| Water quality in the Muskegon River Watershed is a function of land use such as agriculture, residential development, industry, and transportation. Ongoing residential development around the lakes as well as nutrient-rich runoff from urban and agricultural landscapes affect water quality. Landsat 7 (ETM+) imagery was used to obtain an LULC map in the MRW through an unsupervised classification. Surface hydrological modeling was performed on a SRTM DEM to delineate first order sub-watersheds, which are more susceptible to non-point pollution as they have no upstream contributing flow. This study compares LULC (2001--2002) in the MRW with water quality indices such as total nitrogen (TN), total phosphorus (TP), specific conductivity, sensitive insect species (EPT taxa) and total invertebrate taxa. Results indicate that there is significant correlation between an increase in proportions of agricultural/urban land use within the watershed and water quality indices such as total phosphorus concentration. In addition, there was a negative correlation between the percentage of urban land use within the sub-watershed and sensitive insect taxa as well as invertebrate populations. TN and TP concentrations were also influenced by distance to urban and agricultural areas respectively. |
