Changes with land cover and land use are closely integrated with water and other
ecological processes at the land surface. Nowhere is that more apparent than in the
Edwards Aquifer region of southcentral Texas. The Edwards Aquifer contributing and
recharge zones cover approximately 18,000 square kilometers in parts of 15 counties in
Texas and includes San Antonio and Austin, the nation's eighth and nineteenth largest
cities, respectively. Population growth within the counties that intersect the Edwards
Aquifer contributing and recharge zones has taken place over the last two decades, with
the logical translation being an expanded infrastructure. This implies that a greater
amount of impervious surface coverage and other land cover changes have occurred.
This work quantified the changes in land cover within the Edwards Aquifer contributing
and recharge zones between the years 1986 and 2000. Increasing trends in impervious
surface area and woodland growth were identified. Additionally, a new ArcView
software tool was developed to process SSURGO soil data for use within the ArcView
SWAT model. Hydrologic modeling for the Upper Sabinal River watershed, located
within the Edwards Aquifer region, revealed that the high resolution SSURGO data
produces different results when used in place of the existing STATSGO soils data.
Finally, an index of urbanization was developed and evaluated to assist investigators in
identifying potential areas of urbanization.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/1425 |
| Date | 17 February 2005 |
| Creators | Peschel, Joshua Michael |
| Contributors | Lacey, Ronald E. |
| Publisher | Texas A&M University |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Book, Thesis, Electronic Thesis, text |
| Format | 28424589 bytes, electronic, application/pdf, born digital |
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