Evaluating Satellite-Observed Changes in Impervious Surface Cover in Relation to Economic Changes and Spatially Variable Socioeconomic Conditions in Census Data in Southeastern Michigan
Surface Cover;Satellite Imagery;Landsat;Natural Resources and Environment
From space, the Earth can be observed over time. Satellite imagery has documented human influences onthe landscape. I examined the effect of economic fluctuations on the landscape across the urban to ruralgradient in Southeastern Michigan. Using Landsat satellite imagery, I described and compared land-coverchanges observed from Landsat during 2001 – 2005, a five-year period before the Great Recession, tothose observed during the period 2007 – 2011, a five-year period during and after the recession. I useddense time-series satellite observations to observe changes in impervious surfaces, compared these overtime, and related them to socioeconomic variables collected by the US Census Bureau over census tracts.The results suggest that a suite of socioeconomic factors and landscape characteristics influence theamount of impervious surface change occuring within each census tract. On average impervious surfaceareas did not increase at a faster rate during the period before the recession, decrease at a slower rate, orchange from increasing to decreasing, when compared to the post-recession period. In addition, thesocioeconomic composition of individual communities was strongly associated with how the landscapeschanged through time and space. Overall, I demonstrate that the socioeconomic characteristics ofcommunities have land use, ecological, and carbon sequestration implications.
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Evaluating Satellite-Observed Changes in Impervious Surface Cover in Relation to Economic Changes and Spatially Variable Socioeconomic Conditions in Census Data in Southeastern Michigan