Source: U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, National Resource and Conservation Service, andIowa State University, Statistical Laboratory,1997 National Resources Inventory.

http://www.nhq.nrcs.usda.gov/NRI/1997/

****************************************************************************************Cover/use :

Urban and built-up areas -- A Land Cover/Use category consisting of residential, industrial, commercial, and institutionalland; construction sites; public administrative sites; railroad yards; cemeteries; airports; golf courses; sanitary landfills; sewagetreatment plants; water control structures and spillways; other land used for such purposes; small parks (less than 10 acres)within urban and built-up areas; and highways, railroads, and other transportation facilities if they are surrounded by urbanareas. Also included are tracts of less than 10 acres that do not meet the above definition but are completely surrounded byUrban and Built-up land. Two size categories are recognized in the NRI: (i) areas 0.25 to 10 acres, and (ii) areas greater than10 acres.

Rural transportation land -- A Land Cover/Use category which consists of all highways, roads, railroads and associatedrights-of-way outside urban and built-up areas; including private roads to farms, logging roads, and other private roads, exceptfield lanes.

Small built-up areas -- A land cover/use category consisting of developed land units of 0.25 to 10 acres, meeting thedefinition of "Urban and Built-up Areas" (see definition). [NRI-92]

Cropland. A Land cover/use category that includes areas used for the production of adapted crops for harvest.Two subcategories of cropland are recognized: cultivated and noncultivated. Cultivated cropland comprises landin row crops or close-grown crops and also other cultivated cropland, for example, hayland or pastureland thatis in a rotation with row or close-grown crops. Noncultivated cropland includes permanent hayland andhorticultural cropland.

Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). A federal program established under the Food Security Act of 1985 toassist private landowners to convert highly erodible cropland to vegetative cover for 10 years. [NMCSP]

Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) land. A Land cover/use category that includes land under a CRPcontract.

Federal land. A land ownership category designating land that is owned by the federal government. Itdoes not include, for example, trust lands administered by the Bureau of Indian Affairs or TennesseeValley Authority (TVA) land. No data are collected for any year that land is in this ownership.Federal land :

Forest land. A Land cover/use category that is at least 10 percent stocked by single-stemmed woody speciesof any size that will be at least 4 meters (13 feet) tall at maturity. Also included is land bearing evidence ofnatural regeneration of tree cover (cut over forest or abandoned farmland) and not currently developed fornonforest use. Ten percent stocked, when viewed from a vertical direction, equates to an areal canopy cover ofleaves and branches of 25 percent or greater. The minimum area for classification as forestland is 1 acre, andthe area must be at least 100 feet wide.Land cover/use. A term that includes categories of land cover and categories of land use. Land cover is thevegetation or other kind of material that covers the land surface. Land use is the purpose of human activity onthe land; it is usually, but not always, related to land cover. The NRI uses the term land cover/use to identifycategories that account for all the surface area of the United States.

Pastureland. A Land cover/use category of land managed primarily for the production of introduced forageplants for livestock grazing. Pastureland cover may consist of a single species in a pure stand, a grass mixture,or a grass-legume mixture. Management usually consists of cultural treatments: fertilization, weed control,reseeding or renovation, and control of grazing. For the NRI, includes land that has a vegetative cover ofgrasses, legumes, and/or forbs, regardless of whether or not it is being grazed by livestock.

Rangeland. A Land cover/use category on which the climax or potential plant cover is composed principally ofnative grasses, grasslike plants, forbs or shrubs suitable for grazing and browsing, and introduced foragespecies that are managed like rangeland. This would include areas where introduced hardy and persistentgrasses, such as crested wheatgrass, are planted and such practices as deferred grazing, burning, chaining,and rotational grazing are used, with little or no chemicals or fertilizer being applied. Grasslands, savannas,many wetlands, some deserts, and tundra are considered to be rangeland. Certain communities of low forbsand shrubs, such as mesquite, chaparral, mountain shrub, and pinyon-juniper, are also included as rangeland.

Water. A General cover category consisting of permanent water, such as a perennial stream, lake, or pondwith at least 25 percent open water. If the vegetative canopy obscures more than 75 percent of the watersurface from view, the area is recorded under the category appropriate for the canopy vegetation. Four types ofwater areas are large streams, large water bodies, small streams, and small water bodies.

Water areas. A Land cover/use category comprising water bodies and streams that are permanent open water.

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