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A LANDSCAPE ANALYSIS OF NEW YORK CITY'S WATER SUPPLY (1973-1998)
Citation:
Mehaffey, M H., T G. Wade, M S. Nash, AND C M. Edmonds. A LANDSCAPE ANALYSIS OF NEW YORK CITY'S WATER SUPPLY (1973-1998). U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC, EPA/600/R-99/102 (NTIS PB2002-101768), 1999.
Impact/Purpose:
The primary objectives of this research are to:
Develop methodologies so that landscape indicator values generated from different sensors on different dates (but in the same areas) are comparable; differences in metric values result from landscape changes and not differences in the sensors;
Quantify relationships between landscape metrics generated from wall-to-wall spatial data and (1) specific parameters related to water resource conditions in different environmental settings across the US, including but not limited to nutrients, sediment, and benthic communities, and (2) multi-species habitat suitability;
Develop and validate multivariate models based on quantification studies;
Develop GIS/model assessment protocols and tools to characterize risk of nutrient and sediment TMDL exceedence;
Complete an initial draft (potentially web based) of a national landscape condition assessment.
This research directly supports long-term goals established in ORDs multiyear plans related to GPRA Goal 2 (Water) and GPRA Goal 4 (Healthy Communities and Ecosystems), although funding for this task comes from Goal 4. Relative to the GRPA Goal 2 multiyear plan, this research is intended to "provide tools to assess and diagnose impairment in aquatic systems and the sources of associated stressors." Relative to the Goal 4 Multiyear Plan this research is intended to (1) provide states and tribes with an ability to assess the condition of waterbodies in a scientifically defensible and representative way, while allowing for aggregation and assessment of trends at multiple scales, (2) assist Federal, State and Local managers in diagnosing the probable cause and forecasting future conditions in a scientifically defensible manner to protect and restore ecosystems, and (3) provide Federal, State and Local managers with a scientifically defensible way to assess current and future ecological conditions, and probable causes of impairments, and a way to evaluate alternative future management scenarios.
Description:
Currently the city of New York is trying to save taxpayers the cost of a billion dollar filtration system by protecting water quality through implementing a long-range watershed protection program. The goals of this study are 1) improvements in environmental risk assessment and 2) target watersheds and sub-watersheds influencing water quality in New York City's water supply system. In this study, land use imagery will be acquired or generated for four dates, ranging from 1973 to 1998. In order to better determine landscape change over a 25 year time span further evaluation of the multi-date and multi-resolution data sets will be conducted using pared Landsat TM and MSS imagery for one of four selected image dates. Physical, chemical and biological water data will be collected from various database sources for the 70's 80's and 90's for streams and reservoirs.
The main sources for the water quality parameters will be the NYCDEP, NYSDEC, USGS and EPA's EMAP and storage and retrieval analyses to examine yearly and seasonal change in water quality and 2) stepwise regression, correlations and cluster analysis to find associations and relationships between land-use with water quality parameters. From these analyses an expanded knowledge of the impacts of landscape proportion on water quality will be gained, and a set of landscape metrics important to surface water quality conditions will be calculated. This study is consistent with the goals and objective of improved understanding of environmental risk, ecosystem research, assessment and restoration, as articulate by the 10 year strategic plan for the landscape science program (LEB Strategic Plan).