Ecopia AI’s latest land use data layers provide insights into water use, tax assessment, land development, runoff calculations, and more. More detailed data supports decision-making in various use cases across the U.S.
Ecopia AI announced the availability of new agricultural land use vector data, bringing new levels of detail to 3D nationwide land cover dataset. These planimetric vector data layers enable government agencies to perform more detailed geospatial analyses related to water use, tax assessment, land development, runoff calculations, and other detailed analysis workflows.
The definition of planimetric and delivered data formats
The term “planimetric” in the data description above refers to the type of vector data provided. It indicates that the agricultural vector data is two-dimensional and focuses on their horizontal positions/geographic boundaries on the Earth’s surface, but does not take into account elevations or heights. This is an important distinction as Ecopia offers 3D land cover data with elevation mapping for buildings, trees and bridges. Ecopia’s data has a >95% geometric accuracy guarantee to ensure that features are correctly aligned with their real-world counterparts on the Earth’s surface.
The data is ultimately a file with polygon features assigned: The vector data is available in the common vector file formats used in GIS applications, including shapefiles. The data format in which the data is delivered depends on the client’s requirements and is usually conveniently provided to clients via a secure download link to ensure easy access. If required, there is the option to choose other methods for data delivery.
The data is available nationwide in the United States and is an extension of Ecopia’s 3D Nationwide Land Cover, the most comprehensive, accurate and up-to-date 3D and 2D vector map of the United States land cover for next-generation analytics and decision making. It provides 14 highly accurate 2D data layers classifying different land use types, as well as elevation-attributed (3D) feature classes for buildings, trees and bridges. These standard data layers, derived from high-resolution geospatial imagery, are from Ecopia’s global partner networkcurrently support a variety of mapping and analytics use cases across the United States, including stormwater management, public safety, natural hazard mitigation, and urban/community planning.
Supporting decision-making across the United States
With the introduction of this additional land use data, organizations have the ability to break down the “grass” and “agriculture” features into more specialized levels. Ecopia’s AI-based mapping systems can now classify “grass” as either “developed open space” or “wild grass,” while “agriculture” features can now be differentiated as “pasture” or “crop cultivation.”
The motivation behind refining these classifications was to provide more detailed data to support decision making in various use cases across the U.S. These classifications provide more detail on land cover data across the U.S. and potentially provide a more comprehensive view of what is going on and support tasks such as agricultural tax assessment, land use planning, water use analysis, runoff calculations, and more. For example, understanding the distribution of wild grass can help with soil erosion prevention and conservation strategies, but the wild grass must be distinguished from developed open spaces such as manicured grass around a home or other property.
Keep maps up to date to match the real world
Traditional methods of producing planimetric land use data with this level of detail require manual digitization and classification of geospatial imagery. Until now, it has been time-consuming and expensive for agencies to produce highly accurate data through manual digitization. The time-consuming nature of manual digitization can mean that by the time the data is created and ready for use, it is already outdated and obsolete. Ecopia’s AI-powered mapping systems streamline this process, quickly producing comprehensive, accurate, and up-to-date geospatial data while maintaining the accuracy of a GIS professional.
Offering a nationwide dataset provides comprehensive coverage and scalability, improving decision-making between states and agencies with reliable and consistent geospatial data. Ecopia’s customers pay for this data to save time and money on manually digitizing objects, and to efficiently keep maps up to date with the real world at scale, which is nearly impossible to do manually given the speed at which the world is changing. Ecopia’s data is also standardized across geographic boundaries, so the accuracy of the information is not compromised by individuals’ differing interpretations or manual digitization techniques.
The four new planimetric layers produced by Ecopia further align the company’s data offering with similar environmental data sets produced by the U.S. government, including the USGS National Land Cover Database and data from NOAA’s Coastal Change Analysis Program (C-CAP). At the beginning of the year Ecopia’s AI-powered mapping systems increased the resolution of C-CAP data by 900 times (from 30 meters to 1 meter) and provides open access to high-resolution land cover on 1.5 million square miles of U.S. coastal communities. This technical alignment with other authoritative datasets commonly used for geospatial analysis also complements recent investments in the USDA National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP).and provides government agencies with deeper insights that they can use in various environmental protection initiatives.
