Land Use Changes in Austin, Texas

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Land Use Changes in Austin, Texas

• Colleen McGovern

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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

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Presentation Outline

• Background Information
• Classification System
• Data Sources
• Data Preparation
• Discussion of Results
• Conclusions

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Background Information

• 1970s - importance of land use classification
  system became apparent
• Conference held on classification systems
• Anderson Classification System
• Datasets 1980 - Land Use and Land Cover Data
  1992 - National Land Cover Data
• 2 Different Classification Systems
• First step devise common classification system

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Classification System
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Data Sources

• 1980 - Land Use and Land Cover Data (LULC)
• Developed by USGS
• Available for conterminous US and Hawaii
• 1- by 2-degree, 1250,000 scale based quadrangle
  maps
• Limited number of 30- by 60-minute, 1100,000
  scale based maps
• 4 quadrangles used in analysis Austin, Llano,
  San Antonio, and Sequin

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Data Sources Cont.

• 1992 - 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

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Data Preparation
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Data Preparation Cont.
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Data Preparation Cont.
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Data Preparation Cont.
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Results
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Results Cont.
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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

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Questions?