Historic Land Use
The Treasure Valley, located in southwestern Idaho, is experiencing tremendous population growth and associated development. Urbanization continues to impact wildlife habitat and the hydrology of the area. As the area plans for future growth, it is critical to understand historic land use and development and how the biology and the hydrology have already been impacted. We propose to evaluate land use and development changes through time and the resultant impacts on the ecosystem.
The Albertsons Library at Boise State University has an extensive collection of aerial photographs originally taken for the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Soil Conservation Service dating from 1938-1971 of the Treasure Valley. In addition, a private firm offers aerial photo mosaics of the valley for the years 1938, 1976, 1995, and 2003. These photos will be analyzed to capture information about community growth patterns, buildings, open space, agricultural land, habitat, and water bodies among other characteristics. A geographic information system (GIS) will be utilized to organize data gathered from photo analysis and to allow statistical comparisons between years.
Idaho Department of Water Resources conducted a study for the Bureau of Reclamation documenting the changes in irrigated versus non-irrigated land between 1938/1939 and 1994 and 2000. This information along with their GIS cultural layers entered from the 1867/1868 cadastral survey is available for incorporation in this project.
This page last reviewed September 2004