Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park: A case study of the potential impacts of neighboring land use patterns on local ecosystems within protected federal lands
Blankley B. 2011. Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park: A case study of the potential impacts of neighboring land use patterns on local ecosystems within protected federal lands. Natural Resource Report. NPS/SECN/NRR—2011/473. National Park Service. Fort Collins, Colorado
In recent years, the negative ecological effects of land use change surrounding protected areas have become a subject of growing concern to conservationists, ecologists and natural resource monitoring organizations such as the National Park Service. The result of this concern has been a concerted research focus on protected areas that are threatened by land use change and to quantify the effects of these changes. Because of its proximity to a rapidly expanding metropolitan area and the historical and ongoing land use changes that have occurred there, Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park (KEMO) provides a great opportunity to examine how land use change might affect ecological processes. Both the size and connectivity of the ecosystem outside of the Park have been greatly altered in recent years and will likely adversely affect the local ecosystem within KEMO’s boundaries. This study examines, documents and quantifies the land use changes that have occurred in the areas surrounding KEMO as well as the impacts that these changes might have had on the local ecosystem within the Park during a 20-year span between 1986 and 2006.
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- Blankley, Brent
- Date of Issue
- 2011-12
- Publisher
- National Park Service
- Units
- KEMO , NRSS , SECN
- Keywords
- change detection, Classification, Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park, Land Use, land use change, population growth, Remote Sensing, urban sprawl