Roger Auch

U.S. Geological Survey, USGS EROS, Research Geographer

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Papers by Roger Auch

Human drivers, biophysical changes, and climatic variation affecting contemporary cropping proportions in the northern prairie of the U.S

Journal of Land Use Science, 2017

Grassland to cropland conversion in the northern prairie of the United States has been a topic of... more Grassland to cropland conversion in the northern prairie of the United States has been a topic of recent land use change studies. Within this region more corn and soybeans are grown now (2017) than in the past, but most studies to date have not examined multi-decadal trends and the synergistic web of socio-ecological driving forces involved, opting instead for short-term analyses and easily targeted agents of change. This paper examines the coalescing of biophysical and socioeconomic driving forces that have brought change to the agricultural landscape of this region between 1980 and 2013. While land conversion has occurred, most of the region's cropland in 2013 had been previously cropped by the early 1980s. Furthermore, the agricultural conditions in which crops were grown during those three decades have changed considerably because of non-biophysical alterations to production practices and changing agricultural markets. Findings revealed that human drivers played more of a role in crop change than biophysical changes, that blending quantitative and qualitative methods to tell a more complete story of crop change in this region was difficult because of the synergistic characteristics of the drivers involved, and that more research is needed to understand how farmers make crop choice decisions.

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Urban growth in American cities : glimpses of U.S. urbanization

Circular, 2004

Regional Differences in Upland Forest to Developed (Urban) Land Cover Conversions in the Conterminous U.S., 1973–2011

Forests, 2016

In this U.S. Geological Survey study of forest land cover across the conterminous U.S. (CONUS), s... more In this U.S. Geological Survey study of forest land cover across the conterminous U.S. (CONUS), specific proportions and rates of forest conversion to developed (urban) land were assessed on an ecoregional basis. The study period was divided into six time intervals between 1973 and 2011. Forest land cover was the source of 40% or more of the new urban land in 35 of the 84 ecoregions located within the CONUS. In 11 of these ecoregions this threshold exceeded in every time interval. When the percent of change, forest to urban, was compared to the percent of forest in each ecoregion, 58 ecoregions had a greater percent of change and, in six of those, change occurred in every time interval. Annual rates of forest to urban land cover change of 0.2% or higher occurred in 12 ecoregions at least once and in one ecoregion in all intervals. There were three ecoregions where the above conditions were met for nearly every time interval. Even though only a small number of the ecoregions were heavily impacted by forest loss to urban development within the CONUS, the ecosystem services provided by undeveloped forest land cover need to be quantified more completely to better inform future regional land management.

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Conterminous United States Land-Cover Change (1985–2016): New Insights from Annual Time Series

Land, 2022

Sample-based estimates augmented by complete coverage land-cover maps were used to estimate area ... more Sample-based estimates augmented by complete coverage land-cover maps were used to estimate area and describe patterns of annual land-cover change across the conterminous United States (CONUS) between 1985 and 2016. Most of the CONUS land cover remained stable in terms of net class change over this time, but a substantial gross change dynamic was captured by the annual and cumulative time intervals. The dominant types of changes can be grouped into natural resource cycles, increases in urbanization, and surface-water dynamics. The annual estimates over the 30-year time series showed a reduction in the rate of urban expansion after 2006, new growth in cropland after 2007, but a net overall decline in cropland since 1985, and two eras of net tree cover loss, the first one early in the time series and the second starting in 2012. Our study provides a holistic assessment of the CONUS land-cover conversion (class) change and can serve as a new benchmark for future research.

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Ecoregional differences in late-20th-century land-use and land-cover change in the U.S. northern great plains

Land-cover and land-use change usually results from a combination of anthropogenic drivers and bi... more Land-cover and land-use change usually results from a combination of anthropogenic drivers and biophysical conditions found across multiple scales, ranging from parcel to regional levels. A group of four Level III ecoregions located in the u.s. northern Great Plains is used to demonstrate the similarities and differences in land change during nearly a 30-year period (1973-2000) using results from the U.S. Geological Survey's Land Cover Trends project. There were changes to major suites ofland-cover; the transitions between agriculture and grassland/shrubland and the transitions among wetland, water, agriculture, and grasslandl shrubland were affected by different factors. Anthropogenic drivers affected the land-use tension (or land-use competition) between agriculture and grassland/shrubland land-covers, whereas changes between wetland and water land-covers, and their relationship to agriculture and grassland/shrubland land-covers, were mostly affected by regional weather cycles...

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The Southern Piedmont’s Continued Land-Use Evolution, 1973–2011

Southeastern Geographer, 2015

The Driving Forces Of Land Change In TheNorthern Piedmont Of The United States

Driving forces facilitate or inhibit land-use / land-cover change. Human driving forces include p... more Driving forces facilitate or inhibit land-use / land-cover change. Human driving forces include political, economic, cultural, and social attributes that often change across time and space. Remotely sensed imagery provides regional land-change data for the Northern Piedmont, an ecoregion of the United States that continued to urbanize after  through conversion of agricultural and forest land covers to developed uses. Eight major driving forces facilitated most of the land conversion; other drivers inhibited or slowed change. A synergistic web of drivers may be more important in understanding land change than individual drivers by themselves.

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Status and Trends of Land Change in the Midwest–South Central United States—1973 to 2000

Professional Paper, 2015

Assessing Landscape Change and Processes of Recurrence, Replacement, and Recovery in the Southeastern Coastal Plains, USA

Environmental management, Jan 11, 2015

The processes of landscape change are complex, exhibiting spatial variability as well as linear, ... more The processes of landscape change are complex, exhibiting spatial variability as well as linear, cyclical, and reversible characteristics. To better understand the various processes that cause transformation, a data aggregation, validation, and attribution approach was developed and applied to an analysis of the Southeastern Coastal Plains (SECP). The approach integrates information from available national land-use, natural disturbance, and land-cover data to efficiently assess spatially-specific changes and causes. Between 2001 and 2006, the processes of change affected 7.8 % of the SECP but varied across small-scale ecoregions. Processes were placed into a simple conceptual framework to explicitly identify the type and direction of change based on three general characteristics: replacement, recurrence, and recovery. Replacement processes, whereby a land use or cover is supplanted by a new land use, including urbanization and agricultural expansion, accounted for approximately 15 %...

Having It Both Ways? Land Use Change in a U.S. Midwestern Agricultural Ecoregion

The Professional Geographer, 2014

ABSTRACT Urbanization has been directly linked to decreases in area of agricultural lands and, as... more ABSTRACT Urbanization has been directly linked to decreases in area of agricultural lands and, as such, has been considered a threat to food security. Although the area of land used to produce food has diminished, often overlooked have been changes in agricultural output. The Eastern Corn Belt Plains (ECBP) is an important agricultural region in the U.S. Midwest. It has both gained a significant amount of urban land, primarily from the conversion of agricultural land between 1973 and 2000, and at the same time continued to produce ever-increasing quantities of agricultural products. By 2002, more corn, soybeans, and hogs were produced on a smaller agricultural land base than in 1974. In the last quarter of the twentieth century, ECBP ecoregion society appeared to have “had it both ways”: more urbanization along with increased agricultural output.

Land cover trends dataset, 1973-2000

Data Series, 2014

COVER An example of the five dates of Landsat imagery and corresponding land-use/land-cover data ... more COVER An example of the five dates of Landsat imagery and corresponding land-use/land-cover data available for each sample block. The example sample block is located in the Ouachita Mountains Ecoregion (samp36_0180), and shows forest cutting from 1973 to 2000 (green, forest/woodland; yellow, grassland/shrubland; magenta, mechanical disturbance; blue, water).

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Scenarios of land use and land cover change in the conterminous United States: Utilizing the special report on emission scenarios at ecoregional scales

Global Environmental Change, 2012

Global environmental change scenarios have typically provided projections of land use and land co... more Global environmental change scenarios have typically provided projections of land use and land cover for a relatively small number of regions or using a relatively coarse resolution spatial grid, and for only a few major sectors. The coarseness of global projections, in both spatial and thematic dimensions, often limits their direct utility at scales useful for environmental management. This paper describes methods to downscale projections of land-use and land-cover change from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Special Report on Emission Scenarios to ecological regions of the conterminous United States, using an integrated assessment model, land-use histories, and expert knowledge. Downscaled projections span a wide range of future potential conditions across sixteen land use/land cover sectors and 84 ecological regions, and are logically consistent with both historical measurements and SRES characteristics. Results appear to provide a credible solution for connecting regionalized projections of land use and land cover with existing downscaled climate scenarios, under a common set of scenariobased socioeconomic assumptions.

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THE DRIVING FORCES OF LAND CHANGE IN THE NORTHERN PIEDMONT OF THE UNITED STATES

Geographical Review, 2012

... ROGER F. AUCH, DARRELL E. NAPTON, STEVEN KAMBLY, THOMAS R. MORELAND JR., and KRISTI L. SAYLER... more

Land-Use and Land-Cover Change in Three Corn Belt Ecoregions: Similarities and Differences

Focus on Geography, 2013

Regional Assessment of North America: Urbanization Trends, Biodiversity Patterns, and Ecosystem Services

by Roger Auch and Timon McPhearson

Urbanization, Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services: Challenges and Opportunities, 2013

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The land cover trends project: a strategy for monitoring land cover change at a national scale

by Thomas Loveland, Terry Sohl, Darrell Napton, and Roger Auch

scientists often require comprehensive data on the types and rates of land use and land cover cha... more scientists often require comprehensive data on the types and rates of land use and land cover change at a variety of scales. However, there is generally a lack of local, regional, and national land use and land cover data of sufficient reliability and temporal and geographic detail for providing accurate estimates of landscape change.

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Regional Assessment of North America: Urbanization Trends, Biodiversity Patterns, and Ecosystem Services

Urbanization, Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services: Challenges and Opportunities, 2013

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An Approach to Assess Land-Cover Trends in the Conterminous United States (1973–2000)

Remote Sensing Applications Series, 2012

Land changes and their driving forces in the Southeastern United States

by Roger Auch and Darrell Napton

Regional Environmental Change, 2010

The ecoregions of the Middle Atlantic Coastal Plain, Southeastern Plains, Piedmont, and Blue Ridg... more The ecoregions of the Middle Atlantic Coastal Plain, Southeastern Plains, Piedmont, and Blue Ridge provide a continuum of land cover from the Atlantic Ocean to the highest mountains in the East. From 1973 to 2000, each ecoregion had a unique mosaic of land covers and land cover changes. The forests of the Blue Ridge Mountains provided amenity lands. The Piedmont

Land change variability and human–environment dynamics in the United States Great Plains

Land Use Policy, 2012

Land use and land cover changes have complex linkages to climate variability and change, biophysi... more Land use and land cover changes have complex linkages to climate variability and change, biophysical resources, and socioeconomic driving forces. To assess these land change dynamics and their causes in the Great Plains, we compare and contrast contemporary changes across 16 ecoregions using Landsat satellite data and statistical analysis. Large-area change analysis of agricultural regions is often hampered by change detection error and the tendency for land conversions to occur at the local-scale. To facilitate a regional-scale analysis, a statistical sampling design of randomly selected 10 km × 10 km blocks is used to efficiently identify the types and rates of land conversions for four time intervals between 1973 and 2000, stratified by relatively homogenous ecoregions. Nearly 8% of the overall Great Plains region underwent land-use and land-cover change during the study period, with a substantial amount of ecoregion variability that ranged from less than 2% to greater than 13%. Agricultural land cover declined by more than 2% overall, with variability contingent on the differential characteristics of regional human-environment systems. A large part of the Great Plains is in relatively stable land cover. However, other land systems with significant biophysical and climate limitations for agriculture have high rates of land change when pushed by economic, policy, technology, or climate forcing factors. The results indicate the regionally based potential for land cover to persist or fluctuate as land uses are adapted to spatially and temporally variable forcing factors.

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