Abstract

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Paper
Simulating Future Forest Fragmentation in Northeastern United States
Track: Modeling
Author(s): Jason Parent, Daniel Civco, James Hurd

A methodology was developed to simulate future suburban development and analyze the impact of the simulation on forest fragmentation. Maps depicting land suitability for development were created, for each town in the study area, using Multi-Criteria Evaluation (MCE) techniques in ArcGIS. The Buildout tool in CommunityViz's Scenario360 extension for ArcGIS was used to populate each town with buildings according to the town's zoning regulations. Scenario 360's TimeScope tool was used to assign a build year to each potential future building based on land suitability. Building locations with higher suitability were assigned earlier build years. Buffers were created at each building location to represent areas in which land cover change would occur. The buffers were used to modify a 2002 Landsat-derived land cover map to depict land cover for several future dates. A forest fragmentation model was applied to the modified land cover maps to quantify the states of forest fragmentation.

Jason Parent
University of Connecticut
Natural Resources Managment and Engineering
32 Sun St
Enfield , CT 06082
US
Phone: 8604864610
E-mail: jason.parent@uconn.edu

Daniel Civco
University of Connecticut
Natural Resources Management and Engineering
1376 Storrs Road
Storrs , CT 06269-4087
US
Phone: (860) 486-0148
E-mail: daniel.civco@uconn.edu

James Hurd
University of Connecticut
Natural Resources Management and Engineering
1376 Storrs Road
Storrs , CT 06269-4087
US
Phone: 860-486-4610
E-mail: james.hurd@uconn.edu