Spatial distributions of small water body types in modified landscapes: lessons from Indiana, USA

Christensen, Jay R.; Nash, Maliha S.; Chaloud, Deborah J.; Pitchford, Ann

doi:10.1002/eco.1618

Cited by 13 publications

(9 citation statements)

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“…This study confirms and expands previous findings that agriculture can alter the landscape‐scale characteristics of aquatic ecosystems, including WB SD . Recent historical regional‐ and watershed‐scale reconstructions clearly link changes in WB extent and WB SD with conversion of lands for agriculture (Christensen et al ; Julian et al ). Deliberate drainage and infilling of wetlands and other WB to increase arable land is likely the most important cause of the large differences in WB extent between agricultural and undeveloped landscapes (Fig.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Though WB size-abundance theory is meant to be predictive of undisturbed hydroscapes, it is frequently applied to, and tested using, regions with intense agricultural development, a pervasive modifier of the modern Earth surface (Ramankutty 1999;Hooke 2000;Donchyts et al 2016). Developed land use manipulate the abundance and characteristics of surface water features through construction, drainage, and infilling (Steele and Heffernan 2014;Steele et al 2014;Christensen et al 2016;Julian et al 2015;Van Meter and Basu 2015). These alterations can affect regional-scale surface water extent, but the direction and magnitude of change vary among regions.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Small impoundments contribute to historical shifts in regional surface water extent (Christensen et al 2016;Julian et al 2015). Cumulatively, impoundments follow power-law distributions (Downing et al 2006); however, unlike natural features, artificial impoundments are constructed for specific purposes at particular scales and are unlikely to follow purely fractal predictions.…”

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Land use and topography bend and break fractal rules of water body size‐distributions

Steele

Heffernan

2017

Limnol Oceanogr Letters

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The size-distributions of inland water bodies (WB) within different regions often poorly conform to geophysically based theoretical models (power-law: y 5 ax b ); however, the causes of these deviations remain unknown.Therefore, we compared WB abundance and size-distribution parameters (slope [b] and model fit [r 2 ]) in 164 regions in the United States with varying topography, climate, and agricultural intensity. We found all three factors influenced WB size-distributions and their fit to expected models. WB size-distributions in steeper terrain had more small WB and better fit power-law models, while regions with flatter terrain and greater precipitation had poorer fits. Extensive agriculture increased the proportion of small WB, causing distributions in some regions to fall outside theoretically predicted limits (b CDF < 21). Regional variation of WB sizedistributions can help develop and test integrated theory that accounts for geophysical and anthropogenic drivers of WB sizes, which is essential for scaling biogeochemical processes in aquatic systems.The abundance, size, and character of naturally occurring and constructed water bodies (WB) influence ecological and biogeochemical characteristics of inland landscapes (e.g., Herbert et al. 2010;Aufdenkampe et al. 2011;Van Meter and Basu 2015;Holgerson and Raymond 2016). Because small WB are biogeochemically very active per unit area compared to large lakes (Stallard 1998;Dean and Gorham 1998;Bastviken et al. 2004;Harrison et al. 2008;Downing 2010;Goodman et al. 2011;Holgerson and Raymond 2016), the mis-estimation of water body size-distribution (WB SD ) can bias estimates of biogeochemical processes, such as carbon emission and sequestration (Hanson et al. 2007). Understanding the causes and consequences of variation in WB SD is thus central to our macroscale understanding of aquatic ecosystems and the landscapes in which they occur Soranno et al. 2014).Natural WB, including lakes, ponds, and wetlands, occur in diverse geologic settings resulting from different processes (e.g., tectonic, glacial scour, and fluvial) that create This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes. Scientific Significance StatementThe areal extent and size-distribution of inland water bodies have profound effects on regional and global biogeochemistry. Theoretical models assuming fractal landscapes predict the distribution of inland water bodies as a power-law with specific ranges of slopes. Observed regional size-distributions often deviate from these predictions, but the reason is unknown. This study provides empirical evidence that climate, topography, and agricultural land cover alter the areal extent and sizedistributions of water bodies, such that the resulting hydroscapes no longer conform to theoretical predictions derived from simple landscape models. 70Limnolog...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

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Land use and topography bend and break fractal rules of water body size‐distributions

Steele

Heffernan

2017

Limnol Oceanogr Letters

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“…The area represented by the three Landsat footprints has both major agricultural production zones and dense population centers [ 6 , 7 ]. As a result, approximately 85% of the pre-European settlement wetlands and similar waters have been lost from the region to agricultural drainage and urban development [ 39 , 40 ]. The urban centers include the cities of Chicago (Illinois) and St. Louis (Missouri) in p23r31 and p24r33, respectively, as well as smaller urban centers in p23r32 (e.g., the Illinois cities of Peoria, Bloomington, Champaign, Decatur, and Springfield).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Land-Cover Changes to Surface-Water Buffers in the Midwestern USA: 25 Years of Landsat Data Analyses (1993–2017)

et al. 2020

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To understand the timing, extent, and magnitude of land use/land cover (LULC) change in buffer areas surrounding Midwestern US waters, we analyzed the full imagery archive (1982–2017) of three Landsat footprints covering ~100,000 km2. The study area included urbanizing Chicago, Illinois and St. Louis, Missouri regions and agriculturally dominated landscapes (i.e., Peoria, Illinois). The Continuous Change Detection and Classification algorithm identified 1993–2017 LULC change across three Landsat footprints and in 90 m buffers for ~110,000 surface waters; waters were also size-binned into five groups for buffer LULC change analyses. Importantly, buffer-area LULC change magnitude was frequently much greater than footprint-level change. Surface-water extent in buffers increased by 14–35x the footprint rate and forest decreased by 2–9x. Development in buffering areas increased by 2–4x the footprint-rate in Chicago and Peoria area footprints but was similar to the change rate in the St. Louis area footprint. The LULC buffer-area change varied in waterbody size, with the greatest change typically occurring in the smallest waters (e.g., <0.1 ha). These novel analyses suggest that surface-water buffer LULC change is occurring more rapidly than footprint-level change, likely modifying the hydrology, water quality, and biotic integrity of existing water resources, as well as potentially affecting down-gradient, watershed-scale storages and flows of water, solutes, and particulate matter.

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“…Known spatial variations in wetland storage capacities will also advance hydrological process understanding, further informing watershed management. For example, Euclidean distance has been used as a proxy for wetland‐stream connectivity (e.g., Christensen, Nash, Chaloud, & Pitchford, ; Cohen et al, ; Van Meter & Basu, ). However, this metric and ones similar to it do not always accurately represent downstream effects, particularly subsurface interactions (Ameli & Creed, ).…”

Section: A New Tool To Inform Landscape‐scale Wetland Conservation Anmentioning

confidence: 99%

Estimating restorable wetland water storage at landscape scales

Jones

Evenson

McLaughlin

et al. 2017

Hydrological Processes

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Globally, hydrologic modifications such as ditching and subsurface drainage have significantly reduced wetland water storage capacity (i.e., volume of surface water a wetland can retain) and consequent wetland functions. While wetland area has been well documented across many landscapes and used to guide restoration efforts, few studies have directly quantified the associated wetland storage capacity. Here, we present a novel raster-based approach to quantify both contemporary and potential (i.e., restorable) storage capacities of individual depressional basins across landscapes. We demonstrate the utility of this method by applying it to the Delmarva Peninsula, a region punctuated by both depressional wetlands and drainage ditches. Across the entire peninsula, we estimated that restoration (i.e., plugging ditches) could increase storage capacity by 80%. Focusing on an individual watershed, we found that over 59% of restorable storage capacity occurs within 20 m of the drainage network, and that 93% occurs within 1 m elevation of the drainage network. Our demonstration highlights widespread ditching in this landscape, spatial patterns of both contemporary and potential storage capacities, and clear opportunities for hydrologic restoration. In Delmarva and more broadly, our novel approach can inform targeted landscape-scale conservation and restoration efforts to optimize hydrologically mediated wetland functions.

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Spatial distributions of small water body types in modified landscapes: lessons from Indiana, USA

Cited by 13 publications

References 59 publications

Land use and topography bend and break fractal rules of water body size‐distributions

Land use and topography bend and break fractal rules of water body size‐distributions

Land-Cover Changes to Surface-Water Buffers in the Midwestern USA: 25 Years of Landsat Data Analyses (1993–2017)

Estimating restorable wetland water storage at landscape scales

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