24 The Effects of Land Cover Change on the Fox River Area Keira Feliciano Before the 1820s, the Fox River was a mosaic of prairies, forests, woodlands, marshes, ponds, lakes, and meadows. However, when met by the hands of man, land cover and land use altered the biodiversity of the region. The interaction of a multitude of factors, all controlled by humans, has changed the distribution of the land cover in the Fox River Area. Consequences of the intensive habitat conversion are the absence of wildfires and habitat fragmentation, which lead to diversity loss. Where humans have influence on the environment, they are a fruitful source of corruption. Even though consumption of natural resources can be sustainable, humans continue to change the landscape which threatens the integrity of living systems from which we all depend. “Land cover, being the expression of human activities, changes with modifications in these activities.”11 Originally covering 58.98% of the land in Illinois, the amount of high-quality prairie that makes up the land cover of Illinois today stands at less than 0.01%, about 2,300 acres.12 From 1920 to 1989, about three million acres of prairie were either supplanted by forest, converted to urban areas, or converted to agriculture. Within the Fox River Area, 35.1 acres of high-quality prairie is left of 1,892,400 acres, which represents 0.01% of the original population.13 The same fate driven by humans was brought upon the forest, savanna, wetland, and vascular plant ecosystems of Illinois. Starting at 13,828,840 acres of coverage, some 544,730 acres of forest were absorbed by urban development and 9,902,710 acres were converted to agriculture, leaving a mere 11,600 acres of high- 11 Fao.org. “The Conceptual Basis.” https://www.fao.org/3/X0596E/x0596e01f.htm. 12 Illinois Department of Natural Resources. Fox River Area Assessment. Office of Scientific Research and Analysis, 1998. https://friendsofthefoxriver.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/fox-3-Living-Resources.pdf. 13 Ibid.
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