Land Use Changes in Austin, Texas Colleen McGovern

Project Objective Study land use changes that have occurred in the Austin metropolitan area over the time period of 1980 to 1992, to examine urban sprawl. The studied area includes: Bastrop, Caldwell, Hayes, Travis, and Williamson Counties

Presentation Outline Background Information Classification System Data Sources Data Preparation Discussion of Results Conclusions

Background Information 1970s - importance of land use classification system became apparent Conference held on classification systems Anderson Classification System Datasets: Land Use and Land Cover Data & National Land Cover Data 2 Different Classification Systems First step: devise common classification system

Classification System ClassificationCode Developed Land1 Agricultural Land2 Grass & Rangelands3 Forest Land4 Water5 Wetlands6 Barren Land7

Data Sources Land Use and Land Cover Data (LULC) Developed by USGS Available for conterminous US and Hawaii 1- by 2-degree, 1:250,000 scale based quadrangle maps Limited number of 30- by 60-minute, 1:100,000 scale based maps 4 quadrangles used in analysis: Austin, Llano, San Antonio, and Sequin

Data Sources Cont National Land Cover Data (NLCD) Developed by USGS Available for conterminous US Files can be downloaded by state Image files with 30 meter resolution Texas-Southeast portion of NLCD used for analysis

Data Preparation

Data Preparation Cont.

Results

Results Cont.

Conclusions Difficult to compare the 2 different classification systems A standardized classification system should be used in the future GIS is a useful tool for working with land use data

Questions?