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The final land use product
was the map of land use changes in the watershed from 1954 to 2002. The produce this map, the two
individual land use maps (from 1954 and 2002) were overlain, and an
intersection function in GIS was used to delete all the areas that had not
changed over the time period.
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The remaining areas were
then classified by the land use type they began as in 1954, and the type
they ended up as in 2002. These
areas of change are displayed on the map shown, and are color coded
according to their type.
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One observation to note
from this map is the regrowth of forested land (shown by the light and dark
green areas). This reversion to
forest has occurred from previously agricultural and disturbed forest areas,
and reflects the common trend of forest regrowth across the state of Maine.
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The most important
observation to note, however, is the increase in developed land that has
accompanied forest regrowth (newly developed land is represented by the red,
orange, and yellow areas). This
transformation has occurred primarily from previously forested land (this is
the red areas), and judging from the appearance of the houses, the majority
of the development occurred in the 1960Õs and 70Õs.
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Probably most concerning is
the fact that the residential development is concentrated along the lake
shore, where inputs from developed land have the highest impact on water
quality.
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In the second half of the
presentation, Kara will discuss how the land use patterns of the watershed
fit into the P budget for the lake, and now Carolyn will discuss some of the
modeling that was done using GIS and the land use maps we constructed.
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