River Observatories for Management Applications (ROMA) Project: West Branch

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In the image map below, select the "hotspot" arrow to see a field observation photograph.

Poster

Poster in PDF format.

The above poster and its derivatives were presented at the following meeting:
- AAG Reston 2005 April Meeting (Dr. David Kirtland)

The following notes were also provided when needed and address several areas of the poster.

Project: ROMA: River Observatories for Management Applications

ERG Task: GIS Analysis of Consequences of Land Use Change
The uplands of the Susquehanna watershed have been changed by human-induced and natural processes, some of which have had a significant impact on ecosystem health and sustainability. The need to integrate and apply information to help understand the consequences that land surface changes have on sediment erosion and deposition (caused by agricultural production, urbanization, forest logging, climate change, and other factors operating at local and broad regional scales) is critical to managing the natural resources of the watershed and the Chesapeake Bay. Improved information and understanding about the state of the land surface and the rates and patterns, causes and drivers, and consequences of landscape change are needed to help scientists and decision-makers in land-use planning, land management, and natural resource utilization and conservation.

Scientific Question
The scientific question we are addressing is: “Has land-use, land cover, and urbanization change contributed to sediment mobilization?”

Field Observations
In March of 2005, Tom Moreland of the National Land Cover Trends Project (a ROMA Project member also), took a field trip with the ERG Pennsylvania State Representative to the West Branch study area. The objective of this field trip was to collect field observations and data much the same way the National Land Cover Trends Project does in their field trips. The collected field data was also used the ROMA Project analysis.

Vertically Integrated DB
The ROMA database contains data from various sources. It has been vertically integrated in that the datasets have same projection/datum (same as the National Land Cover Trends Project) and compatible/loadable to popular image processing systems and GIS. These data have various scales, resolutions, and accuracies which were taken into account during the Project analysis with a little “cartographic license” and interpretation.

1992 NLCD (USGS)
The USGS National Dataset is the foundation of the Project's Land Cover/Land-use analysis. Documentation can be found at: http://landcover.usgs.gov/overview.asp.

DOQ (County)
ERG discussed the use of this Digital Ortho Quad (DOQ) data in the ROMA project with the Lancaster County GIS Department and they gave their permission. This DOQ was generated by Lancaster County GIS to USGS Standards.

Land-use (County)
ERG discussed the use of this land-use data in the ROMA project with the Lancaster County GIS Department and they gave their permission. With this data, the Project is incorporating local county data in the Project's land cover/land-use analysis with other county and national dataset.

Land Cover Trends Analysis
This analysis was modeled after the analysis performed in the National Land Cover Trends Project. The inclusion of more local data was the main difference. By using the National Land Cover Trends Project methods to generation sample statistics, Project personnel will compare and contrast the ecoregion West Branch sample area to the National statistics for the Northern Piedmont Ecoregion.

Summary
Through the project's modeling and analyses activities, geography can play an important role in understanding the principal consequences that urbanization has on the Chesapeake Bay Watershed.

This terrain flyby was constructed from a 1999 Digital Ortho Photo Quad Panchromatic image, National Hydrography Data (NHD), and 10-meter National Elevation Data and used in the ERG Land Cover Task’s analysis of the West Branch. The red lines are the West Branch Watershed boundary and the blue lines are the NHD streams. It was in 1934, that Albert Einstein said about the topic of visualization of natural science: "Man tries to make for himself in the fashion that suits him best, a simplified and intelligible picture of the world; he then tries to some extent to substitute this cosmos of his for the world of experience, and thus to overcome it. This is what the painter, the poet, the speculative philosopher and the natural scientist do, each in his own fashion." (Albert Einstein, "Principles of Research" Essays in Science, 1934) (Flyby animation by Geographer Mark Brooks of the Land Cover Trends Project)

For More Information

For more information on land cover/land use trends of the West Branch area contact:

Related Links

ROMA Project activities
USGS Chesapeake Bay activities
Geographic Analysis and Monitoring Program (GAM) activities
The National Map activities

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