Future scenarios of land-use and land-cover change in the United States--the Marine West Coast Forests Ecoregion
Detecting, quantifying, and projecting historical and future changes in land use and land cover (LULC) has emerged as a core research area for the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Changes in LULC are important drivers of changes to biogeochemical cycles, the exchange of energy between the Earth’s surface and atmosphere, biodiversity, water quality, and climate change. To quantify the rates of recent historical LULC change, the USGS Land Cover Trends project recently completed a unique ecoregion-based assessment of late 20th century LULC change for the western United States. To characterize present LULC, the USGS and partners have created the National Land Cover Database (NLCD) for the years 1992, 2001, and 2006. Both Land Cover Trends and NLCD projects continue to evolve in an effort to better characterize historical and present LULC conditions and are the foundation of the data presented in this report.
Projecting future changes in LULC requires an understanding of the rates and patterns of change, the major driving forces, and the socioeconomic and biophysical determinants and capacities of regions. The data presented in this report is the result of an effort by USGS scientists to downscale the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES) to ecoregions of the conterminous United States as part of the USGS Biological Carbon Sequestration Assessment. The USGS biological carbon assessment was mandated by Section 712 of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. As part of the legislative mandate, the USGS is required to publish a methodology describing, in detail, the approach to be used for the assessment. The development of future LULC scenarios is described in chapter 3.2 and appendix A. Spatial modeling is described in chapter 3.3.2 and appendix B and in Sohl and others (2011). In this report, we briefly summarize the major components and methods used to downscale IPCC-SRES scenarios to ecoregions of the conterminous United States, followed by a description of the Marine West Coast Forests Ecoregion, and lastly a description of the data being published as part of this report.
Citation Information
| Publication Year | 2012 |
|---|---|
| Title | Future scenarios of land-use and land-cover change in the United States--the Marine West Coast Forests Ecoregion |
| DOI | 10.3133/ofr20121252 |
| Authors | Tamara S. Wilson, Benjamin M. Sleeter, Terry L. Sohl, Glenn Griffith, William Acevedo, Stacie Bennett, Michelle Bouchard, Ryan R. Reker, Christy Ryan, Kristi Sayler, Rachel Sleeter, Christopher E. Soulard |
| Publication Type | Report |
| Publication Subtype | USGS Numbered Series |
| Series Title | Open-File Report |
| Series Number | 2012-1252 |
| Index ID | ofr20121252 |
| Record Source | USGS Publications Warehouse |
| USGS Organization | Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center; Western Geographic Science Center |
Related Content
Benjamin Sleeter
Supervisory Research Geographer
Terry Sohl
Research Physical Scientist
Michelle Bouchard
Communications and Outreach
Ryan Reker
LP DAAC Operations Manager
Kristi Sayler
Physical Scientist
Christopher Soulard
Supervisory Research Geographer
Related Content
- Connect
Benjamin Sleeter
Supervisory Research GeographerEmailPhoneTerry Sohl
Research Physical ScientistEmailPhoneMichelle Bouchard
Communications and OutreachEmailPhoneRyan Reker
LP DAAC Operations ManagerEmailPhoneKristi Sayler
Physical ScientistEmailPhoneChristopher Soulard
Supervisory Research GeographerEmailPhone