Statement_of_Work_NLUD_v_2.pdf

Statement of Work

Objectives of this project include refinement of the National Land Use Dataset (NLUD) for improved estimates of the amount and type of water use, facilitated by higher resolution (10-30 m), inclusion of vertical aspects of urban areas, and generalized industrial uses. The amount of water used often relates to the spatial patterns of land use and built-up areas, particularly domestic use dominated by landscaping in suburban and exurban areas, and potential household size and other factors in more urban contexts. Rural houses outside city limits that are too far from town centers are self-supplied and should not be included in estimates of public supply water use, and this work will support better delineation of the threshold of housing density to distinguish self-supplied from publicly supplied water use. The main objectives of this work will be to enhance the NLUD to include these additional features.

The approach for this work should include the incorporation of several satellite products to delineate built infrastructure using image recognition approaches and spectral data to identify vegetation and other types of land cover. Through characterization of features expressed in high resolution imagery that are unique to different types of land cover, greater land use detail will be included into land use data sets, and these maps will be updated to represent other years in the historical period being evaluated as part of the water use modeling reanalysis. The following process will be used to enhance the NLUD.

Satellite data will be used to create additional spatial datasets to estimate the extent of vegetation associated with domestic use between and surrounding buildings using 30 m Landsat, and 10 m Sentinel remote sensing for the period 2016-2020, referred to as “greenscapes.” For commercial land use, area estimates will be refined by relating to the number of pixels of commercial use to include the number of commercial units (or square footage). This is done by mapping the vertical aspects of built-up areas (e.g., number of stories in buildings). For industrial use, ancillary spatial datasets will be used to refine estimates of water use deliveries using industry NAICS codes and industrial land use areas. Built-up lands will be separated into roads/parking lots and buildings using 10-30 resolution imagery.

Residential areas will be identified as rural, urban, and ex-urban using a housing density threshold to distinguish areas/residential areas where water is self-supplied verses publicly supplied. Additionally, other ancillary data sets will be used to refine residential areas that receive self and publicly supplied water, including land pattern metrics, water supply district boundaries (where available), and topographic constraints. These areas will be compared against the USGS Water Use Program’s recently developed national water service areas data set as part of the evaluation process. Vegetation for all land use categories will be identified as irrigated verses non-irrigated evergreen forests.

Other water use characteristics will be defined for the NLUD product, including water use datasets characterizing diversion/source of water for public-supplied, industrial, and domestic water. Well location data if available will be used to identify water source, to distinguish groundwater and surface water sources. Finally, maps will be updated temporally to represent changes that occur in 2-5 year increments for the period 2010-2020 using population changes provided by the American Community Survey and National Land Cover Dataset.

Deliverables for this work include enhanced national land use and land cover data sets that are tailored for the needs of the USGS Water Use Program, and more specifically for the National Water Use Models project. Specific deliverables include:

1. Refined version of NLUD for improved estimates of amount and type of water use, facilitated by higher resolution (10-30 m), and the inclusion of vertical aspects of urban areas, and generalized industrial uses.

2. Added attributes to NLUD that identify areas where water is self-supplied and publicly supplied.

3. Updated NLUD data sets on 2-5 year increments to represent conditions for 2000-2020.

Outcomes of this work will include enriched NLUD data sets that include select years for the historical period of 2000-2020 and will provide data support for the Water Use Models Project and other USGS Projects that benefit from high resolution national land use datasets with water use attributes. All work, including the land use map for the conterminous United States for years covering 2000-2020 on 2–5-year increments, an accompanied documentation report or journal article will be completed by September 30, 2023.

Table 1. Project timeline for NLUD update project. (F: Fall; S: Spring; U: Summer)

Tasks and deliverables Year 1 Year 2

F S U F S U

Task 1: Refined version of NLUD for water use

Updated NLUD that includes higher resolution (10- 30 m) land use classes, and building heights for urban areas and industrial areas

X X

Informal progress report on methods, ancillary data sets, and methods

X

Task 2: Added attributes to NLUD that identify areas where water is self-supplied and publicly supplied

Updated NLUD that includes residential, industrial, and commercial land use attributed as self or publicly supplied

X X

Informal progress report on methods, ancillary data sets, and methods

X

Task 3: Expand NLUD datasets to represent incremental periods from 2000-2020

Develop 4-8 (depending on source data availability) NLUD coverages to represent different time periods between 2000-2020

X X

Journal Article documenting new NLUD product X X

Workload Period of Performance:

The order will involve a Period of Performance (PoP) of approximately 12 months. The period of performance is January 1, 2022 to December 31, 2022. The order includes one base year and one optional year, subject to availability of funds. The project will commence January 1, 2022 to December 31, 2022, and the optional year is will continue through December 31, 2023.

Government furnished property: None