L8 Biome Cloud Validation Masks

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center in Sioux Falls, SD developed a cloud validation dataset from 96 unique Landsat 8 images called the “L8 Biome” dataset. These images were selected from various locations around the world, and are evenly divided between eight unique biomes and three different cloud cover categories. The images are curated by biome and cloud cover to reduce bias in any one region or cloud cover density. While these validation images were subjectively designed by a single analyst, they provide useful information for quantifying the accuracy of clouds flagged by various cloud masking algorithms. Each mask is provided in ENVI binary format, and includes all bands from the original Landsat Level-1 data product (GeoTIFF), and its associated Level-1 metadata (MTL.txt file).