Abstract
Human settlement patterns have significant implications for the natural environment, including freshwater lakes. People are attracted to areas with abundant lakes. However, dense human settlement near lakes can have adverse impacts on lakes by reducing forest cover, increasing nutrient loads, decreasing aquatic vegetation, and introducing invasive species. In addition, dense human settlement near lakes increases the health risks associated with cyanobacteria (also known as “blue-green algae”) blooms.
In this brief, a multi-disciplinary team of researchers focuses on the interaction between human development and forest land near lakes across ten selected U.S. counties and on the limitations of remote satellite imagery to properly reflect this interaction. In essence, the satellites have a hard time seeing houses under the trees. The authors find that augmenting widely used satellite imagery with demographic data on housing density provides a better representation of land cover and settlement patterns near inland lakes. These demographically enhanced land cover data provide researchers investigating water quality and cyanobacteria blooms with valuable new information that may be relevant to their research on the effects of human settlement on lake water quality, as well as the potential impacts of water quality on people residing adjacent to lakes.
Department
Carsey School of Public Policy
Publication Date
Spring 6-2-2026
Series
Issue Brief #199
Publisher
Durham, N.H.: Carsey School of Public Policy, University of New Hampshire
Document Type
Article
Recommended Citation
Johnson, Kenneth M.; Ducey, Mark J.; Cook, Barbara D.; and Cottingham, Kathryn L., "Forests, Lakes, and "Hidden" Housing" (2026). Carsey Publications. 574.
https://scholars.unh.edu/carsey/574
Rights
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