Results 1 to 16 of 16

Thread: 2001-2011 S.C. County Land Cover Changes

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Aug 2002
    Location
    Sumter, South Carolina
    Posts
    1,686

    Default 2001-2011 S.C. County Land Cover Changes

    It was some "wormy" stuff, but I have made my first pass at comparing available land cover data between 2001 and 2011. My earlier posts were all about the 2001 data. The newer data uses some different classifications and causes me some concerns with the different treatment of some of the salt water and, for some reason, Floodplain Forests. Aside from that, I think it begins to give us a picture of what has changed in that 10-year period.

    First, we might look at "Development" in the different counties. This made sense to me, but I was surprised to see it show that much in the mountains. Remember that we are looking at % changes and not absolute acreage changes between the counties.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Aug 2002
    Location
    Sumter, South Carolina
    Posts
    1,686

    Default

    Another type of cover that I see as "not good" would be pine plantations and "scrub" areas that are usually the results of clearcuts. That would look like this:


  3. #3
    Join Date
    Aug 2002
    Location
    Sumter, South Carolina
    Posts
    1,686

    Default

    The next one is probably the one that we would think matters the most. There is something funky here by including the Floodplain stuff, but I think moving between these categories is how the pure floodplain increased so much. The net effect isn't real pretty, though.



  4. #4
    Join Date
    Aug 2002
    Location
    Sumter, South Carolina
    Posts
    1,686

    Default

    There are graphs for the pieces and more detail than you'd ever want to see does exist. Let me know if you have any questions. I'm still developing my own about this stuff, but figured more eyes would help with that.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Aug 2002
    Location
    Sumter, South Carolina
    Posts
    1,686

    Default

    I guess this deserves a view:



  6. #6
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
    Location
    Blythewood
    Posts
    16,975

    Default

    I am floored by your interest in this stuff.

    The amount of work you put in crunching these numbers is incredible.
    "Freedom Isn't Free"
    _Spc. Thomas Caughman
    1983-2004

    Quote Originally Posted by Dook View Post
    Go tigers!

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Nov 2008
    Location
    Greenwood
    Posts
    1,996

    Default

    Interesting stuff for sure. I do wonder how there could be any increase in the 'Mesic/Oak/Mixed Forest - Floodplain Forest' category in a span of 10 years. That type of habitat is on such a longer timeline with regard to growth and if it is cut it is certainly not going to regenerate into that same type of habitat.
    "A duck call in the hands of the unskilled is conservation's greatest asset."-Nash Buckingham

    "The trouble with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money."

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Aug 2002
    Location
    Sumter, South Carolina
    Posts
    1,686

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by duckman88 View Post
    Interesting stuff for sure. I do wonder how there could be any increase in the 'Mesic/Oak/Mixed Forest - Floodplain Forest' category in a span of 10 years. That type of habitat is on such a longer timeline with regard to growth and if it is cut it is certainly not going to regenerate into that same type of habitat.
    That bothered me, too, but I think that there was a tendency to categorize more area as "Floodplain Forest" than had been done in 2001. Beyond that, I'd just have to accept that enough of the earlier clearcuts and herbaceous stuff had grown thick enough to be categorized that way from the satellites. Other than the salt water in a couple of the coastal counties, it all seems to balance out for most counties, no matter what seems to make sense to me. I haven't had a chance yet to think about it for any individual county and see what was "missing" where this category had increased. There are other types of cover that I haven't shown such as Development, Water, Row Crops, and Pasture/Hay.

    Regardless, the increase in Scrub and, in some cases, Pine Plantations probably tells the story. The "Pine Forests" have decreased a little, but not much. What I'd like to be able to do would be to "Grade" the counties as turkey habitat..... To assign some kind of Habitat Suitability Index. The problem is that it would get into Age Classes and how different land covers were intermingled. That's HAIRY.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Aug 2002
    Location
    Sumter, South Carolina
    Posts
    1,686

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by turbo View Post
    I am floored by your interest in this stuff.

    The amount of work you put in crunching these numbers is incredible.
    LOL. Me, too. I don't think of it as work. It is more like a very complex Sudoku puzzle. The 2011 data arrived on a spreadsheet with 20,000 rows and covers just about every county in the South and Midwest. This stuff was intended for pure GIS systems and making maps, but the data exists and there are a few people in USGS that know how to extract it.

    I should add: Pretty soon, there should be an online site like the one we looked at a while back to allow us to see those maps based on this data and extract it more directly. I went through this because I wanted to see the comparison between 2001 and 2011 as shown here. Charles and the forestry people have come up with some general numbers that make sense (and point to Age Class importance), but I wanted to SEE it for myself.
    Last edited by Tuffy; 01-27-2017 at 02:42 PM.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Sep 2011
    Location
    Summerville
    Posts
    5,873

    Default

    Tuffy,

    I'm sure there is no way to measure this, but is there a way to know the age structure of these pine plantations?
    Member of the Tenth Legion Since 2004

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Aug 2002
    Location
    Sumter, South Carolina
    Posts
    1,686

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Gut_Pile View Post
    Tuffy,

    I'm sure there is no way to measure this, but is there a way to know the age structure of these pine plantations?
    The SC Forestry folks have some pretty good information on that, but it's compiled more at the state (and regional) level and hard to run against these county numbers. Heck, it's hard to run from their Inventory programs....Period. I have tried to avoid that for the most part.

    IMO, we have had pine plantations long enough and consistently enough that we wouldn't see much of a change in the Average Age over time, even if we could see that detail. It's the hardwood age structure that bothers me. I suspect that we are counting a lot that isn't in the best Age Class for my/our purposes. In fact, I've come to realize that this kind of forest can be too old for the best turkey productivity. At least, that seems to be true in the world of burning.

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Sep 2011
    Location
    Summerville
    Posts
    5,873

    Default

    Agreed. You and I both know that a 10yr old pine plantation and a 20yr old thinned pine plantation could mean two totally different things for the turkey population. Same with a 20yr old block of hardwoods and a 50yr old block
    Member of the Tenth Legion Since 2004

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Nov 2008
    Location
    Greenwood
    Posts
    1,996

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Gut_Pile View Post
    Tuffy,

    I'm sure there is no way to measure this, but is there a way to know the age structure of these pine plantations?
    Without looking at data I can tell you a whole lot of sawtimber and a decreasing amount of the smaller classes.

    Here is a link to the most recent SCFC publication I could find. There could be newer ones out there.

    https://www.state.sc.us/forest/2015kodama.pdf
    "A duck call in the hands of the unskilled is conservation's greatest asset."-Nash Buckingham

    "The trouble with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money."

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Oct 2012
    Posts
    4,970

    Default

    Excellent data as per usual from you sir. I agree with you it isn't pretty and Oconee county in general is rapidly becoming the new Ashville.
    Genesis 9;2

  15. #15
    Join Date
    Aug 2002
    Location
    Sumter, South Carolina
    Posts
    1,686

    Default

    I'm sure not always sure what I want to look at with things like this, but know that I want to understand it in some way and try to convey that to others. For this stuff, that meant boiling the land cover types down to a small number of groups as implied above. At the State, Game Zone, or County level, that makes it look something like this:

    This is the State level, but that leaves too many others to try to present here.


  16. #16
    Join Date
    Aug 2002
    Location
    Sumter, South Carolina
    Posts
    1,686

    Default

    As a result, I find myself going back to the old Game Zone breakdowns that I have been using (As shown here: http://web.ftc-i.net/~tuffye/turkey_index.html ). I was hoping to find a way to view all of them together and see how these categories have changed in each. So far, the following is the best that I have been able to put together and I'm afraid it is pretty busy. Someone let me know if you can make sense out of it or can imagine another way to compare areas.


Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •