Cicero Creek Land Use Characterization and Land Use Change and Implications for Watershed Management

For a complete discussion of the land use characterization, land use change, and implications for watershed management please refer to the land use section under the main CIWRP report page.

            Tables VIII-8 through VIII-10 quantify specific land cover changes in each of the Cicero Creek subwatersheds between 1985 and 2000.  The largest degree of development occurred in the Morse Reservoir-Bear Slide Creek subwatershed with 0.9 % increase in high density land cover and a 3.2% increase in low density land cover (Table VIII-10).  In 2000, the percent of total urbanized land in the Cicero Creek subwatersheds ranged from zero percent in the Cox Ditch-Christy/Kigin Ditches subwatershed to 9.7% in the Morse Reservoir-Bear Slide Creek subwatershed.     

            Herbaceous (grassland) land cover experienced the largest increases, and agriculture land cover experienced the largest decreases consistently across all of the Cicero Creek subwatersheds.  The Morse Reservoir-Bear Slide Creek and Hinkle Creek-Jones Ditch subwatersheds also experienced the largest declines in forest land cover at -2.6% and -3.4%, respectively.  In the year 2000, agriculture remained the dominant land cover in all of the subwatersheds ranging from 45.4% in Morse Reservoir-Bear Slide Creek to 88.5% in Cicero Creek-Dixon Creek-Crum Ditch (Table VIII-9). 

Table VIII-8

Table VIII-9

Table VIII-10