houston-urbanization·dataset
New Urban Development Across the US, 2001-2019
New Urbanization from 2001-2019 (NLCD)
land NASA VEDA COG
In plain English
What it measures. A nationwide map showing where land became newly urbanized between 2001 and 2019.
How it's made. Made by comparing the 2001 and 2019 National Land Cover Database maps at 30-meter resolution.
How & where you'd use it. Helps planners and researchers see where cities and suburbs spread over nearly two decades.
What's measured
houstonurbanization
Coverage & cadence
- Time span2001-01-01 → 2019-01-01
- Spatial extent-97, 28, -94, 31.009
- FormatsCOG
What you can do with it
- Track deforestation, fire scars and land-cover change
- Monitor crop and vegetation health (NDVI/EVI)
- Map how built-up vs. green an area is over time
Official description
New urbanization compared between 2001 and 2019 NLCD datasets. This is a national map at 30-meter resolution.
Get the data
# NASA VEDA — open STAC API, anonymous (cloud-optimized GeoTIFFs)
from pystac_client import Client
cat = Client.open("https://openveda.cloud/api/stac")
col = cat.get_collection("houston-urbanization")
items = list(col.get_items()) # browse the analysis-ready COGs
# open an asset with rioxarray:
# import rioxarray; da = rioxarray.open_rasterio(items[0].assets["cog_default"].href) NASA VEDA is an open STAC catalog — browse and stream the cloud-optimized GeoTIFFs anonymously (no login).
Official links
- Open data source VEDA