An Aid to Conservation Strategy in Illinois: The Critical Trends Assessment Project

Abstract

Circa 1992 a series of satellites orbiting the earth captured images of the spectural reflectance covering 36 million acres of a geopolitically sculptured place called Illinois. After sophisticated computer processing, these images show that 80% of the landscape is agricultural, primarily row crops such as, corn, soybeans, and small grains. Forested and wooded land covers 11% of the state, and wetlands cover a little more than 3%. Chicago, the third largest city in the country, and other urban and built-up land covers a little less than 3½% of the state. Open water, the last land cover classification, covers slightly less than 1½% of the Illinois landscape.