—Huajun Zhang, USGS
The Land Cover Analysis Tool (LCAT) is an application built by the U.S. Geological Survey's Eastern Geographic Science Center that provides enhanced public access to the National Land Cover Database (NLCD). LCAT allows users to quickly navigate, display, analyze, and download NLCD datasets defined by a bounding box or a polygon boundary through the ArcGIS Server Web Coverage Service (WCS) capability. We describe the architecture and method of a custom Web Service component that utilizes the ArcGIS Server WCS capabilities and raster data processing. This Web Service component makes it possible for any client to access remote WCS datasets and benefit from the Web Service's value-added raster functions such as clipping and analysis.