Figure 3. Non-forested land declines from over 10% to less than 5% of the Little Tennessee watershed between 1950 and 1990.

 Our 1800 onset date marks the beginning of significant Euro-American settlement in the southern Appalachian Mountains. This onset date allows us to evaluate the effects of critical turning points in the transformation of Appalachia (Salstrom 1994, Dunaway 1996, Yarnell 1998) including the start of market segmentation in 1820, the apogee in forest clearing after 1900, and the recreation and real estate boom beginning in 1970. By combining independently derived social, economic, and biophysical evidence (e.g. U.S. Census and State records of various kinds, historical cartography, aerial photography, eyewitness and personal accounts, satellite data, etc.), we will be able to map historic and current patterns across the region that address the following questions:

1. How does land use/land cover vary across spatial, temporal and measurement scales?
2. What are the spatial and temporal linkages between bio-geophysical and socioeconomic processes?
3. How is previous transformation of a site linked to subsequent transformation of the same and surrounding sites?

Once these land-use trajectories are evaluated through information-theoretic techniques (Wear and Bolstad 1998) the results will then serve as the cartographic template for other research projects.