Date of Award
5-10-2026
Date Published
June 2026
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
Geography & the Environment
Advisor(s)
Jane Read
Keywords
Conservation;Fragmentation;Habitat Quality;Land use land cover change
Subject Categories
Geography | Social and Behavioral Sciences
Abstract
The Earth's terrestrial surface is experiencing rapid and unprecedented transformation driven by human land use activities. An estimated 75% of the global land area has been altered, and land-use and land-cover change (LULCC) is widely recognized as the largest contributor to biodiversity loss worldwide. Habitats, the ecological spaces that sustain biodiversity, are particularly vulnerable to the compounding pressures of habitat loss and fragmentation associated with urbanization and agricultural intensification. This study investigates the impacts of LULCC on landscape fragmentation and habitat quality in Onondaga County, New York, over a 30-year period from 1994 to 2024. Using Annual National Land Cover Database (NLCD) imagery reclassified into seven land cover categories, the study applies an integrated spatial analytical framework combining intensity analysis, landscape fragmentation analysis, habitat quality modeling, and spatial autocorrelation methods to examine how this post-industrial, peri-urban county has changed ecologically and what these changes mean for biodiversity and conservation planning. Findings reveal a landscape shaped by the persistent expansion of built-up land, accelerating loss of cropland, and a consistent decline in forest cover. Fragmentation analysis showed a simultaneous reduction in patch area, an increase in patch number, and a decline in mean patch area across terrestrial cover types, compounding ecological effects at the landscape scale and producing a countywide pattern of smaller, increasingly isolated patches with reduced capacity to support habitat quality. Habitat quality declined broadly during the early study periods, with the greatest degradation concentrated in and around the expanding built-up core of the northern townships and the urban municipalities of Syracuse. The 2024 outputs, however, departed from a simple decline trajectory, showing evidence of stabilization and localized improvement that aligns spatially and temporally with Onondaga Lake Natural Resource Damage Assessment and Restoration (NRDAR) remediation activities and Central New York Land Trust conservation easements. Spatial autocorrelation analysis confirmed that habitat quality is not randomly distributed across the county but is significantly clustered and that this clustering has intensified steadily over the 30-year study period. The findings reflect two opposing forces: land use, especially built-up expansion, is driving habitat degradation and increasing spatial polarization of habitats, and targeted restoration efforts are producing localized recovery of habitat quality across space and time. By integrating intensity analysis and InVEST habitat quality modeling within a single analytical framework, this study moves beyond descriptive LULCC mapping toward an ecologically interpretive landscape assessment that links land-cover change directly to habitat-quality outcomes.
Access
Open Access
Recommended Citation
Sedwaa, Favour Nkwando, "Assessing the Impact of Land Use Land Cover Change on Habitat Quality in Onondaga County, New York: A Thirty-Year Spatial Analysis." (2026). Theses - ALL. 1029.
https://surface.syr.edu/thesis/1029
