APPLICATION OF THE USGS LAND USE AND LAND COVER MAPS 
AND DATA IN RESOURCE PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT 
Richard E. Witmer 
Geography Program 
U.S. Geological Survey 
Reston, Virginia 22092 U.S.A. 
In 1975, the U.S. Geological Survey embarked upon a program to provide land 
use and land cover and associated maps and data for the entire United States 
within 7 to 8 years. A future systematic update of these maps and related 
data is also a part of the program. This program relates closely to the 
Survey's longstanding service to other Federal agencies and State and local 
governments and to the public in the collection, analysis, and publication of 
technically accurate information about the Nation's mineral, land, and water 
resources. These maps and data fill the need for land use and land cover 
information which is comparable from region to region, can be compiled cost- 
effectively, and is reasonably current. This information can be efficiently 
stored and manipulated in a geographic information system, and related to 
other spatial data sets such as Census and water resources data. What | 
would like to do now is to give you some examples of how these maps and data 
are being applied to various resource planning and management problems. 
These examples will include applications at the national, regional, State 
and county or local level, as well as mention of a few applications by the 
private sector. | will also characterize the application according to whether 
or not it is in response to the mandate of a higher level of government, or 
in response to programs designed and implemented at the same level. Through- 
out this discussion, we can also attempt to ascertain which characteristics 
of the USGS land use and land cover maps and data have prompted their use at 
particular governmental levels. 
1. Applications at the National Level 
If a land use and land cover data base is to be used by Federal agencies hav- 
ing land and other resource planning and management responsibilities, it must 
have several dominant characteristics. |t must be complete nationwide, or so 
nearly complete that agencies can use it in meeting certain of their regional 
responsibilities. f not complete, there must be potential for completion 
timely and significant enough so that agencies include the data base in their 
planning. Since the USGS land use and land cover data base is not yet com- 
plete nationwide, current applications by Federal agencies are of the latter 
two types. Another obvious characteristic of the data base is that the infor- 
mation contained must be comparable from region to region. 
One of the most significant pieces of legislation in recent decades affecting 
natural resource management is the Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resource 
Protection Act of 1974, commonly known as "RPA.'" This Act calls for some 
rather sweeping assessments of the status of certain types of resources. A 
basic premise of the Act is the availability of land use and land cover data 
of the type compiled at Level Il of the USGS classification. No other data 
base exists which can satisfy the data requirements. A research project 
currently being conducted under cooperative agreement between the U.S. Forest