LAND USE ANALYSIS

Brendan Luma -- ENVL 4300

Abstract:

Land usage is becoming a much larger studied subject among environmental scientists. The six

major land usage types are agricultural, forested, urban, water, wetlands, and barren land. These land

use types are constantly changing, and thats why we are studying them constantly. After finding the

proper data to download into GIS, colored maps were made to show each land use type and how they

changed over a 21 year period. 1986, 1995, 2002, and 2007 were the four specific years that were

studied for Brick Township and Ocean County, both located in New Jersey. After the results were

identified, the maps and charts clearly showed that urban land is steadily increasing and forested,

barren land and agricultural land are all decreasing; a process formerly known as urbanization or urban

sprawl. Wetlands and water have stayed relatively the same over the years.

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 Table of Contents

Chapter Page

Abstract..........1

Introduction..3

Aims and Objectives...3

Methods..4

Results.............4

Discussion10

Summary, Conclusion, Recommendation.10

References.12

Appendices

Appendix A Ocean County Land Use...13

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Introduction:

Land use plays a major role in why our land looks the way it does. Scientist have studied for

years on the effects of different land use types in a specific area. There are six major land use groups

that an area of land is classified into. These are urban land, agriculture, forest, water, wetlands, and

barren land. All six categories also have subcategories within them that goes into even more detail such

as specifying residential or commercial within the urban land category. It is important to monitor land

use because it is connected to a wide range of societal and environmental processes; also it helps us

understand an extensive variety of independent systems, including economic activity, homeland security

and natural resource management (Why). Another term for urbanization, urban sprawl, refers to the

migration of a population from populated towns and cities to low density residential development over

more and more rural land (Causes). Urban sprawl is a term closely associated with land use because

when comparing a majority of land use maps, the urban areas are almost always increasing, while forest

and agriculture decrease. GIS plays an important role in this lab because it is a way of visually

representing the results that were found in different colors.

Aims and Objectives:

There are three parts associated with lab assignment 3. Part one I will be presenting four

orthographic images of my address and the surrounding area. The location is in Brick NJ and I will be

describing the differences between the four specific years. Part two of the assignment was an

assessment of the entire town of Brick, NJ. I will be looking at the six major land use groups and

presenting them in charts and GIS maps showing how each land use changed over a specific set of years.

For part three, I will be showing the same six major land uses and how they changed over the same

years but for Ocean County, New Jersey. This will also incorporate the use of GIS maps and charts to

represent my results.

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Methods:

Part one of the assignment I went to the NJGIN website to find the orthographic images of my

town. (NJGIN) These pictures were then snipped using the snipping tool and pasted into word where it

was formatted to the correct size. They were then analyzed for differences between years.

Parts two and three were built off of each other. To start, I went to the NJDEP website and

downloaded the necessary data that was being used (Bureau). This data was the land use for 1986 for

Ocean County, and then I downloaded the data for the Monmouth, Assicunk, Mullica, Rancocas and

Barnegat Bay watersheds for 1995, 2002 and 2007. Since The NJDEP did not have the data for 2012/15, I

was unable to obtain the most recent data. The maps were then merged, clipped and exported to

become almost finalized. After that, different colors were added to the map to show the differences in

the six major land uses. After the maps were finished, they were snipped using the snipping tool and

were posted as pictures in the report.

Results:

Part one shows four separate orthographic images of where I live and the surrounding area of

my hometown of Brick, New Jersey. Each image is a different year but of the same area, which shows

the changes in land use. Figures 1 and 2 show the years 1995 and 2002 for Brick. Since I live in the area it

is easy to notice what has changed between the 7 years. Comparing the two figures I placed a yellow

circle around the biggest change in the area. This area has been expanding since the early 2000s and

has become an industrial area with small factories and buildings. In the circle you can see more buildings

in 2002 than in 1995. In figures 1 and 2, there is a red circle showing a storage unit that was built

sometime between 1995 and 2002. These are the two noticeable differences in land use found between

1995 and 2002.

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Figure 1: Orthographic Image of Bricktown, 1995 Figure 2: Orthographic Image of Bricktown, 2002

In figures 2 and 3 there was a blue circle placed to show the construction of another new
building, replacing some wooded area. The new building constructed was a small retirement home built
for seniors.

Figure 3: Orthographic Image of Bricktown, 2007 Figure 4: Orthographic Image of Bricktown, 2015

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 In figures 3 and 4, a thin green circle was placed in another area where there was deforestation
and a second building for the retirement home was in the process of being built.

The results for the study of Brick show no surprises. After the study of the smaller area of Brick
in figures 1 through 4 and seeing the changes, upping it to a larger scale should show the same results.
As you can see in figures 5 and 6 below, they are showing the six major land uses and how the land has
changed between 1995 and 2007 in Brick. Since there is a lot going on in the two maps, the results were
narrowed down even further to include just agriculture, forest, and urban as shown in figures 7 and 8.

Figure 5: GIS map of the six major land uses in Figure 6: GIS map of the six major land uses in
Brick, NJ, 1995 Brick, NJ, 2007

Figures 7 and 8 below show the differences between 3 of the major land use types. Agriculture,
forest and urban are likely the three largest differences in Brick between 1995 and 2007. The black circle
on the two figures was placed to point out an area where major deforestation took place and urban land
increased. Looking at figure 8 you can notice that there is much less green and a lot redder, showing
that urban sprawl is likely taking place. Table 1 shows the results from the data that was taken in four
different years for the six major land uses. It shows that between 1995 and 2007, the total acreage for
urban use increased over 1800 acres. That is a 23% increase in 12 years of just urban land. Agriculture
and forested land plummeted a combined 1,410 acres in those 12 years. The rest of those 400 acres of
urban land gained were due to a loss of wetlands and barren land.

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 Figure 7: GIS map of urban, forested and agricultural Figure 8: GIS map of urban, forested and agricultural
lands in Brick, NJ, 1995 lands in Brick, NJ, 2007

Table 1: List of each land use type within the four years and how much it has changed, measured in acres

Breaking down urban land use even more, a GIS map of commercial and residential land use was
created and is presented in tables 9 and 10 below. As you can see, within the black circle there is an
enormous amount of growth in red. You will notice that in table 2, commercial development almost
doubled in the 12 years, while residential only went up roughly 300 acres. From these results, you can
see that there was a much larger growth in commercial over residential development.

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 Figure 9: GIS map showing residential and commercial Figure 10: GIS map showing residential and commercial
land usage in Brick, NJ, 1995 land usage in Brick, NJ, 2007

Table 2: Commercial and residential land use in 1995 and 2007, measured in acres

The same tests were done to Ocean County, New Jersey and the results were roughly the same
considering the scale. When looking at table 3 between the years of 1995 and 2007, some of the biggest
changes in land use were urban development, agricultural fields, forested areas and barren land. You
can see that urban land has increased over 30,000 acres in Ocean County. Agricultural, forested and
barren lands combined decreased over 14,000 acres.

Table 3: List of each land use type in each year and how much it has changed, measured in acres

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 Below in figures 11 through 14, a visual representation was made in GIS that shows the
differences between agriculture, barren land, forested and urban land uses between 1986 and 2007. As
you can see in the yellow oval urban land has completely taken over in that area, destroying mostly
forested and agricultural land over the 21 year span. The blue oval shows the eastern part of Ocean
County and the urban sprawl taking over mostly forested areas. You can also refer to appendix A to see
all six major land uses in Ocean County in all four years
Figure 11: GIS map of agricultural, barren, forested and Figure 12: GIS map of agricultural, barren, forest and
urban lands in 1986 in Ocean County urban lands in 1995 in Ocean County

Figure 13: GIS map of agricultural, barren, forested and Figure 14: GIS map of agricultural, barren, forest and
urban lands in 2002 in Ocean County urban lands in 2007 in Ocean County

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Discussion:

As you can see, the orthographic images and the two GIS representations of Brick and Ocean

County revolve around the same concepts of urban sprawl. Urban sprawl, refers to the migration of a

population from populated towns and cities to low density residential development over more and

more rural land (Causes). Looking at all three of the assignments in this paper you can see urban areas

are increasing. Urban areas are taking over every major land use including wetlands, water, forests,

agriculture and barren land. According to the world atlas, New Jersey is known to be the most densely

populated state in the United States (Most). Because of the amenities and resources that New Jersey

provides for people, no wonder why there is so much urbanization in New Jersey. In an article written by

Rebecca Forand, she states that Woolrich Township in New Jersey is one of the fastest growing

municipalities on the east coast, and that the population is up 235 percent between 2000 and 2010

(How). They are trying many ideas to try to control the population for example, they want to preserve as

much land as they possibly can so that no more development can take place, curbing the growth in

population. This is one action that some areas such as Ocean County and Brick should start doing. Living

in Brick for 22 years I have witnessed a lot of deforestation and watched many buildings get

constructed, all while there are empty lots and abandoned buildings everywhere around town. This is all

the cause of urban sprawl.

Summary, Conclusion, Recommendation:

When discussing the topic of land usage, the term urban sprawl is almost always mentioned.

Because the United States is growing in population, like most countries, you have to destroy some sort

of habitat to build more residential and commercial buildings. The multiple maps and charts above are

proof that we are losing precious lands to urbanization and that if it continues to happen, green space

will become very limited. There are plenty of ways to reduce the destruction of habitat, but until we can

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actually implement these ideas to save the natural habitat such as wetlands, agricultural lands and

forests, urban sprawl will continue to happen, and will continue to degrade our environment.

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 References

Bureau of GIS. (n.d.). Retrieved February 17, 2017, from http://www.nj.gov/dep/gis/listall.html

Causes and Effects of Urban Sprawl. Retrieved February 17, 2017, from http://www.conserve-

energy-future.com/causes-and-effects-of-urban-sprawl.php

How one N.J. town is working to curb urban sprawl. Retrieved February 17, 2017, from

http://www.nj.com/gloucestercounty/index.ssf/2016/02/how_one_nj_town_is_working_to_cur

b_urban_sprawl.html

Most Densely Populated U.S. States. (2016, July 26). Retrieved February 17, 2017, from

http://www.worldatlas.com/articles/most-densely-populated-u-s-states.html

NJGIN's Information Warehouse. (n.d.). Retrieved February 17, 2017, from

https://njgin.state.nj.us/NJ_NJGINExplorer/IW.jsp

Why is studying land use change important? (n.d.). Retrieved February 17, 2017, from

https://www2.usgs.gov/faq/node/3232

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Appendix A: Ocean County Land Use

GIS map of the six major land uses in Ocean County New Jersey in years 1986, 1995, 2002 and 2007

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