Land Use Workgroup Projects and Resources

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LULC Use Case Survey

We'd love to know more about how you and your organization use the Chesapeake Bay 1-meter high-resolution land use land cover data! Please fill out this use case survey with details about your project and any feedback on the useability of the data: Chesapeake Bay 1-meter Land Use/Land Cover Dataset: Use Cases (google.com)

This information is incredibly valuable for:

  1. advocating for continued funding of the data production.
  2. reflections on which land use classes bear more or less importance for stakeholders.
  3. communicating about future releases and changes to the data layers.
  4. inspiring other organizations and stakeholders to replicate or build upon projects shared.

If you would like to give a "lightening talk" about your project and how you use the data at a future LUWG meeting, please contact the LUWG coordinator and staffer.

Review of Draft Current Zoning 2025 Land Use Forecast

On November 8th, the LUWG agreed to exclude ultra-rural areas from near-term 2025 development. That change has been made to the attached resulting in slightly more development overall, less farmland, fewer septics, and more forest compared to the version distributed last week. The changes are generally very minimal- less than 1% at the LRSEG scale. Please review the attached “Current Zoning” future land use scenario for the year 2025. Please email comments directly to Peter Claggett (pclagget@chesapeakebay.net) and copy Lindsey Gordon (Gordon.Lindsey@epa.gov) by December 8th, 2017. We appreciate receiving comments as soon as is convenient.

Please note that these data are all products of the Chesapeake Bay Land Change Model’s (CBLCM v3a) forecasts and backcasts and therefore do not incorporate construction acres, the Census of Agriculture, nor the extrapolation of Census of Agriculture trends which are all incorporated into the Phase 6 land use data via a “true-up” process conducted by the CBP modeling team and which we’ve discussed during previous meetings. Therefore, the attached data are not the exact data informing the Phase 6 watershed model but they do dominantly influence the Phase 6 land uses and they are the exact data produced from the CBLCM for which the LUWG has technical oversight responsibility.

In addition to the data described below, USGS has posted a composite of a single urban land use iteration for the year 2025 (e.g., one of 101 Monte Carlo simulations depicting future residential, commercial, and mixed use development at 30m-resolution) on the Chesapeake Bay Phase 6 Land Use Viewer (https://chesapeake.usgs.gov/phase6/map/ ). All of the 101 simulations exhibit similar patterns of growth at the county level; only the exact locations of new development and the overall magnitude of new development differ among iterations. The Phase 6 Viewer is readable in Internet Explorer or Google Chrome (preferred). If you encounter difficulty accessing the site, refresh the webpage (<CTRL> F5). In the Viewer, you’ll see a “Phase 6 Future Land Use” menu (lower right) that includes maps of “Residential Suitability” and “Commercial Suitability”. These maps display undeveloped lands that are judged suitable for future development based on zoning, slope, and protection status. They also provide a quick means of evaluating which counties provided usable zoning information (e.g., those counties with limited land available for development). For jurisdictions within the Washington Metro COG region, Traffic Analysis Zones (TAZ) projected to accommodate <= 10 new housing units or jobs over the period 2015-2045 were excluded from near-term growth in 2025. Moreover, the proportion of future development accommodated via infill/redevelopment within COG jurisdictions was calculated as the maximum of either the CBLCM infill estimates or an infill estimate based on the proportion of TAZ-level forecasted growth which cannot be accommodated as greenfield development because it exceeds current development capacities at the TAZ scale.

History of the LUWG

Previous Scope and Purpose (Until September 2023)

Land use is one of the most critical data sets for the Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP) Watershed Model. Land use data have previously been prepared by the CBP Land Data Team in consultation with the CBP Watershed Modeling Team. Land use classifications have been driven by available data and by the expressed needs of CBP workgroups to inform management decisions. The work of the Land Data Team has been reviewed by CBP Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee (STAC) in 2008 and 2010. During the Watershed Implementation Plan (WIP) process, differences have come to light between the land use data set used by that CBP that covers the entire watershed over a multi-decadal period and local-scale information. These differences have caused difficulties in implementation planning and reporting in support of the WIPs. As the responsibility to implement restoration efforts is pushed to the local governments, it is vital that the land use data used in the watershed model is perceived as relevant at the local government scale. To this end, the Land Use Workgroup will directly involve stakeholders in the generation of land use data for modeling. The challenge will be to assemble a more accurate baseline dataset using local information to the extent possible while estimating historic land use acreages in a clear, transparent, and logical fashion.

Goals include:

  1. To create a temporally, spatially, and categorically consistent and accurate land use dataset from 1982 to 2012 for all jurisdictions in the Chesapeake Bay watershed using the best available data at all scales.
  2. To approve methods for projecting future land use conditions for all jurisdictions in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.