Change in Urban Land Use and Associated Attributes in the Upper San Francisco Estuary, 1990-2006

Abstract

Land use is an ultimate driver of many of the stressors on the Upper San Francisco Estuary, but the magnitude and pattern of land use change has not been analyzed. This paper attempts to fill this knowledge gap through a screening-level risk assessment. Urban land use was compared within hydrodynamic subregions in 1990, 2000, and 2006. Ancillary data were then used to quantify secondary measures such as impervious cover, housing density, road density and road crossings. Despite the rapid growth of the Bay Area, Sacramento, and Stockton metropolitan areas, the percentage of urban area and rates of change in the subregions are generally low to moderate when compared to other estuaries in the United States. The spatial data sets used in this analysis have been posted online to a public repository to be used by other researchers.