Landsat-based Assessment of Mobile Bay Land Use and Land Cover Change from 1974 to 2008

摘要

This paper discusses results of a Gulf of Mexico Application Pilot project conducted in 2008 to quantify and assess land use land cover (LULC) change from 1974 to 2008. Led by NASA Stennis Space Center, this project involved multiple Gulf of Mexico Alliance (GOMA) partners, including the Mobile Bay National Estuary Program (NEP), the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA's) National Coastal Data Development Center (NCDDC), and the NOAA Coastal Services Center. The Mobile Bay region provides great economic and ecologic benefits to the Nation, including important coastal habitat for a broad diversity of fisheries and wildlife. The Mobile Bay region has experienced considerable LULC change since the latter half of the 20th century. Accompanying this change has been urban expansion and a reduction of rural land uses. Much of this LULC change (largely urbanization) has reportedly occurred since the landfall of Hurricane Frederic in 1979. Regional urbanization threatens the estuary's water quality and aquatic-habitat dependent biota, including commercial fisheries and avian wildlife. Coastal conservation and urban land use planners require additional information on historical LULC change to support coastal habitat restoration and resiliency management efforts. This project quantified and assessed LULC change across the 34-year time frame and at decadal and mid-decadal scales. Nine Landsat images were employed to compute LULC products because of their availability and suitability for the application. The project also used Landsat- based national LULC products, including coastal LULC products from NOAA's Coastal Change & Analysis Program (C-CAP), available at 5-year intervals since 1995. Our study was initiated in part because C-CAP LULC products were not available to assess the region's urbanization prior to Hurricane Katrina in 2006.