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IMPERVIOUS COVER AS A REGIONAL INDICATOR
Citation:
Bird, S L., S. W. Alberty, AND L R. Exum. IMPERVIOUS COVER AS A REGIONAL INDICATOR. Presented at US Environmental Protection Agency Regional Vulnerability Assessment Workshop, Research Triangle Park, NC, September 12-14, 2000.
Impact/Purpose:
The distribution and patterns of exposure of ecosystems to stressors over the next 50 years required within the Regional Vulnerability Assessment Program (ReVA) will be dependent on patterns of human activities that are likely to occur over this period. Although human activity and culture are the driving force currently altering the ecological landscape, surprisingly little effort has been devoted to integrating socioeconomic data and projections into environmental and ecological impact assessments. The most dramatic land use change is the conversion of agricultural and forested use to a developed use (residential/commercial). A rapidly-growing population and sprawling, low-density development patterns are consuming large quantities of land. This project is developing methods to analyze potential land use changes that result from changes in human population growth, economic conditions, public works, and public policy decisions. The focus is on developing methods that are appropriate for a region-wide assessment scale. The assessment question addressed is "how much, where, and what kind of land use change will affect ecological resources in a region over the next 25 to 50 years."
Description:
Increases in impervious surface area in a watershed gives rise to changes in stream hydrology, stream channel morphology, increased pollutant runoff, and an increase in stream water temperature. These physical changes in the stream systems in turn give rise to impacts on stream biodiversity for both macroinvertebrates and fish species. This poster describes an approach for developing a regional scale indicator based on impervious cover and the collection of a test data set derived from aerial photography to evaluate the uncertainty associated with the application of the indicator.