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Basic Information
An Innovative Partnership for
National Environmental Assessment
Due to the escalating costs of acquiring satellite images, in 1992 several federal agencies agreed to operate as a consortium in order to acquire satellite-based remotely sensed data for their environmental monitoring programs. Original members of the Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics (MRLC) consortium were the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) . Later joining the consortium were the National Atmospheric and Space Administration (NASA) and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).
Primary administration of the consortium is performed by the USGS' Earth
Resources Observation Systems
(EROS)
Data Center (EDC) in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and the EPA's
Office of Research and Development (ORD), and National
Exposure Research Laboratory's (NERL), Landscape
Characterization Branch (LCB) in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina.
Image processing and land-cover classification are performed at EDC, while
accuracy assessments of the classification are primarily handled by LCB.
During the 1990's, the MRLC resulted in several successful mapping programs,
including the: (1) Coastal
Change Analysis Project
(C-CAP)
administered by NOAA; (2) Gap
Analysis Project
(GAP)
directed by the Biological Resources
Division
of the USGS; and the National
Land Cover Data (NLCD) project directed
by both the USGS and EPA. The data developed by these projects are available
publicly either through download, or by contacting the agencies involved.
Participants:
Environmental Protection Agency
The following sites Exit EPA's Web site.
United States Geologic Survey
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
United States Forest Service
National Aeronautic and Space Administration
Bureau of Land Management