Land use/land cover water quality nexus: quantifying anthropogenic influences on surface water quality

Anthropogenic forces widely influence the composition, configuration, and trend of land use and land cover (LULC) changes with potential implications for surface water quality. These changes have the likelihood of generating non-point source pollution with additional environmental implications for terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Monitoring the scope and trajectory of LULC change is pivotal for region-wide planning, tracking the sustainability of natural resources, and meeting the information needs of policy makers. A good comprehension of the dynamics of anthropogenic drivers (proximate and underlying) that influence such changes in LULC is important because any potential adverse change in LULC that may be inimical to sustainable water quality might be addressed at the anthropogenic driver level rather than the LULC change stage. Using a dense time stack of Landsat-5 Thematic Mapper images, a hydrologic water quality and socio-geospatial modeling framework, this study quantifies the role of anthropogenic drivers of LULC change on total suspended solids and total phosphorus concentrations in the Lower Chippewa River Watershed, Wisconsin, at three time steps-1990, 2000, and 2010. Results of the study demonstrated that proximate drivers of LULC change accounted for between 32 and 59% of the concentration and spatial distribution of total suspended solids, while the extent of phosphorus impairment attributed to the proximate drivers ranged between 31 and 42%.