Sources for WUIC data:
USGS: WUIC based on 125 million building locations in the US
Uses Microsoft’s Building Footprints dataset to classify WUI across the conterminous United States at 30 meter resolution
Very large dataset (21 GB!)
Each data source has advantages and drawbacks, but the USGS source is preferred for our purposes. We can subset the dataset to NY to estimate the total area of WUI and number of buildings included. See linked paper for more details.
Analysis from USGS dataset
Tabulate NY WUIC:
WUIC categories:
- not WUI
- Not in a WUIC zone.
- intermix WUI
- Intermix areas are defined as a development or structure that is surrounded on two or more sides by wildlands. “Housing and vegetation intermingle”.
- interface WUI
- Interface areas are those in which development and structures are bordered by wildlands on at least one side. “Housing is adjacent to vegetation”.
- Interface areas are those in which development and structures are bordered by wildlands on at least one side. “Housing is adjacent to vegetation”.
- Approximately 29.31% of NY state is intermix WUI
- Approximately 9.03% of NY state is interface WUI
- Approximately 38.34% of NY state is either intermix or interface WUI.
NY state WUIC map
Incorporate Building counts:
% buildings that are Intermix WUI in NY state:
[1] 21.62948% buildings that are Interface WUI in NY state:
[1] 15.71601% buildings that are either Intermix or Interface WUI in NY state:
[1] 37.34549This analysis can be further disaggragated to sub-state levels (county/CD/census tracts) by cross-walking the pixels/coordinates with publicly available data.