Land Use Change and Runoff

159 - 183 N Willard Street

Burlington, Vermont

1999 Land Use

2018 Land Use

Legend: Brown - Gravel, Orange - Driveway/Sidewalk, Red - House/Structure, Green - Grass

Data:

Figure 1: Runoff calculations for the 1999 and 2018 photographs.

figure 2: Runoff calculations for a fully forested Burlington, c. 1600.

By taking photos from two different time periods, we are able to figure out fairly precisely how the land use has changed as Burlington has developed. While this area in the North End of Burlington has seen less change than many areas downtown, there is still a noticeable change in the land use moving from 1999 to 2018. Looking at figure 1 we see that the % impervious field rises for each land use type in 2018. The largest differences exist for paved surfaces (mostly driveways and sidewalks) as well as buildings and structures. We see that as a result of this increase these reccurence events create more runoff in 2018 than they would have in 1999.

Looking at how runoff has changed before large amounts of human development informs us on just how much we change the natural and hydrological systems in which we live. By comparing the runoff values in figure 2 to those in figure 1, we see large differences in total runoff vs 1999, and especially vs 2018. While these differences don't seem significant, it is important to note that these runoff values are for one small section of fairly low percent impervious land in the City of Burlington. This doesn't account for the many other parcels just like it, as well as the many parcels with significantly higher percentages of impervious land. When we extrapolate the data found here for the entire city, we see massive amounts of human-caused runoff.

Figure 3 gives a direct look at the increases in runoff as time has gone on in Burlington. The lowest gray line represents runoff in 1600, while the top line represents recent runoff calculation done for 2018. Given this trend, we can only expect runoff to continue to rise. This has serious implication for the water quality of Lake Champlain, a lake that is already plagued by pollution and unsafe water. Runoff, and heightened levels of it, are so dangerous because water collect dangerous chemicals and particles as it moves from Burlington into Lake Champlain.