Changes in land use and land cover have impacts and implications at local, regional and global scales because of the way they alter biophysical, biogeochemical and hydrological states and processes. The driving forces of land-use and land-cover change arise from a combination of socioeconomic and physical factors. Among human factors, urbanization process and suburban sprawl are the main forces that drive the land cover change. The problems that society faces due to growth of cities and the concentration of human population have just begun to be fully recognized as a significant issue. In state of Rhode Island residential and commercial development is replacing undeveloped land at unprecedented rate. According to a recent report by National Resources Inventory, Rhode Island experienced 6% increase in urban and built-up lands in just 5 years between 1992 and 1997. Urban growth rates show no signs of slowing. Some of the consequences of urban sprawl include loss of natural vegetation and open space, and decline in the spatial extent and connectivity of forests, wetlands, wildlife habitat, and agricultural lands. It is critical to develop methods and dataset for exploring the pattern of land-use and land-cover changes and the response of ecosystems to the disturbances.

Primary focus of this investigation is to obtain the quantitative information of land-cover changes and the impact of human induced disturbance (e.g., urban sprawl) on forest ecosystem and natural resources of the state. Key components of this project include to:

• Collect, process, and analyze historical Landsat remotely sensed data that cover the state of Rhode Island
• Document land-cover changes of the state, establish and refine a statewide database of land-cover and the changes
• Validate dynamic change detection and the imbedded quantitative models in land-cover change studies
• Quantify and characterize the landscape of the state with focuses on the dynamics of urban and forest land
• Provide information for management decision making and general public in environmental education

Click for project details or a page-size project poster. Please contact Dr. Y.Q. Wang for a project publication*, poster/images, or project details. 

* Novak, A. and Y. Wang, 2004. Effects of suburban sprawl on Rhode Islands forest: A Landsat view from 1972 to 1999, Northeast Naturalist, 11(1) 67-74.