Browsing by Author "White, Claire McKenzie"
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- Analysis and Comparison of a Detailed Land Cover Dataset versus the National Land Cover Dataset (NLCD) in Blacksburg, VirginiaWhite, Claire McKenzie (Virginia Tech, 2011-12-06)While many studies have completed accuracy assessments on the National Land Cover Dataset (NLCD), little research has utilized a detailed digitized land cover dataset, like that available for the Town of Blacksburg, for this comparison. This study aims to evaluate the information available from a detailed land cover dataset and compare it with the National Land Cover Dataset (NLCD) at a localized scale. More specifically, it utilizes the detailed land cover dataset for the Town of Blacksburg to analyze the land cover distribution for varying land uses including single-family residential, multi-family residential, and non-residential. In addition, an application scenario assigns an area-weighted curve number to watersheds based on each land cover dataset. This study exhibits the importance of obtaining detailed land cover datasets for cities and towns. Furthermore, it shows the comprehensive information and subsequent quantifications that can be surmised from a detailed land cover dataset.
- Food Supplies and Demand Reliant on Large Irrigation DamsTysinger, Wilson Andrew (Virginia Tech, 2023-07-18)Water is an integral part of agricultural practices, with agriculture being the largest user of surface water in the United States. Agriculture's reliance on surface water is strengthening as climate change and growing populations are stressing irrigated croplands. This surface water is primarily stored by a complex network of dams, but despite our reliance on surface water for irrigation, we lack a spatially detailed record of irrigation dam command areas. Therefore, we assigned irrigation command areas to the approximately 1,100 large irrigation dams in the continental United States by combining a tiered assignment strategy with field level infrastructure and agricultural data. We showed that these large irrigation dam command areas are responsible for 10.7 million acres of cropland. This translates to approximately 13.3 billion dollars of crops annually that depend on these large irrigation dams for water. The high-resolution, crop specific assignment of these command areas allows for water scarcity assessments that can be used for better water management decisions to address the changing environmental conditions and public demand pressuring the nation's agriculture and water infrastructure.