Calculation of Landscape Development Intensity (LDI) Values for Land Use Types in Arkansas and Florida: Lessons Learned

Landscape Development Intensity (LDI) values were calculated for selected land uses within the Bayou Meto Watershed (BMW), Arkansas, USA, using existing land use data and annual measures of non-renewable energy use per unit area, as part of an effort to assess the effect of the surrounding land use on the condition of floodplain forested wetlands. Level 2 land use categories from the 1999 Arkansas land use/land cover summer map were used to identify 20 land use classes for which emergy evaluations were developed. The average areal empower density for the BMW was 61.47 E 15 solar emjouls per hectare per year (sej ha yr). The largest areal empower densities occurred in the urban areas in the northern portion of the watershed. The middle and southern portions of the BMW were dominated by intermediate areal empower densities that characterize agricultural lands. Results from this work, and previous work done in Florida, have highlighted some lessons learned that can assist when calculating LDI values for land types in the future. First, the spatial resolution of the land use data sources need to be taken into account; as the scale becomes finer the number of land uses that can be identified tends to increase. Defining a set of functional LDI land use categories that appropriately describe the system under investigation is critical to optimize resources. Second, since existing land use data were probably developed to respond to research needs other than emergy-based studies, adjustments to the data may be required to define functional LDI land use categories. Third, emergy evaluations for similar land uses in both states have shown mixed results, calling for further research to determine the transferability of areal non-renewable empower density values for land uses between different geographic locations.