Utilizing Geospatial Techniques to Estimate the Key Placement of Solar Panels in Central Texas

Keywords: Solar, Land Cover Change, Remote Sensing, Surface Hydrology
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract

Abstract

There is a proposed plan for solar panels to be installed in Central Texas within three counties. Ranch owners have concerns on how the proposed solar panels will affect runoff in the area. The purpose of this project is to identify areas that would be beneficial for solar panel placement using data collected from surface drainage and yearly erosional and landcover differences. We decided that we would take aerial photos at 30-year intervals from the 1950’s, late 1980’s and late 2010’s, to compare how the land cover has changed over time. This would allow us to see if and how the drainage has changed and how the land use has evolved over time. After rigorously searching for aerial photography from within our timeframe, we were unable to acquire any usable imagery. However, we were able to acquire land cover data from the Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics Consortium’s (MRLC) website for the years 1992 and 2019; which was created by the United States Geological Survey (USGS). Since the data was formatted as a discrete raster, we input the data into ArcMap and reclassified the 17 land cover classes into a manageable 8 classes. Comparing the reclassified data showed there was a significant change in land use, showing that the data from 1992 had primarily herbaceous/scrub and forested areas whereas in 2019 it was more dominated by cropland. Preliminary results illustrate that currently there are 307.7 square kilometers of land that could be used to install solar panels within the selected drainage basin.