Monitoring land use and cover around parks: A conceptual approach

Many of the habitats and resources which influence ecological functioning within National Parks, and protected areas in general, are located outside of their borders in unprotected areas. Hence, land use and land cover changes in surrounding areas may substantially influence the natural resources within parks. The US National Park Service has recognized these threats and incorporated land use and land cover monitoring into its Inventory and Monitoring Program. The purpose of this paper is to provide a framework based on a conceptual approach for planning and implementing monitoring within this Program. We present a conceptual model, based on ecological theory, which illustrates how land use and land cover change impact park resources, and helps to identify monitoring indicators that will measure relevant attributes of land use and land cover change. We also discuss potential sources of data for quantifying indicators of land use and land cover change over time, including remote sensing data and ancillary spatial datasets. Finally, we describe steps for analyzing monitoring data so that the intensity and direction of changes in land use and land cover over time are quantified, as well as trends in the status of important park resources impacted by these changes. Integration of land use and land cover monitoring data and park resource data will allow for analysis of change from past to present, and can be used to project trends into the future to provide knowledge about potential land use and land cover change scenarios and ecological impacts. We illustrate our monitoring approach with an example from the Inventory and Monitoring Program's Greater Yellowstone Network.