Oral Abstract Details

Author(s):
Bo Zhou

Affiliation:
University of Missouri

Presentation Type:
Oral

Topic Area:
Evaluating changes to ecosystem goods and services along urban-rural gradients

Abstract Text:
Increasing human population growth is driving expansion of natural resource development and associated increases in impervious surfaces. Recent research has used impervious surface as an indicator of sprawl, but surface mapping has rarely been used at state or national levels due to the lack of accurate, efficient, and cost-effective approaches. Using an established approach, we assessed impervious surface area in Missouri during 1980, 1990, and 2000. We conducted accuracy assessment of 2000 impervious surface using high resolution air-photos with a total accuracy of 86%. During 1980–2000, 129,853.2 ha of land were converted to impervious surface. While sprawl was prominent on urban fringe during 1980s with 23,674.5 ha of land converted to impervious surface compared to 22,918.2 ha in 1990s, there was a temporal shift in the rural landscapes in the 1990s with 48,079.7 ha of land converted to impervious surface compared to 35,180.8 ha in 1980s. Our research goes beyond the usual hot spots of metropolitan areas and includes rural landscapes where more damage was done to the ecosystem due to the low density development and larger affected areas. Keywords: Impervious surface growth; Sub-pixel classification; Urban and rural sprawl; Missouri