Conversion of forestlands to blueberries: Assessing implications for habitat quality in Alabaha river watershed in Southeastern Georgia, United States

Suraj Upadhaya and Puneet Dwivedi

Land Use Policy, 2019, vol. 89, issue C

Abstract: This study assesses the dynamics of land use changes (LUCs) and its effects on the habitat quality in the Alabaha River watershed (985 km2) located in southeastern Georgia, where about 3940 ha of evergreen forest and pasture/hay moved to blueberries between 2010 and 2017. Four (2006, 2010, 2015, and 2017) land use maps were prepared with an overall accuracy of 89% using supervised classification methods. Based on these maps, LUCs for the year 2022 and 2030 were projected using Markov Multi-Layer Perceptron approach. FRAGSTATS was used to assess changes in landscape configuration and composition over time. Using the InVEST model, changes in habitat quality were quantified over time. The model projected that the land under evergreen forest and pasture/hay would decrease by 2% and 1.5%, respectively, whereas the land under blueberry would increase by 3.7% between 2015 and 2030. The Index of Landscape Conservation declined by 19% between 2006 and 2030. The mean habitat quality decreased by 37% in the same period. The areas of high habitat quality were concentrated in regions with less-modified land cover. A collaborative approach involving stakeholder groups is needed for the management of biodiversity and other ESs in the Alabaha River watershed in the context of deforestation caused by blueberry production.

Keywords: Biodiversity conservation; InVEST tool; Land use change; Markov Chain analysis; Neural network; Sustainable landscapes (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837719302583
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:lauspo:v:89:y:2019:i:c:s0264837719302583

DOI: 10.1016/j.landusepol.2019.104229

Access Statistics for this article

Land Use Policy is currently edited by Jaap Zevenbergen

More articles in Land Use Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joice Jiang ().