Geographic Analysis and Monitoring Program

Land Cover Trends Data Collection and Analysis,
Bev Friesen, Rocky Mountain Mapping Center (n/a)

The U.S. Land Cover Trends research project has a goal to provide geographically specific assessments of the types and rates of land cover change over the past 30 years for the conterminous U.S. and Alaska, and to determine some of the key drivers and consequences of the changes. Information on the rates, driving forces, and consequences of land use and land cover change are central to understanding a broad range of social, economic, and environmental issues. Land use and land cover changes occur at all scales, and changes at local scales can have dramatic, cumulative impacts at broader scales. However, a paucity of information exists on land use and land cover change except at very local levels.

The objectives of the study are to: (1) develop a comprehensive methodology for using sampling and change analysis techniques and Landsat MSS, TM, and ETM+ data for measuring regional land cover change; (2) characterize the types, rates, and temporal variability of change from 1970 to 2000; (3) document regional driving forces and consequences of change; and (4) prepare a national synthesis of land cover change. Landscape pattern metrics, describing the number, size, shape, and spatial relationship of land cover patches (where a patch is a contiguous set of pixels of the same land cover type), will be generated from the general land cover data for each block. These will permit the analysis of the spatial dimension of land cover change, and will also contribute to the assessment of consequences of land cover change. Developing our understanding in these areas will lead to improved ability to predict changes and, consequently, to improved policies for practical, regional management of environmental resources.