The Driving Forces of Land Change in the Northern Piedmont of the United States

• Published in: Geographical review Vol. 102; no. 1; pp. 53 - 75
• Main Authors: AUCH, ROGER F., NAPTON, DARRELL E., KAMBLY, STEVEN, MORELAND, THOMAS R., SAYLER, KRISTI L.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford, UK Taylor & Francis 01-01-2012; Blackwell Publishing Ltd; American Geographical Society; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: Agricultural land; Agricultural production; Agriculture; America; Analysis; Bgi / Prodig; Coastal plains; Data analysis; driving forces; Economic activity; Economic aspects; Ecoregions; Environmental aspects; Estimates; Estimation; Farmland preservation; Farms; Field study; Forest resources; Highways; Land cover; Land development; Land economics; Land use; land-use change; Northern Piedmont; Political aspects; Public policy; Real estate development; Resource management; Social aspects; South Atlantic; Suburban areas; Sustainable agriculture; U.S.A; United States; United States of America; Urban agriculture; Urbanization; United States of America; United States; United States > US; USA; Northern Piedmont; Settlement; Accessibility; Land development; Land use; Ecoregion
• ISSN: 0016-7428; 1931-0846
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1931-0846.2012.00130.x

Driving forces facilitate or inhibit land-use / land-cover change. Human driving forces include political, economic, cultural, and social attributes that often change across time and space. Remotely sensed imagery provides regional land-change data for the Northern Piedmont, an ecoregion of the United States that continued to urbanize after 1970 through conversion of agricultural and forest land covers to developed uses. Eight major driving forces facilitated most of the land conversion; other drivers inhibited or slowed change. A synergistic web of drivers may be more important in understanding land change than individual drivers by themselves.