* Metric Name: Herbaceous Cover  

* Tier: 1  

* Data Vintage: 2021  

* Unit Of Measure: Fractional non-overlapping absolute cover; continuous variable from 0 to 1.

Total herbaceous cover as measured by the fFractional non-overlapping absolute
herbaceous cover, viewed vertically. Provides a first order measure of
vegetation type when combined with parallel observations of tree and
herbaceous cover. Data from the National Land Cover Database (NLCD) are used
for training, and NLCD definitions for cover (for example, the distinction
between tree vs shrub) are expected to be similar in the CECS data sets.

* Creation Method: Machine learning (Random Forest) using the National Land Cover Database for training and Landsat observations as predictors. See[ https://doi.org/10.1029/2021AV000654](https://doi.org/10.1029/2021AV000654) for further information.  

* Credits: CECS;