Land and Water Use

Question 1: Define urbanization, suburban sprawl, and planned development.

Answer 1: Urbanization - more and more people moving from rural to urban and suburban areas. For example, about 80 percent of people in the continental United States live on less than 2 percent of the land. About 200 years ago, only 5 percent lived in cities. Suburban sprawl, or urban sprawl - more and more people moving from cities to suburbs. About half of Americans live in suburbs. Sprawl causes loss of agricultural lands, forests, grasslands, and wetlands. As suburbs grow, two or more may meet each other between cities, making a very large urban area called a megalopolis, like the one that goes from Boston to Washington, D.C.Planned development - development that results from considered and decided plans. A number of planned areas are green cities, in which car traffic is reduced, public transportation is very available, and there are common green spaces between areas of high-density housing and stores.

There are lots of good resources about Water Use that you can find available.

Question 2: Describe American land use for transportation, including roadways and canals.

Answer 2: In the United States, up to 70 percent of urban land is used for transportation—for parking lots, roads, and highways, as well as for light rail trains and subways and for airports. The national highway system includes about 160,000 miles. The areas devoted to automobile use have high concentrations of pollutants from gasoline and from wear and tear on tires, brake pads, and lubricating oil. Air pollutants from automobiles include hydrocarbons, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, ozone, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Water is polluted by many of the same chemicals when it runs off the roads. In some places, large areas are used for canals and channels that provide routes for transportation by water and/or reroute water to allow transportation by land. In Florida, canals cover thousands of miles; New Orleans is famous for its canals. In addition to navigation, canals are important for flood control and agricultural irrigation.

Question 3: List the kinds of public and federal land, and their management, in the United States. Compare them with similar public lands throughout the world.

Answer 3: The U.S. Forest Service manages 193 million acres of grasslands and forests. More than 51 million acres are set aside in the National Wilderness Preservation System. Those lands, including 30 million acres managed by the U.S. Forest Service, are managed by four federal agencies.There are 58 national parks, managed by the National Park Service. Some U.S. wetlands are managed by the federal government under the rules of the Clean Water Act, but many are unprotected. There are over 1,100 national parks in the world. Wilderness areas, wildlife refuges, and other nature reserves cover 12 percent of the land on Earth. Much of this area is uninhabitable or nearly so—tundra, ice, and desert. Allowing other uses of lands in reserve is controversial. While some think we should use the lumber, oil, minerals, and other resources that are found there, others believe that protected reserves are crucially important for maintaining biodiversity and allowing future evolution.

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