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Introduction to the model

Banner image for the model

Land cover describes the surface of the earth. Land-cover maps are useful in urban planning, resource management, change detection, agriculture, and a variety of other applications in which information related to the earth's surface is required. Land-cover classification is a complex exercise and is hard to capture using traditional means. Deep learning models are highly capable of learning these complex semantics and can produce better results.

License requirements

To complete this workflow, the following are the license requirements:

  • ArcGIS DesktopArcGIS Image Analyst extension for ArcGIS Pro
  • ArcGIS EnterpriseArcGIS Image Server with raster analytics configured
  • ArcGIS OnlineArcGIS Pro or Professional Plus user type.

Model details

This model has the following characteristics:

  • Input—Raster, mosaic dataset, or image service.
  • Output—Classified raster with the same classes as in the National Land Cover Database (NLCD) 2016.
  • Compute—This workflow is compute intensive and a GPU with compute capability of 6.0 or higher is recommended.
  • Applicable geographies—This model is designed to work well in the United States.
  • Architecture—This model uses the U-net model architecture implemented in ArcGIS API for Python.
  • Accuracy metrics—This model has an average precision score of 0.77.

Access and download the model

Download the Land Cover Classification (Landsat 8) pretrained model from ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World. Alternatively, access the model directly from ArcGIS Pro, or consume it in ArcGIS Image for ArcGIS Online.

  1. Browse to ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World.
  2. Sign in with your ArcGIS Online credentials.
  3. Search for Land Cover Classification (Landsat 8) and open the item page from the search results.
  4. Click the Download button to download the model.
    You can use the downloaded .dlpk file directly in ArcGIS Pro, or upload and use it in ArcGIS Enterprise. Additionally, you can fine-tune the pretrained model if necessary.

Release notes

The following are the release notes:

DateDescription
  • January 2022
  • February 2021
  • Second release of Land Cover Classification (Landsat 8)
  • First release of Land Cover Classification (Landsat 8)