Lower Long Island Sound Watershed Land Cover and Change (1985 to 2015)
Changing Landscape is a remote sensing-based land cover study that charts landscape changes in Connecticut and portions of New York. It covers the 30-year period from 1985 to 2015 (with in-between dates of 1990, 1995, 2002, 2006 and 2010). Changing Landscape is moderate resolution land cover, with 30 meter (100 foot) pixels.
The Lower Long Island Sound Watershed Land Cover Viewer contains all dates of land cover as well as Change To, Change From, Riparian Area, and Impervious Surface layers. It also has many layers where HUC 12 watersheds are colored based on a particular land cover. For example, forest cover and forest cover change is shown by watershed.
Riparian Area Land Cover
The term riparian refers to the land immediately adjacent to water bodies such as streams, ponds and lakes. These areas are known to provide a number of environmental amenities, including wildlife habitat, temperature moderation, and processing of pollutants.
Riparian Area Land Cover on CT ECO
In the Viewer, look for the following layers: Riparian Area Basin Stats, Riparian Zone (300ft), Riparian Land Cover 1985, Riparian Land Cover 2015, and Riparian Land Cover Change 1985-2015.
On the Services page, look for the Long Island Sound Watershed Riparian Area Land Cover and Change category.
On the Download page, look for the Long Island Sound Watershed Area category, or download the full land cover area.
Impervious Surface
Impervious surfaces are the many elements of the “built landscape” like roads, driveways, roofs, and parking lots. These hard, impenetrable materials disrupt the natural water cycle, greatly increasing surface runoff at the expense of infiltration of rainfall into the soil. Impervious cover, the sum of these surfaces, is now widely considered a key environmental indicator: the amount of impervious cover in a watershed has been found in many studies to be closely correlated with the health of the watershed’s “receiving” waterbody. Our impervious cover maps show the results of using our land cover data to run the Impervious Surface Analysis Tool (ISAT) to estimate impervious cover levels in the small watersheds making up the study area. ISAT was jointly developed by CLEAR and the NOAA Coastal Services Center in 2002. It is important to note that although our “developed” land cover class and impervious cover are closely related, they are not identical.
Land Cover-based Impervious Surface Estimates on CT ECO
In the Viewer, look for the following layers: 1985 Percent Impervious, 1990 Percent Impervious, 1995 Percent Impervious, 2002 Percent Impervious, 2006 Percent Impervious, 2010 Percent Impervious, 2015 Percent Impervious
On the Services page, look for the Long Island Sound Watershed (LIS) Land Cover and Change category and the ByBasin service. This is a service of HUC 12 watersheds with many attributes including the impervious surface estimates. In a GIS, the attributes can be used to symboloize the map.