Skip to main content
Advanced Search

Filters: Tags: Land-use (X)

18 results (4.5s)   

Filters
Contacts (Less)
View Results as: JSON ATOM CSV
The influence of the proximity of urbanization and agriculture to stream water quality is often difficult to quantify. The objectives of this study were to (1) compare the influence of far-field land-use, encompassing a watershed drainage area, to a near-field, 200-m buffer on each side of the stream in an attempt to determine on which zone of influence land-use has the largest impact on water quality, and (2) incorporate the EPA's Rapid Habitat Assessment Protocol (Barbour et al., 1999) to characterize the riparian and channel characteristics of a stream that influence water quality, which can improve New York State's monitoring protocols. Impacts were assessed through biological, chemical, and physical-habitat...
When agricultural land is no longer used for cultivation and allowed to revert to natural vegetation or replanted to perennial vegetation, soil organic carbon can accumulate. This accumulation process essentially reverses some of the effects responsible for soil organic carbon losses from when the land was converted from perennial vegetation. We discuss the essential elements of what is known about soil organic matter dynamics that may result in enhanced soil carbon sequestration with changes in land-use and soil management. We review literature that reports changes in soil organic carbon after changes in land-use that favour carbon accumulation. This data summary provides a guide to approximate rates of SOC sequestration...
P>1. Habitats are often connected by fluxes of energy and nutrients across their boundaries. For example, headwater streams are linked to surrounding riparian vegetation through invertebrate and leaf litter inputs, and there is evidence that consumers in downstream habitats are subsidised by resources flowing from headwater systems. However, the strength of these linkages and the manner in which potential headwater subsidies vary along climatic and disturbance gradients are unknown. 2. We quantified the downstream transport of invertebrates, organic matter and inorganic sediment from 60 fishless headwater streams in the Wenatchee River Basin located on the eastern slope of the Cascade Range in Washington, U.S.A....
To inform the design and implementation of land-use policies that consider the variety of goods and services people derive from ecosystems, it is essential to understand spatial patterns of individual services, how multiple services relate to each other, and how these relationships vary across spatial scales and localities. Despite the importance of freshwater as a determinant of regional economic and human demographic patterns, there are surprisingly few studies that map the provision of a range of services associated with the quality of the aquatic environment. Here we examine relationships between indicators of riverine water and associated habitat quality, freshwater biodiversity, three terrestrial ecosystem...
thumbnail
Parking lots may be a significant source of pollution. Oil, sediments, and heavy metals may accumulate on their surface, then be flushed into rivers, streams, and lakes via rainfall. At present no dataset provides a mapping or estimation of parking lot area or locations nationwide. This product consists of a time series of five national 60-meter raster datasets which estimate the proportion of each pixel represented by parking lots, based on land-use coefficients. The rasters span the conterminous United States, for the years 1974, 1982, 1992, 2002, and 2012. The dataset was derived by calculating coefficients for 18 land-use types (Commercial, Industrial, Residential, Recreation, and so on) from the 2012 U.S. Geological...
This gallery contains datasets featured as figures in the publication Wilson, T.S., Sleeter, B.M., Sleeter, R. R., Soulard, C.E. 2014, Land use threats and protected areas: a scenario-based landscape level approach, Land, 3 (2): 362-389. (See attached pdf of publication)
It is often claimed that dedicated energy plantations may be established on degraded lands so as to prevent competition with food production. In this paper, the economics of eucalyptus plantations in the Northeast of Brazil on ‘‘good’’ versus ‘‘bad’’ lands is investigated. It is shown that the value of the higher yields that can be expected on ‘‘good’’ lands generally outweighs the additional cost associated with acquiring that land. For this reason, forestry companies would find it more profitable to opt for ‘‘good’’ lands rather than degraded lands when establishing plantations, although exceptions do exist. Thus, governmental policies are warranted if use of degraded lands for bioenergy plantations is desired.
Categories: Publication; Types: Citation; Tags: Bioenergy, Brazil, competition, land-use
thumbnail
This dataset presents observations and measurements of riparian plant invasion, community composition, and environmental conditions at 238 bridge crossings in four western USA river basins: the Colorado Headwaters, upper/middle Rio Grande, upper Arkansas River, and South Platte River (281,946 square kilometers). The 238 sites are a stratified random sample of all bridge crossings in the river basins, with roughly equal numbers of sites in landscapes dominated by (1) urban and residential (developed) land-use, (2) agricultural (cultivated) land-use, and (3) undeveloped land cover. The dataset includes field observations of stem counts for three non-native riparian woody plant taxa (Tamarix ramosissima x T. chinensis...
P>1. Habitats are often connected by fluxes of energy and nutrients across their boundaries. For example, headwater streams are linked to surrounding riparian vegetation through invertebrate and leaf litter inputs, and there is evidence that consumers in downstream habitats are subsidised by resources flowing from headwater systems. However, the strength of these linkages and the manner in which potential headwater subsidies vary along climatic and disturbance gradients are unknown. 2. We quantified the downstream transport of invertebrates, organic matter and inorganic sediment from 60 fishless headwater streams in the Wenatchee River Basin located on the eastern slope of the Cascade Range in Washington, U.S.A....
thumbnail
These data were released prior to the October 1, 2016 effective date for the USGS’s policy dictating the review, approval, and release of scientific data as referenced in USGS Survey Manual Chapter 502.8 Fundamental Science Practices: Review and Approval of Scientific Data for Release. This is a vector GIS coverage (ESRI ArcInfo format) of the land use of the island of Oahu, 1998, derived from multiple sources of digital orthophotos.
thumbnail
Montana 1:250,000 scale Land Use/Land Cover. Derived from USGS GIRAS files, some provided by the U.S. Bureau of Mines, others downloaded from the USGS World Wide Web server. The library tiles have the following source dates: Sandpoint 1981, Kalispell 1982, CutBank 1984, Shelby 1980, Havre 1982, Glasgow 1982, WolfPoint 1980, Spokane 1975, Wallace 1980, Choteau 1984, GreatFalls 1984, Lewistown 1985, Jordan 1982, Glendive 1974, Hamilton 1982, Butte 1984, WhiteSulphur 1972, Roundup 1982, Forsyth 1980, Ashton 1980, Miles City 1975, Elk City 1982, Dillon 1984, Bozeman 1972, Billings 1976, Hardin 1970, Ekalaka 1976, Dubois 1980, Cody, 1980. GIRAS is the U.S. Geological Survey's Geographic Information Retrieval and Analysis...
P>1. Habitats are often connected by fluxes of energy and nutrients across their boundaries. For example, headwater streams are linked to surrounding riparian vegetation through invertebrate and leaf litter inputs, and there is evidence that consumers in downstream habitats are subsidised by resources flowing from headwater systems. However, the strength of these linkages and the manner in which potential headwater subsidies vary along climatic and disturbance gradients are unknown. 2. We quantified the downstream transport of invertebrates, organic matter and inorganic sediment from 60 fishless headwater streams in the Wenatchee River Basin located on the eastern slope of the Cascade Range in Washington, U.S.A....
Many management agencies seek to evaluate temporal changes in aquatic assemblages at monitoring sites, but few have sites with ecological time series that are long enough for this purpose. Trends in aquatic-invertebrate and fish assemblage composition were assessed at 27 long-term monitoring sites in the north-central and northeastern United States. Temporal changes were identified using serial trend analysis. Sites with significant serial trends were further evaluated by relating explanatory environmental variables (e.g., streamflow, habitat, and water chemistry) to changes in assemblage composition. Significant trends were found at 19 of 27 study sites; however, differences in the sensitivity of the aquatic fauna...
It is often claimed that dedicated energy plantations may be established on degraded lands so as to prevent competition with food production. In this paper, the economics of eucalyptus plantations in the Northeast of Brazil on ‘‘good’’ versus ‘‘bad’’ lands is investigated. It is shown that the value of the higher yields that can be expected on ‘‘good’’ lands generally outweighs the additional cost associated with acquiring that land. For this reason, forestry companies would find it more profitable to opt for ‘‘good’’ lands rather than degraded lands when establishing plantations, although exceptions do exist. Thus, governmental policies are warranted if use of degraded lands for bioenergy plantations is desired.
Categories: Publication; Types: Citation; Tags: Bioenergy, Brazil, competition, land-use
At best, common renewable energy strategies can only offset fossil fuel emissions of CO2 – they cannot reverse climate change. One promising approach to lowering CO2 in the atmosphere while producing energy is biochar bio-energy, based on low-temperature pyrolysis. This technology relies on capturing the off-gases from thermal decomposition of wood or grasses to produce heat, electricity, or biofuels. Biochar is a major by-product of this pyrolysis, and has remarkable environmental properties. In soil, biochar was shown to persist longer and to retain cations better than other forms of soil organic matter. The precise halflife of biochar is still disputed, however, and this will have important implications for the...
Categories: Publication; Types: Citation; Tags: Bioenergy, Brazil, competition, land-use
Mine reclamation is an integral part of the mineral development process. The selection of land use after the mine closure is a difficult decision, which is complicated further because of the variety of parameters that must be taken into account trying to provide the local community with a viable development plan. Conventional methods used for reclamation planning are characterised by the lack of data integration and by time-consuming analysis. In this study, we propose a spatial decision-support system (SDSS) that minimises these problems, as data integration and analysis are offered within one computerised environment. A geographical information system and multi-criteria decision-making methods, based on binary...
thumbnail
These data are species distribution information assembled for assessing the impacts of land-use barriers, facilitative interactions with other species, and loss of long-distance animal dispersal on predicted species range patterns for four common species in pinyon-juniper woodlands in the western United States. The layers in the data release are initial distribution records of two kinds: point occurrence records and a raster layer for the general vegetation types where the species is a co-dominant, compiled from other sources. Both types of data are the baseline information in species distribution models for the associated publication.
The Great Plains of the United States has undergone extensive land-use and land-cover change in the past 150 years, with much of the once vast native grasslands and wetlands converted to agricultural crops, and much of the unbroken prairie now heavily grazed. Future land-use change in the region could have dramatic impacts on ecological resources and processes. A scenario-based modeling framework is needed to support the analysis of potential land-use change in an uncertain future, and to mitigate potentially negative future impacts on ecosystem processes. We developed a scenario-based modeling framework to analyze potential future land-use change in the Great Plains. A unique scenario construction process, using...
    map background search result map search result map Land Use 1:250,000 Scale Woody riparian invasive plant presence, stem density, and rank dominance and environmental conditions in 2012 at 238 bridge crossings in the Colorado Headwaters, upper/middle Rio Grande, upper Arkansas, and South Platte River Basins, USA Occurrence records and vegetation type data used for species distribution models in the western United States Estimating the presence of paved surface parking lots in the conterminous U.S. from land-use coefficients for 1974, 1982, 1992, 2002, and 2012 Land Use on the Island of Oahu, Hawaii, 1998 Land Use on the Island of Oahu, Hawaii, 1998 Woody riparian invasive plant presence, stem density, and rank dominance and environmental conditions in 2012 at 238 bridge crossings in the Colorado Headwaters, upper/middle Rio Grande, upper Arkansas, and South Platte River Basins, USA Land Use 1:250,000 Scale Occurrence records and vegetation type data used for species distribution models in the western United States Estimating the presence of paved surface parking lots in the conterminous U.S. from land-use coefficients for 1974, 1982, 1992, 2002, and 2012