Spatiotemporal reconstruction of historical swine CAFO growth in North Carolina and connections to water quality
North Carolina (NC) experienced a dramatic increase in swine production throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
Swine are usually raised in Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) that generate large volumes of manure that are stored in one or several open-air lagoons and later distributed over spray fields.
Prior 1997, locations of swine CAFOs were unknown. The lack of spatially-explicit data that capture the growth of the swine CAFO industry is particularly concerning given that the open-air lagoon waste management strategy is attributed to several adverse effects on surrounding ecosystems and communities.
The project aims to:
(1) Reconstruct the historical geospatial growth of swine CAFO waste lagoons from 1984 to 2012 within the Coastal Plain of North Carolina using satellite imagery.
(2) Evaluate the nutrient legacy of swine CAFOs in North Carolina.
Key-words: swine CAFOs, NC, remote sensing, water quality
Landsat 5 image capturing NC landscape- the black squares represent the swine waste lagoons
This work is supported conjointly by NC Sea grant and Water Resources Research Institute (graduate student fellowship)