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Land fragmentation under rapid urbanization: A cross-site analysis of Southwestern cities

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Abstract

Explosive population growth and increasing demand for rural homes and lifestyles fueled exurbanization and urbanization in the western USA over the past decades. Using National Land Cover Data we analyzed land fragmentation trends from 1992 to 2001 in five southwestern cities associated with Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) sites. We observed two general fragmentation trends: expansion of the urbanized area leading to fragmentation in the exurban and peri-urban regions and decreased fragmentation associated with infill in the previously developed urban areas. We identified three fragmentation patterns, riparian, polycentric, and monocentric, that reflect the recent western experience with growth and urbanization. From the literature and local expert opinion, we identified five relevant drivers – water provisioning, population dynamics, transportation, topography, and institutions – that shape land use decision-making and fragmentation in the southwest. In order to assess the relative importance of each driver on urbanization, we linked historical site-specific driver information obtained through literature reviews and archival analyses to the observed fragmentation patterns. Our work highlights the importance of understanding land use decision-making drivers in concert and throughout time, as historic decisions leave legacies on landscapes that continue to affect land form and function, a process often forgotten in a region and era of blinding change.

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Notes

  1. The unit for patch density is number of patches per hectare.

  2. The unit for edge density is meters per hectare

  3. These are the most common categories for the Southwest and the Midwest, and these were agreed upon by all collaborators in our workshop specifically organized to come up with the common dataset and methodology. It is important to note that NLCD 1992 and 2001 originally had different classification scheme, and hence, their land-cover categories were slightly different, which were subsequently retrofitted to make them consistent (Homer et al. 2004). In our study, we used the retrofitted land-cover classes and data.

  4. Kansas adopted this doctrine with the Water Appropriation Act in 1945, while all other states have applied the first in time rule since the 1800s.

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Acknowledgements

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. DEB-0423704, Central Arizona Phoenix Long Term Ecological Research (CAP LTER) project. We also would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and Nancy Grimm, Scott Collins, and Debra Peters for their support and helpful critiques throughout this project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Central Arizona-Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

    Abigail M. York

  2. Central Arizona-Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

    Milan Shrestha

  3. School of Sustainability, School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Central Arizona-Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

    Christopher G. Boone

  4. School of Sustainability, Central Arizona-Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

    Sainan Zhang

  5. Department of Geography, Konza Prairie Long-Term Ecological Research, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS, USA

    John A. Harrington Jr.

  6. Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA

    Thomas J. Prebyl

  7. Sevilleta Long-Term Ecological Research, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA

    Amaris Swann

  8. Sevilleta Long-Term Ecological Research, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA

    Michael Agar

  9. Shortgrass Steppe Long-Term Ecological Research, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA

    Michael F. Antolin

  10. Jornada Basin Long-Term Ecological Research, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM, USA

    Barbara Nolen

  11. Department of Geography, Jornada Basin Long-Term Ecological Research, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM, USA

    John B. Wright

  12. Department of Agricultural Economics & Agricultural Business, Jornada Basin Long-Term Ecological Research, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM, USA

    Rhonda Skaggs

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  1. Abigail M. York
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  2. Milan Shrestha
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  3. Christopher G. Boone
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Correspondence to Abigail M. York.

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Table 4 NLCD Recoding Scheme
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York, A.M., Shrestha, M., Boone, C.G. et al. Land fragmentation under rapid urbanization: A cross-site analysis of Southwestern cities. Urban Ecosyst 14, 429–455 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-011-0157-8

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