QGIS, Buffer, and Land Use around coordinate points

Question

I have a large data set with many columns of data where each row has data from a different lat/lon coordinate.

I would like to add land use at each site to this data set. I was thinking of using this data set (https://www.mrlc.gov/viewerjs/), but am open to others.

In QGIS, I would like to record the land use within a certain radius of each lat/lon coordinate, and have the proportion of each land use type at that point automatically go to the csv, which I will then use in R as a variable for a liner mixed model.

How might I do this in QGIS?

So far, I'm thinking it would be useful to create buffer around all the data points. I found the Fixed distance buffer command in geoprocessing tools, but am having a little bit of trouble because I want each buffer to be the same width across all latitudes, and I'd like that width to be in meters. All of my data is in the US and Canada.

Answer 1

This is a common procedure for landscape ecology.

The LecoS plugin allows you to calculate the amount (among other metrics) of each land use class (the different values of your land use raster) within polygons (your buffers).

Note that zonal statistics won't work as it takes statistics over all raster values, which in your case represent different land uses that need a separate calculation.

I think that if you generate buffers based on a projected coordinate systems, since you input the distance of the radius, the buffers should have the same width across all latitudes.