Urbanization is an increase in the number of people that live in relatively small areas and can cause drastic changes in land use. For example, more cement and concrete may be used to accommodate the growing population of people moving to a city. This research analyzes how urbanization affects bird biodiversity in the southeast U.S. Biodiversity is the variety and diversity of plants and animals in an environment. Publicly available citizen science bird sighting data in Alabama, Tennessee, Florida and Georgia is used to evaluate bird biodiversity by pinpointing localities that were sampled at the beginning and end of a 10-year time span. Urbanization within these sites will be analyzed using QGIS and USGS LandSat data from 2001 and 2011 to calculate the percentage of impervious cover. We predicted that areas with increased urbanization over the 10 year time span would have a decrease in bird biodiversity.
