Oral Abstract Details

Author(s):
Douglas A. Shoemaker and Ross K. Meentemeyer

Affiliation:
UNC - Charlotte

Presentation Type:
Oral

Topic Area:
Monitoring and predicting human influences on landscapes and ecosystems

Abstract Text:
The encroachment of urbanization on natural and agricultural landscapes is an acknowledged threat to ecosystems and to the sustainability of the essential functions they provide. High impact patterns of disjunct and low density development, pejoratively know as sprawl, are conceptualized in classic urban growth theory as a dynamic and ephemeral condition that is transformed to “non-sprawl” with densifying inputs of population and infill. Recent evidence suggests that sprawling patterns resist densification, and are in fact increasing at a pace greater than population growth. We evaluated these hypotheses by conducting a longitudinal study of per-capita land consumption, or human footprint (HF), at four decadal time steps in a rapidly urbanizing metropolis. Patterns of urban expansion in the rapidly growing Charlotte (NC) metropolitan region were mapped from historical satellite imagery and integrated with concurrent population estimates to quantify a generalizable, spatially explicit HF metric over the large, heterogeneous region. Remote sensing analysis revealed over 340,000 ha of forest and farmlands were converted to development between 1976 and 2006, increasing the built environment to 22% of the non-water area. Lands converted at a mean rate of 31 ha per day, outpacing population growth 10 to 1. On average inhabitants of the region used 400% more land in 2006 than in 1976, with HF increasing from 0.07 to 0.366 ha per person during the period. Growth and sprawl are related but different: Apportion methods estimate only 36% of area converted was attributed to population growth, with 74% attributed to sprawling consumption patterns. Repeated measures analysis of HF found areas with high antecedent values resisted densification and rose faster than other areas. These results suggest there is a legacy of persistent sprawl-indicated pattern, and that additions of infill and new development have not been accompanied by proportional increases in population, resulting in increased HF values regionally.