC v3.0 excludes the Dry Tortugas and does not include some of the small keys between Key West and Marquesas.
Changes from Version 3.0 to Version 3.1: CLC v3.1 includes several new site specific data sources: Revised FNAI natural community maps for 31 WMAs, and 6 Florida Forever areas or proposals. This data was either extracted from v2.3, or from more recent mapping efforts. Domains have been removed from the attribute table, and a class name field has been added for SITE and STATE level classes. The Dry Tortugas have been reincorporated. The geographic extent has been revised for the Coastal Upland and Dry Prairie classes. Rural Open and the Extractive classes underwent a more thorough review.
Changes from Version 3.1 to Version 3.2:
CLC v3.2 includes several new site specific data sources: Revised FNAI natural community maps for 43 Florida Park Service lands, and 9 Florida Forever areas or proposals. This data is from 2014 - 2016 mapping efforts.
SITE level class review: Wet Coniferous plantation (2450) from v2.3 has been included in v3.2. Non-Vegetated Wetland (2300), Urban Open Land (18211), Cropland/Pasture (18331), and High Pine and Scrub (1200) have undergone thorough review and reclassification where appropriate.
Other classification errors were opportunistically corrected as found or as reported by users to landcovermap@myfwc.com.
Changes from Version 3.2.5 to Version 3.3: The CLC v3.3 includes several new site specific data sources: Revised FNAI natural community maps for 14 FWC managed or co-managed lands, including 7 WMA and 7 WEA, 1 State Forest, 3 Hillsboro County managed areas, and 1 Florida Forever proposal. This data is from the 2017 – 2018 mapping efforts. Select sites and classes were included from the 2016 – 2017 NWFWMD (FLUCCS) dataset. M.C. Davis Conservation areas, 18331x agricultural classes underwent a thorough review and reclassification where appropriate. Prairie Mesic Hammock (1122) was reclassified to Prairie Hydric Hammock (22322) in the Everglades. All SITE level Tree Plantations (18333) were reclassified to Coniferous Plantations (183332). The addition of FWC Oyster Bar (5230) features. Other classification errors were opportunistically corrected as found or as reported by users to landcovermap@myfwc.com, including classification corrections to sites in T.M. Goodwin and Ocala National Forest. CLC v3.3 utilizes the updated The Florida Land Cover Classification System (2018), altering the following class names and numbers: Irrigated Row Crops (1833111), Wet Coniferous Plantations (1833321) (formerly 2450), Major Springs (4131) (formerly 3118). Mixed Hardwood-Coniferous Swamps (2240) (formerly Other Wetland Forested Mixed).
