ABSTRACT

This research uses land cover mapping over time to assess water quality in a watershed in relation to socioeconomic development. Land cover mapping has been used to monitor the environment and its many systems through detecting land cover change within a study area. With the La Nana Bayou Watershed positioned in the heart of Nacogdoches City, an urbanized environment; it is subject to human induced alterations that can negatively affect the natural functionality of its system. When water quality indicators are successfully related to land cover maps, changes within the landscape that directly impact a watershed’s health can be monitored routinely with ease. Over a 20 yr span within the study area, the following land cover types will be used as water quality indicator, including riparian zone, impervious cover, and forest cover. The indicators associated with the La Nana Bayou Watershed will be studied using land cover maps attained from the National Land Cover Databases (NLCD) for the years 2001, 2006, 2011, 2016, and 2021. The assessment of water quality based on land cover maps will be validated for accuracy using field measured water quality parameters and census data. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the feasibility of using land cover mapping to obtain water quality indicators of a river basin and provide feedback of whether it is more efficient when compared to traditional field-based water quality testing. This study will determine the benefit of using land cover mapping to assess temporal water quality differences in a watershed.