An Internet-based Agricultural Land Use Trends Visualization System (AgLuT) Second half yearly report 01-01-2001-06-30-2001 Prepared for Missouri Department of Natural Resources Missouri Department of Conservation Submitted by Ramanathan Sugumaran Daniel Zerr Center for Agricultural, Resource and Environmental Systems (CARES) College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources University of Missouri - Columbia June 2001 1
1. Goal The goal of this study is to develop and implement an Internet-based Agricultural Land Use Trends Visualization System (AgLuT) that allows the user to: (1) understand the quality, quantity and spatial distribution of agricultural land lost since 1983; and (2) generate spatially interactive what if scenarios regarding the quality, quantity and distribution of future agricultural land being converted to other land uses - based on user-delineated areas of potential conversion or different economic and policy scenarios. The target users in this study are resource professionals and the citizens of Missouri. 2. Objectives: Objective 1. Determine the quality, quantity and spatial distribution of Missouri s agricultural land lost using remote sensing, GIS, and other information technologies. Objective 2. Based on past trends and statistical models, identify and record land currently in agricultural use that may be converted to residential, commercial or industrial use. Objective 3. Develop and implement an Internet-based Agricultural Land Use Trends Visualization System. 3. Research approach An Internet-based Agricultural Land Use Trends Visualization System (AgLuT), will be developed based on three major objectives mentioned above. The research approach for each objective is given below. a). Determining the quantity and spatial distribution of Missouri's land cover (including agricultural land). In order to measure the quantity and spatial distribution of lost agricultural lands, high resolution remotely sensed imagery (Landsat Thematic Mapper) from 1983, 1991 and 2000 would be used. Datasets including socio-economic and demographic data, Missouri agricultural statistics, the National Resources Inventory, and other existing land cover data sets may be incorporated to generate a final digital product. Remotely sensed imagery data from the Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) satellite were chosen to monitor land cover because the 1983 and 2000 satellite imagery can be compared to the 1991 imagery that is already available from MoRAP (Missouri Resource Assessment Partnership). The different change detection methods will be tested with algorithms such as image differencing, post-classification comparison, and change vector analysis for the development of the end product. b). Agricultural land cover conversion prediction. Using the information developed in objective 1, the second objective will assign a probability for conversion of agricultural land to other uses. Other information, such as demographic and regional economic trends, local amenities and 2
services, local land use policies, and anticipated changes in regional transportation (and other) infrastructure will be included in the analysis. Using statistical analysis of historical rates of land conversion, all agricultural lands in the state will be assigned a high, medium or low probability for conversion. c). Developing the Internet-based Agricultural Land Use Trends Visualization System. The goal of this objective will be to use and delivery of the results of the first two objectives. The advantages of using an Internet-based visualization system are that the Internet is an efficient and affordable way to distribute information to the public and other resource professionals. The system will include historic land use data as well as the probability for conversion for any section of land in the state. Tools within the system will allow users to summarize the quantity, quality and spatial distribution of agricultural land converted for either a predefined area (i.e. a watershed) or a user defined area. Additional tools will allow the potential economic impacts of land use conversions to be determined and to recalculate the conversion probability based on new user input (i.e. a new highway). 4. CARES half yearly progress: The first objective of the project is to determine the quality, quantity and spatial distribution of Missouri s agricultural land for the years 1984 and 2000. The satellite images and air photos were acquired for the 1984 land cover classification and significant progress has been made in completing this phase of the project in the last half-year. Summaries of each of the following items regarding the fulfillment of the first objective are listed below: a) Status of 1984-85 land cover map b) Status of 2000-2001 land cover map c) Reclassification of existing state wide land cover maps Objective three of the project is the development of the Internet-based Agricultural Land Use Trends Visualization System. Summaries of the following developments in this phase are listed below: d) Web site development e) Interactive data visualization system a. Status of 1984-85 land cover map All the air-photos from 1984-1985 were rectified to UTM coordinate system using DOQQ's. Co-registration of 1984-85 satellite images to 1991 satellite images was nearly complete. (See Figure 1 for the status). Classification of satellite images using two seasons, leaf-on and leaf-off, were done for 7 scenes and remaining will be finalized soon. Finalized the methodology for accuracy assessment. 3
Figure 1. Status of 1984-84 land cover map b. Status of 2000 land cover map Browsed all the available images from EROS data center to acquire 2000 ETM satellite images. The basic criteria used for the search was that the images should have less than one percent cloud cover and were acquired in the year 2000. If cloud free data is not available in 2000, then the replacement was chosen either from 1999 or 2001 (Table 1). Ground truth verification for the classification and also for accuracy assessment is planned for August 2001. 4
Table 1. List of ETM Images for 2000-2001 land cover map S. No. Date Path Row 1 21-Aug-99 23 34 2 24-Oct-99 23 34 3 6-Jul-00 23 35 4 27-Nov-00 23 35 5 8-Apr-00 24 33 6 30-Aug-00 24 33 7 8-Apr-00 24 34 8 30-Aug-00 24 34 9 8-Apr-00 24 35 10 30-Aug-00 24 35 11 27-Feb-00 25 32 12 6-Sep-00 25 32 13 27-Feb-00 25 33 14 6-Sep-00 25 33 15 27-Feb-00 25 34 16 6-Sep-00 25 34 17 27-Feb-00 25 35 18 19-Aug-99 25 35 19 5-Mar-00 26 32 20 13-Sep-00 26 32 21 5-Mar-00 26 33 22 28-Aug-00 26 33 23 5-Mar-00 26 34 24 28-Aug-00 26 34 25 5-Mar-00 26 35 26 28-Aug-00 26 35 27 28-Mar-00 27 32 28 20-Oct-99 27 32 29 28-Mar-00 27 33 30 2-Sep-99 27 33 5
C. Reclassifying the existing land cover maps To study the trend and also to standardize the classification scheme across time, existing land cover maps such USGS 1976 land cover map (it was not mentioned in the proposal) and MoRAP land cover data sets were reclassified into five categories such as water/lake/river, builtup/urban, cropland/fallow, grassland/pasture and woodland/forest. The USGS (1976) land cover map has 26 classes including Residential, Commercial Services, Industrial, Transportation, Communications, Industrial and Commercial, Mixed Urban or Built-Up Land, Other Urban or Built-Up Land, Cropland and Pasture, Orchards, Groves, Vineyards, Nurseries, Confined Feeding Operations, Other Agricultural Land, Herbaceous Rangeland, Shrub and Brush Rangeland, Mixed Rangeland, Deciduous Forest Land, Evergreen Forest Land, Mixed Forest Land, Streams and Canals, Lakes, Reservoirs, Forested Wetlands, Nonforested Wetlands, Beaches, Sandy Areas Other than Beaches, Strip Mines, Quarries, and Gravel Pits, and Transitional Areas. These were merged into five, more generalized classes (Figure 2). Then, 16 classes of MoRAp's land cover data sets including Urban Impervious, Urban Vegetated, Barren or Sparsely Vegetated, Row and Close-Grown Crops, Cool-season Grassland, Warm-season Grassland, Glade Complex, Eastern Redcedar and Redcedar-Deciduous Forest and Woodland, Deciduous Woodland, Deciduous Forest, Shortleaf Pine-Oak Forest and Woodland, Shortleaf Pine Forest and Woodland, Bottomland Hardwood Forest and Woodland, Swamp, Marsh and Wet Herbaceous Vegetation, and Open Water were merged into the same five generalized categories (Figure 3). Figure 2 Reclassified USGS 1976 land cover map 6
Figure 3. Reclassified MoRAP land cover map d. Web site development We developed the Web site for the project and the following items have been added. The URL for the web site is http://www.cares.missouri.edu/aglut/. Background material such as project goal, objectives etc. Contact list for CARES, CPAC and MDNR Products developed in the project including reports An interactive website Discussion list 7
Figure 4 The AgLUT website e. Interactive data visualization system The prototype AgLUT visualization system was developed using ArcIMS (Arc Internet Map Server). The interactive data visualization system is now available in the CARES website (URL: http://william.cares.missouri.edu/website/aglut/). Currently, the prototype has only a few layers (Figure 5) such as a list of air-photos used, satellite path and row detail, etc. The land cover maps 1970's and 1990's are available on the CARES main website and the land cover map of 1980's for the entire state will be made available soon. 8
Figure 5 AgLUT interactive website 9