Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Skip to content

Productivity of U.S. Rangelands, Annual Data Z-scores

Metadata Updated: August 5, 2025

This raster dataset depicts rangelands in the coterminous U.S., including transitional rangelands and small patch-size rangelands. Each 30 meter pixel is assigned a land cover category, including Rangeland, Afforested Rangeland (experiencing encroachment by trees [> 25% tree cover]) and Transitional Rangeland (currently dominated by herbs or shrubs that will likely become forested without management intervention).This raw lbs/acre data that the Z-scores were derived from as well as the Z-scores dataset can be downloaded from: https://data.fs.usda.gov/geodata/rastergateway/rangelands/index.php.Production data were generated using the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) from the Thematic Mapper Suite from 1984 to 2023 at 250 m resolution. The NDVI is converted to production estimates using two regression formulas depending on the level of the NDVI; there is one equation for lower values (and thus lower production values) and one for higher values. This raster dataset yields estimates of annual production of rangeland vegetation and should be useful for understanding trends and variability in forage resources. These results were then converted to Z-scores for easier comparison of annual relative productivity in coterminous U.S. rangelands, and for rapid display in online time-enabled applications.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: Creative Commons Attribution

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date November 3, 2022
Metadata Updated Date August 5, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from USDA JSON

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date November 3, 2022
Metadata Updated Date August 5, 2025
Publisher U.S. Forest Service
Maintainer
Identifier https://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=b7c5c6d24d274c77b2d8f32ea6256ac5
Data First Published 2021-01-26
Data Last Modified 2025-07-31
Category geospatial
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 005:96
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id b00df8e0-da09-4945-ae9f-fc3b9a1a67ad
Harvest Source Id d3fafa34-0cb9-48f1-ab1d-5b5fdc783806
Harvest Source Title USDA JSON
Homepage URL https://data-usfs.hub.arcgis.com/datasets/usfs::productivity-of-u-s-rangelands-annual-data-z-scores
License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Metadata Type geospatial
Old Spatial -127.9878,23.2186,-84.7160,51.6480
Program Code 005:059
Progresscode onGoing
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 38b1b209da712ef21cd799f79134d8a1e4b6e4078b06d526d9570679f98c96a0
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": -127.9878, 23.2186, -127.9878, 51.6480, -84.7160, 51.6480, -84.7160, 23.2186, -127.9878, 23.2186}

Didn't find what you're looking for? Suggest a dataset here.