LAND USE AND LAND COVER CHANGES IN THE APALACHICOLA-CHATTAHOOCHEE-FLINT WATERSHED IN THE UNITED STATES AND THE MURRUMBIDGEE WATERSHED IN AUSTRALIA

Land use/ land cover change is critical to study as it impacts land degradation and natural resources. Water is one of the most critical natural resources which all living things rely on for survival, underscoring the importance of studying land use/land cover change in drainage basins. The National Land Cover Database (NLCD) is developed by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) in partnership with other federal agencies known as the Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics (MRLC) Consortium and is the definitive source of land cover information in the United States and its territories for both agency and public use. The NLCD classifies the predominant land use as artificial or natural within the categories: open water, perennial snow/ice, developed (open space, low intensity, and medium intensity), barren land, forest (deciduous, evergreen, and mixed), shrub/scrub, herbaceous, hay/pasture, cultivated crops, woody wetlands, and emergent herbaceous wetlands. Using Landsat images, the Annual NLCD classifies land cover data at a 30-meter resolution dating back to 2001. Australia similarly has Digital Earth Australia (DEA), developed by government agency Geoscience Australia. DEA hosts 25-meter resolution land cover data since 1988 also derived from Landsat imagery, and classifies areas into six distinct categories: cultivated terrestrial vegetation, natural terrestrial vegetation, natural aquatic vegetation, artificial surfaces, natural bare, and aquatic. This project compares the land use within the Apalachicola-Flint-Chattahoochee (ACF) Watershed in southeastern United States and the Murrumbidgee Watershed in southeastern Australia over a twenty year period between 2001 and 2021. We quantify land use changes over time within the two watersheds, and qualitatively compare data availability and watershed land use policies in the United States and Australia. A standardized classification scheme was created in order to compare the changes within the two geographies in a meaningful manner. The resulting scheme and analysis is based on the Anderson Level I Classification scale.