Abstract: Earth’s surface is rapidly urbanizing, resulting in dramatic changes in the abundance, distribution and character of surface water features in urban landscapes. However, the scope and consequences of surface water redistribution at broad spatial scales are not well understood. We hypothesized that urbanization will lead to convergent surface water abundance and distribution: in other words, cities will gain or lose water such that they become more similar to each other than are their surrounding natural landscapes. Using a database of more than 1 million water bodies and 1 million km of streams, we compared the surface water of 100 US cities with their surrounding undeveloped land. We evaluated differences in areal (AWB) and numeric densities (NWB) of water bodies (lakes, wetlands, etc.), the morphological characteristics of water bodies (size), and the density (DC ) of surface flow channels (i.e. streams and rivers). The variance of urban AWB, NWB, and DC across the 100 MSAs decreased, by 89%, 25%, and 71% respectively, compared to undeveloped land. These data show that many cities are surface-water poor relative to undeveloped land; however, in drier landscapes urbanization increases the occurrence of surface water. This convergence pattern strengthened with development intensity, such that high intensity urban development had an areal water body density 98% less than undeveloped lands. Urbanization appears to drive the convergence of hydrological features across the US, such that surface water distributions of cities are more similar to each other than to their surrounding landscapes.
Meredith Steele's paper (with a long list of co-authors) on the surface water characteristics of US cities has been accepted at Ecosystems! Congratulations Meredith!
Abstract: Earth’s surface is rapidly urbanizing, resulting in dramatic changes in the abundance, distribution and character of surface water features in urban landscapes. However, the scope and consequences of surface water redistribution at broad spatial scales are not well understood. We hypothesized that urbanization will lead to convergent surface water abundance and distribution: in other words, cities will gain or lose water such that they become more similar to each other than are their surrounding natural landscapes. Using a database of more than 1 million water bodies and 1 million km of streams, we compared the surface water of 100 US cities with their surrounding undeveloped land. We evaluated differences in areal (AWB) and numeric densities (NWB) of water bodies (lakes, wetlands, etc.), the morphological characteristics of water bodies (size), and the density (DC ) of surface flow channels (i.e. streams and rivers). The variance of urban AWB, NWB, and DC across the 100 MSAs decreased, by 89%, 25%, and 71% respectively, compared to undeveloped land. These data show that many cities are surface-water poor relative to undeveloped land; however, in drier landscapes urbanization increases the occurrence of surface water. This convergence pattern strengthened with development intensity, such that high intensity urban development had an areal water body density 98% less than undeveloped lands. Urbanization appears to drive the convergence of hydrological features across the US, such that surface water distributions of cities are more similar to each other than to their surrounding landscapes. Comments are closed.
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Welcome!This is the homepage of the Heffernan Lab at Duke University. Here you can find all sorts of information about our research, teaching, and outreach. If you have any questions, contact Dr. Heffernan. Dr. Jim HeffernanI am an Assistant Professor in the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University. My research is focused on the causes and consequences of major changes in ecosystem structure, mostly in streams and wetlands. Archives
May 2018
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