This document summarizes a study analyzing land use/land cover (LU/LC) changes in the Pedernales River Basin area over time. The study found an overall decrease in forestland and a 50% increase in developed high intensity land from 2001-2011. This coincided with growing population trends in the basin. The study also noted challenges in accurately classifying LU/LC over time with available data and imagery.

1. Scope
The study coves the area of the Pedernales River Basin, which
includes the counties of: Blanco, Burnett, Gillespie, Hays,
Kendall, Kerr, Kimble, and Travis.
Pedernales River Basin Land Use/Land Cover and Population Analysis
Prepared By: Hill Country Associates
Sequential Maps of LU/LC in the Pedernales River BasinPurpose
Goals of this project were to analyze indicators of land use and
land coverage (LU/LC) changes in the Pedernales River Basin. It
is important to monitor these indicators in order to plan for
the future of the Texas Hill Country and to protect its fragile
natural resources, a the Pedernales River Basin is home to a
plethora of fish and wildlife, who depend on the Pedernales
for sustainability. Hill Country Associates looked at past and
present land use and land coverage data, in order to make
create a map-set for The Hill Country Alliance which will track
LU/LC over a temporal scale and will help to project a future
outlook based on LU/LC and population trends for the
Pedernales River Basin.
Change Detection Maps By Year
Team Members
Kelly Blanton – Project Manager
Paul Starkel – GIS Analyst
Erica Tice – GIS Analyst
Will Weldon – GIS Analyst
Acknowledgements To: Dr. Nathan Allen Currit, Dr. Yihong Yuan, Ethan Roberts, and Nick McLean for assistance with this project.
Instructors: Dr. Yihong Yuan and Nick McLean
GEO 4427 – Spring 2015
Results
We found in our results that the overall LU/LC changes were an
overall decrease in forestland and a 50% increase of Developed
High Intensity Land over a ten year span. We were able to
attribute the continuing growing population of the Pedernales
River Basin as a contributing factor to the increased urban
development in this area.
Our final deliverable of this project is the updated 2014 LU/LC
map of the Pedernales River Basin. While this map does show
the most recent uses of land, it is also the most general
because there are only seven classes.
These seven classes were created by condensing the fourteen
land classes of previous LU/LC maps and was done due to
difficulties in differentiating between the smaller, similar land
classes. It is also important to note that built up limestone
deposits have shown up as an overabundance of Developed
land in this map.
From this study, we learned that LU/LC classification is a very
difficult and time consuming process and in order to accurately
produce a LU/LC classification takes a highly trained and skilled
team to analyze and differentiate spectrally similar classes.
Methodology
Using National Land Cover Database information, we were able to create shapefiles (and later, maps) of LU/LC for the years of
1992, 2001, 2006, and 2011. Attribute information from these maps was then transferred into Excel, and used to determine the
percent land coverage of each land classification type, this information helped to get a numerical sense of change in the
Pedernales River Basin. After determining these calculations, we made change detection maps which covered the ten year
period of 2001-2011 in order to display these changes visually.
Conclusion
The main take away from this study is a decrease in forested
areas and an increase in developed land. This information was
most easily and reliably extracted from 2001-2011 due to the
available LU/LC data. This coincides with what one might
expect from a growing population.
This project had several challenges in creating a 2014 update
of LU/LC and throughout the semester we have learned that
LU/LC classification is a very difficult and time consuming
process. NAIP imagery due to its high 1-meter resolution is
very visually appealing however it is not appropriate for actual
classification because it is not a multispectral image
Problem Statement
Hill Country Associates objective was to determine changes in
the land uses, land covers and population of the Pedernales
river basin area.