Description of Current Projects

Best Management Practices Designed to Improve Developing Landscapes

In an integrated effort, scientists from the USGS, Environmental Protection Agency, Montgomery County, Maryland government, and the University of Maryland, visit the Clarksburg Special Protection Area to examine the study sites and the various BMPs.

The Clarksburg Special Protection Area in Montgomery County, Maryland, an area currently undergoing rapid suburban development, is using advanced BMP designs. USGS scientists are creating a geographic database to map and interpret the use of different BMPs in relation to land cover change. Data are being integrated with available BMP, climate, and receiving stream physical, biologic, and chemical data to identify patterns of land use change and BMP usage with environmental information. The data integration is designed to improve communication among stakeholders and provide a platform to guide upcoming targeted data collection. The results may be directly applied to inform local and regional land use decision-makers for mitigation planning (BMP use), remediation actions (BMP modification) in preexisting, developed communities, and to better understand the potential results of specific development mitigation practices on ecosystem health. Contact Information: Dianna Hogan, PhD. 703-648-4801 dhogan@usgs.gov

Construction of BMPs in a developing area in Clarksburg, Maryland. The Clarksburg Special Protection Area uses advanced construction sediment and erosion controls and stormwater BMP design in their development activities. This includes the use of BMPs in series, part of which is shown in the photo and includes the sand filter (far right) and the detention basin (on the left), mitigating stormwater runoff quality, quantity, and timing prior to release into the local stream.

Causes and Consequences of Land Use and Land Cover Changes in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed

Team:  Peter Claggett, David Donato, Paul Hearn, Dianna Hogan, Terry Slonecker, Lee De Cola, Lesley Milheim, Roger Barlow, Mike Coan, Cassandra Ladino, John Brakebill, John Aguinaldo, and Huajun Zhang.

Problem:
The long-term success of the Chesapeake Bay restoration effort depends on our ability to understand the causes and consequences of land use and land cover changes.  Over the past 30 years, human activities such as tillage techniques, over-fertilization, forest clearing, and paving have left a legacy of impacts that the Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP) Partners are addressing.  Over the next 30-years, continued changes to the landscape due to human activities and climate pose great challenges to our ability to restore and maintain the ecosystem.  Human populations, and associated urban areas, are expected to grow to 19 million people by the year 2030 and will be the major factor impacting restoration of the ecosystem (Boesch and Greer, 2003).  The CBP Partners formally recognized the impact of human activities on the Bay watershed and committed to addressing them in 1987 and again in 2000. 

The CBP Partners currently identify three “keystone” commitments related to land use and management:

• by 2010, develop and implement watershed management plans in two-thirds of the Bay watershed to address protection, conservation, and restoration of stream corridors, riparian forest buffers, and wetlands for the purpose of improving habitat and water quality;
• permanently preserve from development 20 percent of the land area in the watershed by 2010; and
• by 2012, reduce the rate of harmful sprawl by 30 percent.

Department of the Interior agencies also have priorities related to sound land use and land preservation. The USFWS has a goal to focus on long-term protection and/or acquisition of sufficient high-quality habitats to restore and maintain sustainable populations of fish and wildlife resources. The NPS recently completed a Special Resource Study that defined a larger role in watershed planning and protecting areas near NPS parks. Despite these commitments, the CBP Partners continue to struggle with developing meaningful measures of land change that relate to water quality and with developing a strategy for mitigating the impact of land change to the Bay.  The reasons for this continued struggle are many but include the lack of temporally consistent, multi-scale land use and cover data, lack of understanding of the impacts of land use and cover characteristics and land use and cover change on water quality and ecosystems, and inadequate communication of this information to state and local decision-makers. 

EGSC Objectives:

The objectives of this project are based on the USGS Chesapeake Science Plan and directly support the first five of nine geographic research goals detailed in the USGS Science Strategy for Geographic Research (USGS Circular 1281).  The objectives also support four of the five themes of the USGS Geographic Analysis and Monitoring Program and several of the priority activities of the USGS Land Remote Sensing Program.

The work of the USGS Chesapeake Bay Program address the following four science themes of the USGS Chesapeake Bay Science Plan:

1.  Impact of human activities on land use
2.  Factors affecting water quality and quantity
3.  Ability of habitat to support fish and bird populations
4.  Synthesis, application, and dissemination of science to improve ecosystem assessment, conservation, and restoration

Multidiscipline project plans are being prepared for each theme above and investigators will coordinate activities and synthesize findings between projects to provide integrated science to support effective ecosystem conservation and restoration for Chesapeake Bay and apply the implications to other ecosystems.

EGSC Research Tasks:
Specifically, the EGSC and their immediate Partners are addressing the first, of the four science themes above, “impact of human activities on land use.”  To accomplish this theme, the following tasks are either in the process of being planned or are in-work:

Enhance monitoring of past and present land change patterns:

- Coordinate federal cost-share of high-resolution 4-band digital imagery for sub-watersheds in the Chesapeake Bay watershed,

- Develop semi-automated mapping tools for deriving impervious surface, water, forest canopy, and wetland features from high-resolution imagery,

- Develop spatial sampling recommendations for monitoring and evaluating land cover and land cover change using high resolution imagery,

- Develop high-resolution land datasets to support USGS targeted studies of factors affecting water quality and habitat to support fish and bird populations, and

- Develop NLCD Change Product for remaining mapping zones in the Chesapeake Bay.

Evaluate the impacts of past, present, and future land changes to water quality and ecosystems:

- Document historic trends in land use and land cover in the Chesapeake Bay watershed,

- Develop the Chesapeake Bay Land Change Model (CBLCM),

- Loosely couple the CBLCM with the CBP Watershed Model, SPARROW, and with groundwater and habitat models, and

- Assess the relationship between the spatial configuration and intensity of land use and water quality.

Synthesize findings to inform decision-makers of the causes and consequences of land change:

- Analyze land use decision making in selected tributaries of the Chesapeake Bay watershed to understand the decision process affecting efforts to reduce non-point sources of sediment and nutrients, the identity of local and regional level decision- makers, and the factors relevant to the outcomes of land use decisions,

- Develop improved desktop and web-based tools to assist the Chesapeake Bay Partners and Tributary Strategy Teams in developing strategies to reach load allocation targets,

- Establish a working relationship with Pennsylvania State University’s Chesapeake Bay data and map-viewer team to ensure compatibility with USGS-developed web-based applications,

   + Evaluate the economic impacts from the combined effects of climate and land change in the near-shore areas of the Chesapeake Bay, and,

   + Evaluate the economic consequences of regional and local restoration policy decisions.

Contact:
Peter Claggett
410-267-5771
pclaggett@usgs.gov

Chesapeake Bay Pilot Impervious Surface Area Accuracy Assessment

In support of—Land Cover Dynamics and Environmental Processes

The metric of watershed impervious surface area (ISA) is now routinely used as an environmental indicator and planning tool. Yet no rigorous research regarding the accuracy of satellite-based ISA estimates has occurred because the collection of information that can be used in such assessments is difficult, costly, and time-consuming. This represents the first of several analyses of satellite-based ISA estimates at the sub-pixel level made possible through the collection of highly detailed ISA "truth" information for various sub-regions of the eastern United States. The objective of this task is to produce, exercise, and promote protocols and databases for rigorous satellite-based ISA estimate evaluation.

Shown here is an example of impervious surfaces and land use data for a 500m by 500m calibration/validation “chip” in the Manassas Virginia area. Using the protocol developed by the project, over 240 such chips were carefully collected across the Mid-Atlantic region for use in rigorous assessment of satellite-based impervious surface maps.

FY07 Products:
  Report: Jones, J.W., A Protocol and Software for Rigorous Evaluation of Satellite-Based Impervious Surface Area Estimates.
  Paper: Jones, J.W., Jarnagin, T., and Winters, G., An Accuracy Assessment of NLCD Impervious Surfaces for Mapping Zone 60.

Contact Information: 
John W. Jones, PhD.
703-648-5543
jwjones@usgs.gov

Clarksburg Special Protection Area Comparative Hydrology Study

In support of—Land Cover Dynamics and Environmental Processes

The impact of development, particularly that of increased impervious surface area, on stream geomorphology and water quality has become a pressing concern at local to national scales. To mitigate these detrimental impacts, "best management practices" (BMP) are being developed for implementation at very local scales. Little real-world data on BMP effectiveness exists. This study uses the Clarksburg (MD) Special Protection Area as a case study for the analysis of development and best management practices on local stream geomorphology and water quality.

We are collaborating with the EPA, Montgomery County Government, and home developers to test how well older and new BMP methods are functioning. Our effort is focused on the development and linkage of land change information with in situ analysis of biogeochemical fluxes and spatially distributed modeling of hydrology for monitoring purposes. FY07 Products:   Database: High resolution Land use/Land Cover of the Clarkesburg Special Protection Area.   Database: 2007 elevation from LiDAR.   Database: Highly accurate, high density ground elevation data for LiDAR accuracy assessment.   Database: GIS database of precipitation for the Mid-Atlantic region for use in urban hydrologic Contact Information:  John W. Jones, PhD. 703-648-5543 jwjones@usgs.gov

EGSC researchers take part in the collaborative collection of highly accurate elevation data for the assessment of Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) airborne elevation mapping technology.

Consequences of Land Surface Change and Why Are They Important?

Why would we study land surface change? Because of man’s activities (Figure 1) on the surface of the earth, for example farming practices, construction, and residential areas, the environment has sometimes been affected in negative ways, which is sometimes referred to as “the consequences of land surface change.” The consequences of land surface changes are sometimes obvious and other times very complex and require careful study in order to detect where problems lie. These consequences can affect large areas as well as very small locations. They can be very intense or possibly minute changes in the environment that are hardly detectable with precise scientific equipment. These consequences can developed over long periods of time or could have manifested fairly quickly. These changes in the environment could be cyclical in nature or could have a constant rate of change. The study of the consequences of man’s activities on the surface of the earth is complex and needs careful study.

Figure 1. Farming practices, construction, and urbanization affect the water quality and the life it supports.

The Consequences of Land Surface Change investigation is one of the studies in the USGS Geography Discipline that addresses the effects of man’s activities on the earth’s surface. The area of study for this research coincides with several other Geography and Eastern Region research locations in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The Chesapeake Bay watershed is different than the Chesapeake Bay itself. The Watershed is the land area containing all the streams, rivers and groundwater that empty into the Chesapeake Bay itself. It is a scientist’s way of sub-dividing Bay’s issues into organized and definable components in order to understand the total picture.

USGS and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency scientists are working in collaboration on this study and use a variety of methods and tools to better understand the consequences of land surface change in specific locations in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. These scientists typically use previous scientific findings which are based on strict scientific methods and on clear and concise research. They endeavor to utilize various kinds of data and information, including the National Land Cover Trends evolving datasets. Additionally, they will validate the utility of their research by checking with State, local and/or county planners to see if research analysis can be utilize in a meaningful way.

Through the investigations of this study scientists will undertake addressing the original question above: What are the consequences of land surface change and why are they important? We will also provide some insights to those changes in final products, such as, reports, a professional paper, Web pages, and presentations that will detail the project findings to the pubic, Federal, State, and local governments.

Contact Information:
Robert Clark
703-648-7123
bclark@usgs.gov

EGSC Land Cover Trends

This activity is part of the USGS Land Cover Trends Project, which is a joint effort between the U.S. Geological Survey, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and National Aeronautics and Space Administration to study the types, rates, causes, and consequences of land use and land cover change in the conterminous United States for the 1973 – 2000 period. Eighty-four “ecoregions,” (Figure 1) each containing a geographically distinct assemblage of environmental conditions, natural communities, and species, provide a geographic framework for the project and serve as separate reporting units. A sampling approach using randomly selected 10-km by 10-km sample blocks is used to estimate land cover change in each ecoregion. The goal is to provide estimates within one percent of the actual land change at an 85-percent confidence level. Historical Landsat Multispectral Scanner, Thematic Mapper, and Enhanced Thematic Mapper satellite imagery, along with historical aerial photography, topographic maps, field observations, and socioeconomic data are used to derive land cover maps for five separate dates (1973, 1980, 1986, 1992, and 2000). The sample block land cover data are used to analyze the types, rates, causes, and consequences of land cover change.

Figure 1. Map of the conterminous United States with the 1992 National Land Cover Dataset as a base, and the Level III ecoregion boundaries superimposed on it. Also depicted are the sample blocks. Notice how well this illustrates the strong relationship between land cover and ecoregions.

Goals and Objectives:
  Estimate the types, rates and temporal variability of change in each ecoregion.
  Document regional driving forces and consequences of change.
  Prepare a national synthesis of land cover change.

Completed work:

Sample Block Interpretation

Fieldwork

Lake Agassiz Plain   Flint Hills   Central Oklahoma/Texas Plains   Central Irregular Plains   Western Allegheny Plateau   Interior Plateau   Northeastern Coastal Zone   Southern Florida Coastal Plain   Southern Coastal Plain   Northern Appalachian Plateau and Uplands   Northeastern Highlands   Erie Drift Plain   Mississippi Alluvial Plain   Western Corn Belt Plains   Northwestern Glaciated Plains   Nebraska Sand Hills

North Cascades   Ridge and Valley Ecoregion (Southern Half)   Laurentian Plains and Hills   Northeastern Coastal Zone   Southern Coastal Plain   Southern Florida Coastal Plain   Northern Appalachian Plateau and Uplands   Northeastern Highlands   Huron/Erie Lake Plains   Flint Hills   Nebraska Sand Hills   Lake Agassiz Plain   Northern Basin and Range

Contact Information:
Thomas R. Moreland
703-648-5736
tmorelan@usgs.gov

EGSC Land Cover Change—National Land Cover Database

The National Land Cover Database (NLCD) activities carried out by the EGSC are components of the cooperative mapping project NLCD 2001, which is under the guidance of the Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics (MRLC) Consortium and the USGS Land Cover Institute. The NLCD 2001 is a Landsat-based land cover database with several independent data layers, which allow users a wide variety of potential applications. Primary components of the database include: (1) normalized imagery for 3 time periods; (2) ancillary layers including elevation data; (3) per-pixel estimates of percent imperviousness and percent tree canopy; (4) 21 classes of land cover data derived rules-based classification techniques; and (5) classification rules, confidence estimates and metadata from land cover classification.

Figure 1. The NLCD 2001 activity divides the coterminous United States into 65 mapping zones and produces a database consisting of multi-date Landsat imagery, land cover and ancillary layers for each zone. These data are available from the MRLC download website.

These data have a variety of applications. They can be used to project the spread of urbanization, monitor changes taking place in our nation’s farmland and wetlands, predict the flow of pollutants within ecosystems, forecast the spread of wildfires, and model various components leading towards global climate change. There are 65 zones in the conterminous U.S., and 12 in Alaska. As mapping zones are completed they are made available to the public on the MRLC 2001 download Website.

Figure 2. For the NLCD 2001 accuracy assessment a random selection of 24km x 24km sample blocks was generated, from which many thousands of individual sample points will be tested.

The EGSC is carrying out two activities for the NLCD 2001 Project: (1) mapping land cover characteristics for zones in the lower Mississippi River valley, the northern Appalachian highlands and northwestern Alaska; and (2) assessing the classification accuracy of selected land cover datasets already completed in the lower-48 states. This formal assessment of the quality and accuracy of the NLCD is required as part of the metadata (information about the data) and quality assurance requirements for the national dataset. The accuracy assessment strategy is designed to incorporate multiple objectives, including: (1) error matrices and associated accuracy measures, (2) accuracy of land cover composition, (3) accuracy of percent impervious surface and canopy density, (4) accuracy of net change, (5) analysis of reference data error, and (6) accuracy of map “features” (e.g., polygons). This task involves the exploitation of National Technical Means to derive ground truth data for designated sample areas that are employed in the accuracy assessment process. National Technical Means has the potential to provide timely and cost-effective ground truth data to verify land cover classes, as well as impervious surface and tree canopy densities.

Products   Land cover databases and metadata for assigned NLCD zones.   Accuracy assessment analysis for the assigned NLCD sample sites.   Documentation of methods and best practices for accuracy assessment techniques.

Partners and Collaborators USGS – Land Cover Institute EPA NOAA USFS NASA BLM NPS USFWS NRCS OSM LANDFIRE

Customers MRLC Consortium Heinz Foundation State and Local agencies Academic research organizations Federal and National research groups

Contact Information:
Douglas J. Wheeler, PhD.
703-648-7577
dwheeler@usgs.gov

Enhancements of the SLEUTH Urban-Growth Model for Regional Use

During Fiscal Year 2006, the Eastern Geographic Science Center produced a modified version of SLEUTH for use in modeling regional growth within the Chesapeake Bay watershed. This new version incorporates several changes which reduce the computer memory requirements of the SLEUTH model. A change which is necessary for regional modeling because the input images employed for regional modeling are substantially larger than those used in earlier USGS work with SLEUTH. EGSC also modified a number of SLEUTH’s modules to speed up processing during model calibration.

Following up on its FY 2006 work, EGSC will be working on several enhancements to SLEUTH this year. EGSC expects to:
  1. Further reduce SLEUTH’s memory requirements,
  2. Add additional output statistics and metrics,
  3. Adjust some of the modeling algorithms,
  4. Provide a Web interface to SLEUTH, and
  5. Add a suite of new visualizations to SLEUTH in order to allow a broader set of users to see and understand what is going as SLEUTH iterates through scenarios and to visualize the uncertainty in SLEUTH forecasts.

One example of what the SLEUTH model can produce. Shown here, is a predictive animation of urbanization in the Baltimore, Maryland and Washington, D.C., region. The yellow represents urbanization from 1750-1992 and the purple represents urbanization from 1993-2100. This animation was completed using the SLEUTH model in the mid-1990s. To see others, please visit SLEUTH's Online Data Repository (see the Urban Change Histories and Predictive Urban Modeling at the bottom)

Contact Information:
David Donato
703-648-5772
didonato@usgs.gov

Flint River Vegetation Dynamics and Water Availability

In support of—Land Cover Dynamics and Environmental Processes

A complete understanding of linkages among the land surface and the quality of in-stream habitat requires knowledge of the impact that spatially and temporally variable land surface properties have on the hydrologic, geochemical, and energy fluxes of the watershed area that drains to the stream. How important are intra- and inter-annual variations in vegetation condition ("vegetation dynamics") for in-stream water quantity and quality? Can these dynamics be affectively measured using remote sensing and landscape analyses? This task is focused on addressing these questions within the context of interdisciplinary water availability study for the Flint River in Georgia.

The primary research issues will be addressed by meeting the following objectives:

1. Develop a well-calibrated time series of multi-resolution satellite data for the Flint River Watershed.
2. Analyze satellite, climate, and streamflow data outside the hydrologic model context to assess the importance of vegetation dynamics for the distribution of Flint River hydrologic fluxes.
3. Explore linkages among vegetation dynamics, hydrology, in-stream habitat quality - that is, link contributing areas to in-stream conditions.

USGS and State of Georgia scientists discuss relationships among land cover dynamics (recorded in satellite data) and hydrology during a field survey of the Flint River.

2007 Products:
  Database: Moderate-resolution, 15-year database of satellite derived vegetation indices for the Upper Flint.
  Database: Calibrated and atmospherically corrected Landsat-based satellite image database spanning a 30-year period.

Collaborators:
  Mary C. Freeman, Ph.D., Research Ecologist  – Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, USGS, Athens Field Station, Athens, Georgia
  W. Brian Hughes, Hydrologist – Georgia Water Science Center, USGS, Atlanta, Georgia
  Gary R. Buell, Hydrologist – Georgia Water Science Center, USGS, Atlanta, Georgia
  Lauren E. Hay, Research Hydrologist –  National Research Program, USGS, Denver, Colorado
  Robb B. Jacobson, Ph.D., Research Hydrologist – Biological Resources, USGS, Coloumbia Environmental Research Center, Columbia, Missouri
  Kenneth R. Odom, Ph.D., Surface Water Specialist – Kentucky Water Science Center
  James T. Peterson, Assistant Unit Leader, Biological Resources
  J. Stephen Schindler, Research Geologist – Eastern Earth Surface Processes Team, Geology, Reston, Virginia
  Colin Shea, Research Assistant – Georgia Cooperative Fish & Wildlife Research Unit for University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia

Contact Information: 
John W. Jones, PhD.
703-648-5543
jwjones@usgs.gov

High Accuracy Elevation Data Collection Project

In support of—Land Cover Dynamics and Environmental Processes, Everglades Depth Estimation Network

The height finder system installed in a contractor operated helicopter.

Team:  Greg Desmond, Bob Glover, Susan Price, John Jones, Vince Caruso, Chuck Henkle, Ed Cyran, Gordon Shupe, Gary Freeman

Supporting Organizations:  South Florida Water Management District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Everglades National Park

Associated/Linked Studies:  SOFIA, TIME, SICS, ATLSS, Vegetative Resistance to Flow, Fresh Water Flows into Florida Bay, Water Flows and Nutrient Loads to the SW Coast, and other agencies and projects that require accurate elevation data.

Overview:
Modeling of sheet flow and water surface levels in the Florida Everglades is very sensitive to changes in elevation due to its expansive and extremely low relief terrain. This project is applying state-of-the-art Global Positioning System (GPS) technology to perform topographic surveys that meets a vertical accuracy specification of ±15 centimeters (6 inches).

Objective:
The objective is to complete a wide-area regional topographic survey that will provide elevation data to parameterize hydrologic and ecological models.  Specific Relevance to Major Unanswered Questions and Information Needs Identified:  This project supports the restoration and resource management efforts of several agencies by providing critical base elevation data for the parameterization of numerical hydrologic and ecological models. Water resources and land management decisions will rely heavily on the results of these simulation models. Therefore, it is imperative to derive and use the most accurate elevation data available for the models to produce meaningful results. The USGS developed Airborne Height Finder system is the superior technology for conducting a wide-area topographic survey of the Florida Everglades where the terrain surface being measured is inundated by surface water and obscured by vegetation.

Calibration of the height finder at the airport prior to mission operations in South Florida.

Products:
To date, there are 70 digital elevation model files posted on the SOFIA web site for data distribution.  Numerous Project presentations were provided to many stakeholders.  A poster was also presented at the Loxahatchee Science Conference organized by FWS.

Contacts:
Project is no longer supported.  If you would like to discuss with individuals knowledgeable about this work, please contact Greg Desmond or John W. Jones.  Additional information can be found at the SOFIA web site.

Loosely couple the Chesapeake Bay Land Cover Model with the Chesapeake Bay Program Watershed Model, SPARROW, and with Groundwater and Habitat Models

Team: Paul Hearn, Diana Hogan, Huajun Zhang, Cassandra Ladino

In support of—Land Use and Land Cover Change in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed - Causes and Consequences—Peter Claggett

The environmental impact of land use and land use change associated with development in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed has become a pressing concern at both local and regional scales. Land use decisions are often made at the local or county level, and affect not only local ecosystems such as area streams but also regional level ecosystems including the Chesapeake Bay estuary. Numerous local and regional stakeholders including county and state governments and the Chesapeake Bay Program are interested in decision support tools to integrate scientific and socioeconomic factors and to better inform land use, environmental mitigation, and targeted remediation and conservation decisions.

This task is focused on the development of Web-based tools to assist local and State decision makers in optimizing strategies for reducing the load of harmful nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) to the Chesapeake Bay. In 2007 this effort established a strategic partnership with the Chesapeake Bay Program to explore merging the modeled output from USGS’s SPARROW model with the Chesapeake Bay Program’s web-based Vortex model. EGSC will utilize SPARROW output to allow users to more easily target areas with high nutrient loads, while utilizing the Vortex software to build scenarios for nutrient management and best management practice strategies. A prototype is expected in the year 2008.

Example process decision maker would progress through using merged output from the USGS SPARROW model with the Chesapeake Bay Program’s web-based Vortex model. The two models complement each other and allow users to more easily target areas where it would be most effective to invest time and money to reduce nutrient loads.

Contact Information:
Paul Hearn, PhD.
703-648-6287
phearn@usgs.gov

Land Cover Change Impacts on DELMARVA Coastal Wetland Systems

In support of— Land Cover Dynamics and Environmental Processes

Team:   John W. Jones and Lesley Milheim

Development and conversion of lands from forest and agriculture to residential and commercial uses are creating pressures on federally managed coastal wetland resources throughout the Eastern United States. A rich archive of imagery, image processing approaches, and geospatial processing technologies provide the tools needed to monitor conditions of coastal wetlands, quantify extents and types of land conversions, map historic wetland dynamics, and understand the impacts land use changes may be having on coastal wetland systems.

The objective of this task is to develop techniques, collect information, and document land use change impacts on federally managed coastal wetland systems.

The above figure shows the Little Blackwater watershed located in Dorchester County, Maryland, adjacent to the Chesapeake Bay. The primarily agricultural polygons are shown in white crosshatch, and some of which are slated for development thereby potentially altering the current sediment and nutrient levels, and water flow into the BNWR. Knowledge of past land use changes leading to the current state combined with current hydrological monitoring will enable scientists and policy makers to evaluate proposed development.

FY07 Products:
  Poster:  Milheim, L., Jones, J.W., and Barlow, R., 2007, Development of a Land Use Database for the Little Blackwater Watershed, Md., Collaboration and Partnership Workshop in Reston, Virginia.

  Poster:  Milheim, L., Jones, J.W., and Barlow, R., 2007, Development of a Land Use Database for the Little Blackwater Watershed, Md., Chesapeake Marshlands NWR 4th Annual Science Meeting.

  Report:  Milheim, L., Jones, J.W., and Barlow, R., 2007, Development of an Impervious Surface Database for the Little Blackwater Watershed, Md., U.S. Geological Survey Open File Report (number assignment pending).

  Report: Milheim, L., Jones, J.W., and Barlow, R., Development of a Land Use Database for the Little Blackwater Watershed, Md., U.S. Geological Survey Open File Report (number assignment pending).

Contact Information: 
John W. Jones, PhD.
703-648-5543
jwjones@usgs.gov

Land Cover Dynamics and Environmental Processes Project

Problem:
People influence the availability and condition of water and biologic resources directly through their use and indirectly through modification of land cover. Resource managers can make better decisions with greater understanding of relationships among land cover, hydrologic, and biologic processes. This project develops, evaluates, and applies landscape process understanding to improve the hydrologic and biologic science used in decision-making at Federal, State, and Local government levels.

Objectives:
Each of the tasks in this project is designed to meet one or more of the following objectives:

1. Develop field data collection, remote sensing methods, and landscape ecology analyses that meet resource management and process study needs.
2. Create well-calibrated multi-temporal and multi-resolution databases that demonstrate the utility of USGS remote sensed data for resource management and afford process and scaling studies.
3. Address one or more of the following questions:
• What new land surface information can be derived that is useful in resource management or process research?
• What level of precision/accuracy of land cover data are necessary for particular resource management or process modeling requirements?
• How do land cover and hydrologic/biologic process relationships change with (temporal and spatial) scale?
4. Explore collaborative research and modeling opportunities with scientists from other USGS Disciplines, other Federal, State, and Local Government agencies.

Research Endeavors:
  Flint River Vegetation Dynamics and Water Availability
  Clarksburg Special Protection Area Comparative Hydrology Study
  Chesapeake Bay Pilot Impervious Surface Area Accuracy Assessment
  Leetown, West Virginia, Ground Water Source Area Identification Using LiDAR
  Marsh Dieback
  Land Cover Change Impacts on DELMARVA Coastal Wetland Systems
  South Florida Landscape Dynamics
  Shenandoah Climate, Vegetation, and Hydrology Analysis

Contact Information: 
John W. Jones, PhD.
703-648-5543
jwjones@usgs.gov

Land Use Portfolio Modeler—Ecosystems Analysis in South Florida

EGSC Team:  Paul Hearn, Dianna Hogan, and David Strong

The Ecosystem Portfolio Modeler (EPM), a Web-based tool, will investigate and communicate ecological values of land between the Everglades and Biscayne Bay, in Miami-Dade County, Florida. This tool is being developed in conjunction with partners at the National Park Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the University of Florida, and the University of Pennsylvania. The tool will be used to develop, assess, and communicate strategies for restoring and protecting important ecological values of the remaining open land in southern Miami-Dade County. There is intense development pressure in this area that will adversely affect Everglades and Biscayne National Parks, and the land bridge in between them.

EPM users will   explore different land use, restoration, and development scenarios, and   explore tradeoffs between priorities. Calculation of the ecological value of a location will take into account biodiversity potential, threatened and endangered species, rare and unique habitats, water quality, landscape patterns and fragmentation, and restoration potential.  Economic values will be calculated using a land hedonic model.

Contact Information:
Paul Hearn, PhD.
703-648-6287
phearn@usgs.gov

Leetown, West Virginia, Ground Water Source Area Identification Using LiDAR

In support of—Land Cover Dynamics and Environmental Processes

Given the development of both a USDA Aquaculture Research Facility and housing around the vicinity of the Leetown Science Center (LSC), concern regarding our ability to protect and maintain adequate water for USGS research facilities is mounting. Information on current and potential sources of groundwater for the LSC are needed. Precise and accurate information on the location of potential recharge areas (e.g., sinkholes) and an accurate digital elevation model are required for the groundwater modeling effort. This project will collect and analyze airborne LiDAR data to produce an accurate, high-resolution digital elevation model and a map of sinkholes for the greater Leetown area.

Synthetic 3-D view of the terrain nearby the Leetown Science Center that was created using Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) and color air photos. These data are being analyzed to detect sinkholes.

Contact Information: 
John W. Jones, PhD.
703-648-5543
jwjones@usgs.gov

National Land Change Community Modeling System

In the United States the impact of land-change modeling on public policy has - so far - fallen short of its potential. Among the many reasons, two stand out. First, fragmented research has led to a proliferation of models which do not interoperate, largely because of narrow thematic focuses and lack of technical standards. Second, research has disproportionately favored local extents at the expense of regional and national extents. The USGS Geographic Analysis and Monitoring (GAM) Program has, however, specifically recognized the need to improve the effectiveness of ecological, environmental, and land-change modeling at all scales. To this end, GAM now funds research to address the neglected regional scale of land-change models and to foster a vibrant, collaborative, national community of modelers.

Our proposed framework for collaboration within this national community is the National Land-Change Community Model (NLCCM). By encouraging the development of software toolkits along with standards for integrating models within and across spatial and temporal scales, the NLCCM will enable modelers:

  to pick and choose from among the best features of various existing models;
  to build progressively refined, credible, and widely accepted models;
  to identify the drivers of ecological, environmental, and land-cover change; and
  thus to inject credible alternative land-cover futures into the formation of public policy at all levels of government.

The NLCCM will be both eclectic and inclusive. Mediated by an interactive Web site, the NLCCM will operate much like open-source software development projects. The community of participating researchers and modelers is expected to span all levels of government, the academic community, and non-governmental organizations. As it matures, the NLCCM is expected to evolve into an integrated mosaic of regional and national models which will serve as a bridge between local-extent models and global models.

To jump-start interest and participation in the NLCCM, the GAM Program is planning a model inter-comparison event (a model "bake-off") to be held in 2009. We will participate in the event by entering the Chesapeake Bay Land-Change Model (CBLCM), consisting of a local-scale growth-allocation model coupled with a regionalized cellular-automata urban-growth model (SLEUTH3-d).

Contact Information:
David Donato
703-648-5772
didonato@usgs.gov

Operation of the Research and Development Computing Cluster (Beowulf)

The Eastern Geographic Science Center (EGSC) Research and Development Computing Cluster (RDCC) includes a Beowulf, a networked cluster of commodity computers (figure below) operated to support computationally intensive models, analyses, and research and development activities. The EGSC RDCC (Beowulf) is intended primarily as a national computational resource for USGS projects in computational and quantitative geography, including those interdisciplinary projects with significant geographic components. The Beowulf meets some of the need for general, professionally administered computational systems which has not otherwise been directly addressed since the de-commissioning several years ago of the Data General™ servers and other UNIX®-based systems once operated by the former National Mapping Division’s research branch. Specifically, the Eastern Region now operates the RDCC to:

  Support the development of a Web interface for the SLEUTH (UGM-3) urban-growth model, and the development and application of parallelized calibration of this model for use in Chesapeake Bay restoration;
  Provide a UNIX®-like (Linux) computing environment for geographic researchers who do not otherwise have access to UNIX® or UNIX®-like systems;
  Provide a network-accessible, high-performance parallel-processing resource for USGS research; and
  Promote interdisciplinary and collaborative projects, including projects involving researchers from outside the USGS.

The Beowulf expands USGS capabilities in quantitative geography beyond those agreeable to solution with conventional desktop geographic information systems. The EGSC Beowulf consists of 18 interconnected computers (or nodes) including 17 running under Linux and one running under Windows. Eleven of the Beowulf’s computers have recently been upgraded with dual-core processors and 4 Gigabytes of random-access memory each. Additional information about the EGSC Beowulf is available at http://egscbeowulf.er.usgs.gov. This Website is expected to be opened for access by non-USGS collaborators later this year. Contact Information: David Donato 703-648-5772 didonato@usgs.gov

A view of some of the Beowulf interconnected nodes.

Sudden Salt Marsh Dieback

In support of—Land Cover Dynamics and Environmental Processes

Areas of acute/sudden dieback of salt marsh vegetation have been observed recently in the northeast including Connecticut (2003), Cape Cod (2004), and Maine (2004/05). Neither the geographic range nor the extent of sudden salt marsh dieback has been determined. Sudden salt marsh dieback has consequently been identified as an issue of very high priority for both the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the National Park Service (NPS) in this region. This research describes an integrated, comprehensive project among U.S. Department of the Interior partners (USGS, FWS, and NPS) to address this significant threat to the Region’s coast. The goals of this project are to develop satellite-based remote sensing techniques that can be used to accurately determine the regional severity and extent of sudden salt marsh dieback on FWS salt marshes in New England and provide insights regarding causes for salt marsh dieback.

FY07 Products:   Presentation: Jones, J. W., “From Knee-high to Bird’s Eye, Remote Sensing for Coastal Area Monitoring and Management," 3rd Annual Sudden Marsh Dieback Workshop, Wellfleet, MA. Contact Information:  John W. Jones, PhD. 703-648-5543 jwjones@usgs.gov

View a larger version of this graphic.

Shenandoah Climate, Vegetation, and Hydrology Analysis

In support of—Land Cover Dynamics and Environmental Processes

Can evidence of climate change impacts on vegetation phenology be found in moderate-resolution satellite imagery? If changes are evident, what is there impact on fluxes of water and nutrients from the headwater streams of the Potomac River? Evolving streamflow and microclimatic conditions that are caused by changing watershed land use make the analysis of relationships among vegetation fluctuations, climate, and hydrology difficult. Because they are protected from direct land use changes, the Potomac Watershed headwaters found in the Shenandoah National Park (SNP) present excellent real-world laboratories for the investigation of relationships among vegetation fluctuations, climate, non-anthropogenic disturbances, and hydrology.

The scientific goals of this project are to examine whether climate-change related signals in SNP canopy phenology are detectable in the data we’ve assembled and to explore the implications of any detected signal(s) for watershed hydrology in the region. In the process, we are helping the SNP establish meteorological, land surface, and land cover tracking capabilities that could form a foundation for an ecosystem monitoring network. FY07 Products:   Report: Shenandoah National Park Phenology Study Progress Report.   Database: SNP meteorological data.   Database: Satellite climatology for the SNP. Contact Information:  John W. Jones, PhD. 703-648-5543 jwjones@usgs.gov

This black bear watched attentively as team members downloaded weather data from one of the project’s weather stations and repaired damage to the weather station caused by…. Black bears! Along with information on the Park’s climate and physical environment, this project is providing valuable experience regarding the long-term, real-world deployment of monitoring equipment for research and resource management.

South Florida Landscape Dynamics

In support of—Land Cover Dynamics and Environmental Processes

Resource managers in the Everglades region must be able to monitor land surface change, estimate water level conditions in real time, and integrate physical and biological data/information from a broad user community. The primary goal of this study is to provide restoration-critical information regarding past and current characteristics of the Greater Everglades land surface (i.e., ‘landscape dynamics’) using remote sensing and geospatial analysis for improved landscape-scale modeling and restoration monitoring.

2007 Products:   Report: Jones, J. W. and S. Price, 2007, EDEN Digital Elevation Model Research and Development, USGS Open File Report 2007-1034, 29pgs.   Report: Jones, J.W. and S. Price, 2007, Conceptual design of the Everglades Depth Estimation Network (EDEN) Grid. USGS Open File Report (number assignment pending).   Report: Remote sensing technique development and evaluation for solution hole (karst) mapping and characterization in the Florida Everglades.   Database: High Accuracy Elevation Database (HAED)   Database: EDEN Digital Elevation Model   Database: Everglades Depth Estimation Network GIS Grid for Topographic and Water Surface Analysis.   Database: Land Cover Percentages by EDEN Grid Cell. Related Research: High Accuracy Elevation Data Collection Project Contact Information:  John W. Jones, PhD. 703-648-5543 jwjones@usgs.gov

The elevation map created using complex geostatistical modeling of highly accurate elevation data. The digital elevation model represented on this map is being used for water resource management and biological research planning and conduct through the Everglades Depth Estimation Network applications system.

Using Graph Theory to Model Land Cover

Land cover maps consist of pixels that represent the dominant type of landscape at a place on the ground. These maps can show both the locations of human activities and the consequences of ecological change, so they have become an essential tool in landscape management. But the maps are also very complicated because they have many small isolated pixels as well as very large regions with extremely intricate patterns.

Land cover graph overlaid on land cover map. Study area is west of Washington, D.C. Maryland is north of the Potomac River and Virginia is south of the river.

We are working on ways of simplifying such maps using graph theory. When pixels next to one another have the same land cover they show up on maps as “patches” with the same color. We represent these largest patches as points located at the center of the patch, and if two patches touch one another we represent this with a line between the points. This “graph” of points and lines is a drastic simplification of the land cover map that nevertheless retains a great deal of the information within it, including location, land cover type, and adjacency. But the graph also adds new information by telling us which kinds of landscapes tend to have many neighbors, which pairs of land cover types tend to be near one another, and what kinds of land cover types are fragmented. This information can be integrated with other graphs that represent such phenomena as (1) animal migrations and invasive species, (2) stream networks, (3) road systems, and even (4) the spread of infections.

Contact Information:
F. Lee De Cola, PhD.
703-648-4178
ldecola@usgs.gov

Visualizing the Spread of West Nile Virus and Five Other Diseases Across the United States

To see how the West Nile Virus (WNV) has and is spreading across the U.S. in five categories (bird, human, mosquito, sentinel, and veterinary), Visit the West Nile Virus - Human - Maps page. The site is updated weekly during the WNV season that typically runs from April to October.

Using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. Geological Survey shows the data in easy to understand ways:

  Maps showing disease activity - Color-coded maps labeled with the number of cases per county are shown for each state. You can easily navigate between categories (e.g. human to bird) and to adjacent states.
  Charts showing disease spread over time - Below each state map, special charts show the weekly spread of WNV. Historically, the peak season is late summer and early autumn.
  Tables showing county-level data - The total number of cases per county are shown in an easy-to-read table below each chart.
  Total counts for regions - The total number of cases for each state and the nation are printed at the bottom of the webpage.

Five additional diseases, St. Louis encephalitis, eastern equine encephalitis, western equine encephalitis, La Crosse encephalitis, and Powassan virus, are mapped and accessible via a user-friendly navigation system just below the USGS banner. Contact Information: Susan Price 703-648-6692 sprice@usgs.gov

Web Application Framework Development

Team: Paul Hearn, David Strong, John Aguinaldo, Jason Burkhardt, Huajun Zhang

Increasingly, decision makers at all levels are challenged not by the lack of information, but by the absence of effective tools to synthesize the large volume of data available and utilize them to frame policy options in a straightforward and understandable manner. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technologies have been widely applied to this end; however, systems with the necessary analytical power are still largely confined to workstations and are useable only by trained operators. Numerous internet-based systems have been developed, but few offer features beyond simple display of data on map and imagery backgrounds.

Within the USGS, as well as other government agencies and academia, development teams often duplicate each others efforts attempting to develop complex dynamic Web-based GIS applications. Many never see the light of day because of the level-of-effort to deploy such an application. A common reusable application framework would benefit many projects within the USGS and elsewhere and help many of these projects reach completion.

This task is focused on the development of a reusable Web application framework with a common architecture. This framework will be able to host a variety of GIS web applications which share a common architecture. Spatial analysis will also be developed to allow users to analyze the data. A reusable map viewer (figure 1) has been developed that can be utilized by a wide variety of GIS web applications. The map viewer will serve as a spatial and data selection tool for the Web applications as well as display the resulting output from the Web applications. A common spatial analysis library (similar to Arctool box) will be established as the framework for building robust GIS analysis applications (i.e. flood inundation, viewshed, etc.). Contact Information: Paul Hearn, PhD. 703-648-6287 phearn@usgs.gov

Figure 1. An illustration of the reusable Web map viewer.

Web-based Land Cover Data Retrieval and Classification Tools

Team: Paul Hearn, John Aguinaldo, Huajun Zhang, Jason Burkhardt

In 2006, the Eastern Geographic Science Center began a joint project with eSpatial, a software and consulting company specializing in GIS and Location Services. This effort, will utilize eSpatial’s iSmart5 platform to develop a custom application to provide enhanced public access to USGS’s National Land Cover Database (NLCD). The iSmart5 application will allow users to quickly locate, display, and download NLCD data, including the recently developed NLCD Change Product, which displays changes in land cover between 1992 and 2001.

Users will be able to clip, display, and download NLCD data using a variety of polygons, including city, county and watershed boundaries, as well as polygons defined by the user. Additional features will include the ability to display individual land cover classes on top of user selected maps or imagery, and the ability to generate and print reports detailing the land cover composition within selected areas. The new application is expected to be available to the public in late summer 2007.

Contact Information:
Paul Hearn, PhD.
703-648-6287
phearn@usgs.gov

Web Based Tools and Applications: Web Enabling a GIS-Based Decision Support System for Memphis, and Shelby County, Tennessee

Team: Paul Hearn, Rich Bernknopf, Buddy Schweig, Dave Strong, Nico Luco, Erdem Karaca, Olver Boyd In the winter of 1811-12, the central Mississippi Valley was struck by three of the most powerful earthquakes in U.S. history. Even today, this region has more earthquakes than any other part of the United States east of the Rocky Mountains. Government agencies, universities, and private organizations are working to increase awareness of the earthquake threat and to reduce loss of life and property in future shocks.

New Madrid Seismic Hazard Zone - View larger graphic

The city of Memphis, Tennessee and surrounding Shelby County has a dense urban population near faults capable of producing major earthquakes, a 25-40% probability of a magnitude 6.0 or greater earthquake in the next 50 years, and relatively low regional attenuation (in other words, seismic waves do damage over a greater area in this region than for the same magnitude earthquake in the western U.S.). Because of these attributes, Memphis was chosen by the U.S. Geological Survey as a test site to evaluate a new tool to help local government agencies evaluate the economic consequences of alternative mitigation strategies. Integrating GIS with Economic Assessment While hazard mitigation decisions are typically made by individual property owners, their choices are often affected by external policies implemented on regional scales, such as tax incentives, building codes, and other regulations. These policies not only affect the vulnerability of particular locations, but also have economic consequences (e.g. effects on property values, insurance costs, tax rates, etc). For this reason, determining the effectiveness of any one policy requires an approach that integrates GIS-based regional risk assessments with analyses of the economic consequences of different mitigation policies.

The USGS Land Use Portfolio Model (LUPM) is a GIS-based modeling, mapping, and risk communication tool that can assist public agencies and communities in understanding and reducing their natural-hazards vulnerability. The LUPM has been developed into an interactive decision support system (DSS) that stakeholders can use to prioritize locations in which to invest a hazard mitigation budget and evaluate alternative mitigation policies. The DSS is unique in that it allows users to consider various levels of risk tolerance and hazard acceptability and compare the cost effectiveness of different policy alternatives. The program allows users to construct various scenarios by entering different event probabilities, mitigation strategies and costs, and planning horizons. The model computes estimated mitigation costs, asset wealth lost, asset wealth retained, and associated standard deviations of each estimate.

The initial phase of the project (FY2004-2005) involved an analysis of hypothetical mitigation strategies that compare the benefits and costs of structural mitigation for new commercial buildings. Various scenarios were conducted for ~12,000 vacant commercial parcels, using a hypothetical mix of structures with a total estimated value of $9.6 billion. Scenarios were run with and without geologic risk information, with estimated mitigation costs of 10% and 30% of new building values, and with planning horizons of zero, 20 and 50 years. Preliminary results demonstrate a) that geologic risk information can substantially reduce costs by more effective targeting of mitigation efforts, and b) that the choice of planning horizon markedly affects present-value estimates of mitigation benefits and costs.

During FY2006, a web-based simplified version of the LUPM was developed to provide local managers access to the tool without having to work with a GIS analyst. Activities in FY2007 are focused on enhancing the web-based version and conducting an analysis of the relative costs and benefits of replacing the existing building code in Memphis and Shelby County with the International Building Code.

Contact Information:
Paul Hearn, PhD.
703-648-6287
phearn@usgs.gov