Grantee Research Project Results
2000 Progress Report: The Spatial Patterning of Land Use Conversion: Linking Economics, Hydrology and Ecology to Evaluate the Effects of Alternative Future Growth Scenarios on Stream Ecosystems
EPA Grant Number: R828012Title: The Spatial Patterning of Land Use Conversion: Linking Economics, Hydrology and Ecology to Evaluate the Effects of Alternative Future Growth Scenarios on Stream Ecosystems
Investigators: Palmer, Margaret A. , Moglen, Glenn E. , Ness, Keith Van , Wiegand, Cameron , Bockstael, Nancy
Current Investigators: Palmer, Margaret A. , Moglen, Glenn E. , Pizzuto, J. E. , Ness, Keith Van , Wiegand, Cameron , Bockstael, Nancy
Institution: University of Maryland - College Park
Current Institution: University of Maryland - College Park , Montgomery County Department of Environmental Protection , University of Delaware
EPA Project Officer: Packard, Benjamin H
Project Period: June 1, 2000 through May 31, 2003 (Extended to May 31, 2004)
Project Period Covered by this Report: June 1, 2000 through May 31, 2001
Project Amount: $1,125,212
RFA: Water and Watersheds (1999) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Watersheds , Water
Objective:
The goal of this project is to determine how the timing, rate, and spatial configuration of land conversion influences stream habitat and ecosystem health in four watersheds in Maryland. We are contrasting two watersheds (Paint Branch, Northwest Branch) characterized by older development close to Washington, DC, with two watersheds (Hawlings, Cattail) in the rapidly expanding rural-urban fringe of Montgomery and Howard Counties, Maryland. Our research team consists of academicians from the fields of ecology, economics, hydrology, and geomorphology, as well as local government scientists and policymakers. Our work is proceeding in three phases. Phase I has been a major interdisciplinary effort to identify the conceptual relationship between land use change, hydrological change, geomorphic change, and stream ecosystem structure and function. Our approach was influenced by scientists who participated in three workshops at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis at the University of California at Santa Barbara. Phase II involves two large efforts. One is collecting new, and compiling existing, data on land use and the ecological and geomorphologic conditions at 65 sites across our four study watersheds that differ in the extent and pattern of development. The other is to assemble newly available and existing data on human-induced changes in land use over the past decade for the region. These 65 watershed sites were selected to span a range of land uses and watershed sizes and are arranged around tributary confluences so that we can assess the cumulative impacts of land use at strategic points in the river network. Phase III will require using our data in conjunction with new or existing theory to develop models to predict: the amount and pattern of future growth (changes due to development) in these watersheds; changes in water flow (hydrology) and channel structure (geomorphology) that will result from land use changes; and the future ecological states (structure and function) of streams within these watersheds.Progress Summary:
Economics. We are in the process of constructing a dynamic data set, at the individual parcel level, of the landscape in the study area for the decade from 1990 to 2000 from a geographic domain of six counties in the Washington-Baltimore region. From these data, we are constructing a spatially specific model of land use change capable of analyzing alternative growth control policies (including Smart Growth policies vs. the status quo). Because the model is spatially disaggregated, it should provide forecasts for the study watersheds and allow the further forecasting of ecological impacts. We have set up a cooperative arrangement with economic researchers at North Carolina State University to compare two different strategies for modeling land use change and, hopefully, to apply these models to data available for the Raleigh-Durham and the Washington-Baltimore areas.Hydrology. Efforts in this first year have been focused on developing methods to estimate changes in peak flow behavior in a spatially explicit manner. We have developed a procedure to use several different forms of Geographic Information System (GIS)-based data to drive our hydrologic modeling effort. We have obtained and digitized historical (dating to the late 1930s, early 1950s, and mid 1960s) aerial photography for our four study watersheds. This allows us to determine an "initial condition" of the landscape. From this initial condition, we use tax map data and recent (1997) land use data to model the movement of the landscape from more rural to more urbanized land uses. We have developed GIS-based algorithms to drive our hydrologic models both internally and externally to the GIS environment, allowing us to make predictions of flood magnitudes across a range of different return periods. We also have developed GIS databases of land use from a "whole watershed," "local area," and "buffer area" perspective for use in relating field observations of ecological quantities from these different perspectives.
Geomorphology. We have developed a model that predicts changes in channel width through time with varying streamflow, sediment supply, bank vegetation and bank soil type, and other variables. A preliminary evaluation of the model with field data from the Good Hope Tributary, Montgomery County, Maryland, is encouraging. There is no comparable model available in the literature, so even this preliminary work is of considerable significance. All of the field sites have been visited, cross-sections surveyed, bank sediment sampled, and samples obtained of the bed sediment.
Ecology. Invertebrate samples have been collected in all 65 sampling sites using six replicate surber samples collected in March 2001. Fish communities have been sampled in three of the four selected watersheds for this study: Paint Branch, Northwest Branch, and Hawlings River. The fourth watershed, Cattail Creek, will be completed by the end of summer 2001. At each station, crews collect information on the fish community, aquatic habitat, and physical/chemical parameters.
Three of the functional measures?nutrient transport, uptake, and conservative solute dynamics (N, P, and Br-)?have been completed in 34 of the proposed 65 sites (15 sites sampled in 2000 and 19 in 2001). In summer 2001, we conducted an additional study detailing temporal variability in stream function. Two sites with contrasting land use in the watersheds were chosen and sampled five times each over a 2-month period at the beginning of summer. The goal of this experiment was to determine the repeatability of our functional assessments under similar climatic conditions. This study provides important baseline data by which we can assess how representative the data are that are being collected only once at the remaining study sites.
We have metabolism data (respiration and primary production) for nine sites that represent a wide variety of land use types. Fewer sites are sampled for metabolism as data loggers are left in the stream for multiple days for each determination. For two sites in which restoration projects are planned, we have completed sampling invertebrates, fish, habitat variables, and nitrogen and phosphorus. We have data collected in the restored section and an upstream "control" prior to construction that was initiated this summer.
Future Activities:
Data recently acquired from the Maryland Office of Assessment and Taxation will be appended to the land use database. To augment this database, improved historical land cover information from satellite imagery will be acquired from a newly established working relationship with the remote sensing experts in the University of Maryland Geography Department. This will substantially improve our resolution of temporal dynamics to assist model forecasting.Hydrological modeling efforts will focus more on modeling changes in low flow
behavior and water quality as a function of changing land use. Field sites will
be revisited in fall 2001 to measure the slope of the streambed and to assess
the condition of riparian vegetation. Further numerical modeling will focus on a
network scale model that can rout water and sediment at the event timescale. The
model will predict changes in morphology and sediment characteristics that
result from changes in hydrology and sediment supply induced by land use
changes.
Montgomery County scientists and University of Maryland staff will
continue to monitor the fish and invertebrate communities at the same stations
next field season. We also will be sampling the restoration sites (and
associated upstream reference sites) again at multiple times post restoration.
Further analysis of solute transport dynamics is underway using the U.S.
Geological Survey model One-Dimensional Transport with Inflow and Storage (OTIS)
(http://co.water.usgs.gov/otis/) to estimate reach level parameters that
describe subsurface flow and hydraulic exchange between the surface water and
subsurface storage. Preliminary data analysis will commence in fall 2001 using
data collected in the three Montgomery County watersheds (Northwest Branch,
Paint Branch, Hawlings River) for which we have extremely high-resolution land use data.
Journal Articles on this Report : 2 Displayed | Download in RIS Format
Other project views: | All 90 publications | 29 publications in selected types | All 17 journal articles |
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Type | Citation | ||
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Beighley RE, Moglen GE. Adjusting measured peak discharges from an urbanizing watershed to reflect a stationary land use signal. Water Resources Research 2003;39(4):1093, doi:10.1029/2002WR001846. |
R828012 (2000) R828012 (2001) R828012 (Final) |
Exit Exit Exit |
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Irwin EG, Bockstael NE. Interacting agents, spatial externalities and the evolution of residential land use patterns. Journal of Economic Geography 2002;2(1):31-54. |
R828012 (2000) R828012 (Final) |
Exit |
Supplemental Keywords:
water, watersheds, ecological effects, geomorphology, sediment transport, erosion, deposition, river morphology, sensitive populations, population, cumulative effects, ecosystem, indicators, restoration, regionalization, scaling, terrestrial, aquatic, habitat, integrated assessment, public policy, decisionmaking, community-based, cost benefit, conservation, environmental assets, ecology, monitoring, analytical, surveys, measurement methods, northeast, Chesapeake Bay, Maryland, MD, Montgomery County, EPA Region 3, MAIA., RFA, Scientific Discipline, Geographic Area, Water, Ecosystem Protection/Environmental Exposure & Risk, Water & Watershed, Hydrology, Ecosystem/Assessment/Indicators, Ecosystem Protection, State, Ecological Effects - Environmental Exposure & Risk, Ecology and Ecosystems, Watersheds, spatial water quality assessment systems, ecosystem assessment, stream ecosystems, alternative future growth scenarios, Maryland (MD), predictive model, stream management, geomorphic, ecosystem, ecosystem health, water quality, ecology assessment models, public policy, land use, econometricsRelevant Websites:
http://watersheds.umd.edu
http://askdep.com
Progress and Final Reports:
Original AbstractThe perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.