Abstract
 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 |
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