Research Website

lthia.agriculture.purdue.edu

Keywords

Runoff L-THIA Great Lakes Surface

Presentation Type

Event

Research Abstract

The objective of this project is to provide a scientific estimate of the surface runoff and water quality within the great lakes watershed. The problem is that there has been a trend of a decrease in water quality that threatens to damage marine ecosystems. In addition, the Great Lakes significance to the US economy is highlighted by its use in fisheries, tourism, shipping, recreation and as a freshwater supply.

In 1972 the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement was established between the US and Canada, and Areas of Concern (AOC) were identified within respective country boundaries. The US government has invested heavily in remedial action within these areas and this is expected to be reflected by improved land use policy making. Therefore, it is expected that although there is to be an overall degradation in water quality, in these areas signs of improvement should be evident.

A “Big Data” Long-term Hydrologic Impact (L-THIA) model was used for the analysis inside an ArcMAP user interface. The entire Great Lakes basin, as well as, the AOC was analyzed to highlight remedial efforts in this area. The model used national land coverage data (NLCD) for the years 2001, 2006 and 2011 to give a comparison over a 10 year period

The general observation was an increase in urbanization between 2001 and 2006 which resulted in an increase in runoff and decrease in water quality. A similar trend existed from 2006 to 2011, however, the rate of water quality degradation had subdued.

Session Track

Infrastructure

Share

COinS
 
Aug 7th, 12:00 AM

Great Lakes Basin Water Quality Analysis Using L-THIA Model in Desktop GIS

The objective of this project is to provide a scientific estimate of the surface runoff and water quality within the great lakes watershed. The problem is that there has been a trend of a decrease in water quality that threatens to damage marine ecosystems. In addition, the Great Lakes significance to the US economy is highlighted by its use in fisheries, tourism, shipping, recreation and as a freshwater supply.

In 1972 the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement was established between the US and Canada, and Areas of Concern (AOC) were identified within respective country boundaries. The US government has invested heavily in remedial action within these areas and this is expected to be reflected by improved land use policy making. Therefore, it is expected that although there is to be an overall degradation in water quality, in these areas signs of improvement should be evident.

A “Big Data” Long-term Hydrologic Impact (L-THIA) model was used for the analysis inside an ArcMAP user interface. The entire Great Lakes basin, as well as, the AOC was analyzed to highlight remedial efforts in this area. The model used national land coverage data (NLCD) for the years 2001, 2006 and 2011 to give a comparison over a 10 year period

The general observation was an increase in urbanization between 2001 and 2006 which resulted in an increase in runoff and decrease in water quality. A similar trend existed from 2006 to 2011, however, the rate of water quality degradation had subdued.

https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/surf/2014/presentations/17