Applied Geography 23 (2003) 159–175

www.elsevier.com/locate/apgeog

Land resource impact indicators of urban

sprawl
John E. Hasse a,, Richard G. Lathrop b
a
Department of Geography and Anthropology, Rowan University, 201 Mullica Hill Road, Glassboro, NJ
08028, USA
b
Rutgers University, Center for Remote Sensing and Spatial Analysis, College Farm Road, Cook
Campus, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA
Accepted 6 August 2003

Abstract

Sprawl has been loosely defined as dispersed and inefficient urban growth. We propose a
series of five indicators that examine the per capita consumption of land taken in new devel-
opment in relation to several critical land resource impacts associated to sprawl including:
(1) density of new urbanization; (2) loss of prime farmland; (3) loss of natural wetlands; (4)
loss of core forest habitat; and (5) increase of impervious surface. These Land Resource
Impact (LRI) indicators were measured for each of New Jersey’s 566 municipalities using a
1986 to 1995 land use/land cover digital database along with US Census population data.
By integrating population growth with land resource loss a more nuanced interpretation of
land use change is provided than in previous analyses of sprawl.
# 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Urban sprawl; Environmental indicators; Urban impacts; Land use/land cover change

Introduction

The phenomenon of sprawling urban development is one of the major forces

driving land use/land cover change in the United States. The US Department of
Agriculture Natural Resource Conservation Service estimates that over 12 million
hectares of land were converted to developed land in the United States during the
15 year period between 1982 and 1997, with over half of newly developed land


Corresponding author. Tel.: +1-856-256-4500x3977; fax: +1-856-256-4670.
E-mail address: [email protected] (J.E. Hasse).

0143-6228/$ - see front matter # 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.apgeog.2003.08.002
160 J.E. Hasse, R.G. Lathrop / Applied Geography 23 (2003) 159–175

coming from farmland and another third from forest land (Natural Resources
Conservation Service, 1999). This dramatic expansion of development at the
expense of open space and natural resource lands has sparked intense interest and
debate over the problems and benefits of ‘urban sprawl.’
The literature on sprawl, with a tinge of irony, is broadly dispersed and multi
faceted. A variety of definitions for sprawl have been put forth that describe sprawl
as a specific form of urban development with low-density, dispersed, auto-depen-
dent and environmentally and socially-impacting characteristics (Ewing, 1997;
Downs, 1998; Burchell & Shad, 1999). The costs and negative externalities of
urban sprawl have been widely studied and documented (Duncan et al., 1989;
Frank, 1989; Kunstler, 1993; Burchell et al., 1998; Kahn, 2000; Freeman, 2001).
Others have pointed out the benefits incurred from sprawl-style development (Gor-
don & Richardson, 1997; Carliner, 1999; Easterbrook, 1999). Of particular concern
is the land-consumptive and inefficient nature of this new urban growth and the
increasing amount of critical land resources lost in relation to human population
growth (Anon,1994, American Farmland Trust, 1997, Burchell et al., 1998; NRCS,
1999; Sierra Club, 1999).
Urban sprawl, as implied by its name, is an inherently dynamic spatial phenom-
enon. A number of recent studies have attempted to develop a means of character-
izing sprawl by measuring particular spatial characteristics associated to sprawl
and comparing between metropolitan areas (Galster, Hanson, Wolman, Coleman
& Freihage, 2001; El Nasser & Overberg, 2001; Ewing, Pendall, & Chen, 2002).
These studies have helped to break new ground in characterizing a challenging and
elusive concept (Galster, Hanson, Wolman, Coleman, & Freihage, 2001). However,
from both a research and practical management standpoint, there is a great need to
further our understanding of the spatial and temporal patterns of urban land use
change, especially in dynamic suburban and exurban areas. To keep up with this
change, agencies from all levels of government and private companies spend mil-
lions of dollars per year obtaining aerial photography and other forms of remotely-
sensed data to extract detailed, up-to-date information about urban/suburban
infrastructure (Jensen & Cowen, 1999). Even so, there is still often a dearth of con-
sistently interpreted, appropriately detailed land use/land cover change (LU/LCC)
data at sufficient time intervals to characterize and monitor urban growth over
broader geographical extents, i.e., larger than a county (Theobald, 2001).
While sheer magnitude of low-density new growth is often pointed to as sprawl,
we suggest that a more nuanced analysis is required. Fine scale information is nee-
ded to directly link ‘from-to’ land use changes and to more closely evaluate land
use change in relation to population change. Unfortunately, most of the current
discussions of urbanization and sprawl in exurban areas are limited by the use of
coarse scale of data aggregated at the state or county level. These aggregated data
and current urban-based definitions poorly capture the fine-grained pattern of land
use change, especially beyond the dynamic urban-rural interface (Theobald, 2001).
Nelson (1999) attempted to develop a series of indicators to examine the efficacy
of growth management policies in Florida, Georgia and Oregon to limit urban
sprawl and the loss of farmland. Nelson relied on spatially aggregated figures of
 J.E. Hasse, R.G. Lathrop / Applied Geography 23 (2003) 159–175 161

urbanized population from the US Census and area of farmland lost from the US
Census of Agriculture. In a later comment, Kline (2000) discussed the weakness of
Nelson’s indicators as providing only an indirect means of comparing land use
change relative to population growth. Kline suggested that a better alternative is to
directly examine rates at which lands in either farm or forest use are converted to
developed uses. He goes on to use the initial National Resources Inventory esti-
mates of developed land change along with population data from the US Bureau
of Census to compare areas of developed land gained per new resident. While this
approach may be useful for comparisons at the state, or even county level, it does
not provide the ability to examine more fine-scaled impacts on important land
resources due to sprawling forms of development.
In this paper, we examine New Jersey as a case study in the development of land
use change indicators as a tool for identifying localities where the least efficient and
most highly impacting forms of urban growth are occurring. As suggested by Nel-
son (1999) and Kline (2000), these indicators will aid in assessing the success or
failure of growth management policies designed to control sprawl and/or protect
specific natural resource lands such as wetlands or prime farmland. The New Jer-
sey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) has included measures of
land use change as environmental indicators to assess the degree to which the state
is meeting its goals for land, natural resources, and water related key issue areas
(Kaplan & Ayers, 2000; Kaplan & McGeorge, 2001). For example, land use
change data are being used to assess whether the state is meeting its milestone of a
net increase in wetlands quantity or no net loss of forested land statewide, as well
as, for each of the state’s watershed management areas (NJDEP, 2000, 2001).
Impervious surface cover is also used as an additional indicator of the intensity of
urban/built-up land use due to its relationship to water quality. However, only
recently has the multi-temporal land use/land cover data set needed to calculate
and map these indicators become available statewide, allowing the state to move
from the conceptual development phase into implementation.
We exploit New Jersey’s recently compiled land cover/land use change dataset
along with US Census, and other environmental data to measure the percent as
well as per capita amount of urban growth and change in selected land resources.
Using the NJDEP’s indicators as a starting point, we propose a series of five indi-
cators to better identify the spatial characteristics and qualities of urban growth
that are especially problematic. These Land Resource Impact (LRI) indicators
were developed for identifying the impact of new urban growth on five specific
critical land resources including: (1) efficiency of land utilization (i.e. density); (2)
prime farmland; (3) forest core area; (4) natural wetlands; and (5) impervious sur-
face. As New Jersey is renowned as a ‘home rule’ state with much of the land use
decision making authority vested in its 566 local municipal governments, it was
deemed vital to track these indicators at a municipal level.
162 J.E. Hasse, R.G. Lathrop / Applied Geography 23 (2003) 159–175

Methods

Study area

As in many other places throughout the nation and around the world, sprawling
urban development and the associated conversion of suburban and exurban lands
have become an important issue facing the state of New Jersey. Located in the
middle of the larger Boston-Washington megalopolis, New Jersey shows a bipolar
distribution of population with dense urban centers adjacent to the New York City
in the northeast and Philadelphia in the southwest (Fig. 1a,b). Outside of this
‘inner ring’ of dense urban areas (both north and south) is an ‘outer ring’ of
medium density suburban areas (e.g., population density of approx. 1.5–10 people
per hectare) that also spans the central neck of the state and extends along the
Atlantic coast and low density rural or exurban areas (e.g., population density of
< approx. 1.5 people per hectare) in the northwestern, central western, southwestern
and Pinelands areas of the state. Examination of recent US Census data reveals the
classic symptoms of urban sprawl with stagnant population growth or even loss in
these older ‘inner ring’ urban centers and moderate to high growth in the ‘outer
ring’ suburbs, as well as hotspots of high growth in some exurban areas (Fig. 1c).
Land use/land cover change dataset

The New Jersey LU/LCC is a statewide digital coverage utilizing a modified

Anderson, Hardy, Roach, & Witmer (1976) classification system for two points in

Fig. 1. New Jersey’s geographical context. Located between the metropolitan areas of New York and
Philadelphia (a), New Jersey is the nation’s most densely populated state. Population densities are great-
est adjacent to the metropolitan areas (b). However the most rapidly growing areas are in the outer ring
and coastal regions (c). Extensive development pressures have elevated urban sprawl to become one of
the state’s top issues of concern.
 J.E. Hasse, R.G. Lathrop / Applied Geography 23 (2003) 159–175 163

time, 1986 and 1995 (Thornton et al., 2001). The NJ dataset was produced from an
original 1986 land use/land cover dataset delineated from 1986 orthophotoquads.
The dataset was updated to 1995/97 and enhanced in spatial accuracy through
‘heads-up’ on-screen digitizing and editing techniques. The 1995/97 digital imagery
were color infrared USGS digital orthophoto quarter quads (DOQQs) (1:12,000
scale) with 1-m grid cell resolution. Data were delineated to a spatial accuracy of
60 ft (18.3 m) in the original 1986 data and further adjusted in the 1995/97
update. A minimum mapping unit of 1 acre (0.40 ha) was utilized for delineating
features as well as a 60 ft (18.3 m) minimum width for mapping linear features.
Each polygon of the LU/LC has multiple attributes including: LU/LC1986, LU/
LC1995, impervious surface percentage, text descriptor and more. Analysis for
LU/LC can be made using GIS for any ‘area of interest’: municipalities, counties,
watershed management areas, sub-watersheds, administrative boundary, buffer, or
any other boundary created by the user. Since the dataset was compiled by expert
photo-interpretation, the level of accuracy exceeded that which is possible from
other computer-classified remote sensing-based datasets available for New Jersey
(Lathrop & Hasse, 2003), and has a high degree of reliability for analyzing detailed
land use/land cover change along the rural-urban fringe. Data are freely available
in ESRI shapefile format at www.state.nj.us/dep/gis.
Land resource impact indicators

The vector LU/LCC coverage was rasterized to facilitate spatial tabulations at

both the statewide and municipal level. The grid cell size selected was 25 m render-
ing a spatial extent of 10,783 rows by 5680 columns. Municipal population esti-
mates were calculated from 1980, 1990 and 2000 census counts (NJSDC, 2001) by
simple linear interpolation for 1986 and 1995 to coincide with the dates of the LU/
LCC dataset delineations. The percent as well as per capita amount of urban
growth and change in selected land resources were measured for each of New Jer-
sey’s 566 municipalities.
The LRI indicators examine the impact of new development on five specific criti-
cal land resources including: (1) efficiency of land utilization (i.e. density); (2) prime
farmland; (3) forest core area; (4) natural wetlands; and (5) impervious surface.
The individual LRI indicators provide useful metrics for focusing on individual
resource impacts. To locate more problematic overall trends of land resource
impacts attributable to sprawling urban growth, the five LRI indicators were sum-
med by municipality to provide a combined-LRI indicator. The combined-LRI
indicator was calculated in two forms, as percent cumulative rank and as per
capita cumulative rank.
Density—Land is a limited resource, especially in a densely populated state such
as New Jersey. The density index provides a measure of land consumption for new
urban growth. Percent population change (PopDpct ) was calculated by comparing
the difference in population between 1995 and 1986 over the population in 1986.
The urban density LRI indicators were generated by tabulating the area of all non-
urban land use categories in 1986 that became urbanized by 1995 within each
164 J.E. Hasse, R.G. Lathrop / Applied Geography 23 (2003) 159–175

municipality. The percent growth metric (UGpct ) was calculated by normalizing

the area of new growth by the total municipality area. The per capita metric
(UGpercap ) was calculated by normalizing the area of new growth by the concurrent
change in population.
Farmland loss—As its ‘Garden State’ nickname implies, agriculture is an impor-
tant component of the New Jersey economy. New Jersey has a multi-faceted farm-
land preservation strategy that includes both legislated right-to-farm provisions,
tax incentives and an ambitious acquisition program (New Jersey Future, 2003). Of
particular concern for the long-term competitiveness and sustainability of agri-
culture is the loss of the prime farmlands. These are agricultural areas endowed with
Class I and Class II prime soils which are suited for long-term agricultural viability.
The prime farmland loss LRI indicators quantify the amount of prime farmland
loss to urban growth. The indicators were developed by first creating a raster-based
map of prime farm soils from NRCS SSURGO digital soils data utilizing the
prime farm soils attribute of the map unit lookup table (NJ NRCS, 2001). NJDEP
soils datasets were utilized for several counties that have yet to complete SSURGO
datasets. This statewide prime farm soils map was then intersected with the agricul-
tural categories of the NJDEP LU/LCC dataset to produce a digital prime farm-
land map.
The prime farmland loss LRI indicators were generated by tabulating the area of
all prime farm land use categories in 1986 that became urbanized by 1995 for each
unit of analysis, in this case municipalities. Percent prime farmland loss (PFpct )
was calculated by normalizing the area of prime farmland that converted to urban
land by the starting area of prime farmland (as of 1986). The per capita metric
(PFpercap ) was generated by normalizing the amount of prime farmland loss by
the concurrent increase in population.
Forest core habitat loss—Forest habitat loss is of concern throughout the state as
dispersed sprawling development has removed forest habitats and fragmented the
remaining forest areas into smaller pieces. While the loss of all forests is significant,
the loss of interior or core forest area has significant implications for wildlife habi-
tat sustainability and forest land management. To counteract the loss of core forest
habitat, the NJDEP has implemented what it terms the Landscape Project to pro-
mote the protection of these contiguous forest areas (Niles & Valent, 1999).
Forest core areas were generated for 1986 by extracting all mature upland and
wetland forest land use/land cover categories from the NJDEP dataset while
excluding the transitional wooded categories (e.g., scrub/shrub). Consistent with
Landscape Project protocols, core forests include patches that are buffered 90 m
from peripheral human altered land use classes. In this study, the 1986 mature for-
ested land use patches were buffered 100 m (the buffer was rounded to 100 m to be
consistent with the 25 m raster cell size of the dataset) interior from the periphery
of all human altered land use classes including all urban, all agriculture and several
human-altered barren classes.
The forest core loss was generated by intersecting the 1986 forest core map with
a 100 meter buffer from all new 1995 urban growth. The percent forest core loss
 J.E. Hasse, R.G. Lathrop / Applied Geography 23 (2003) 159–175 165

LRI indicator (FCpct ) was generated by normalizing the area of forest core loss by
the area of previous forest core for each unit of analysis (i.e. the amount of forest
core in 1986). Per capita forest core loss (FCpercap ) was generated by normalizing
the area of forest core loss by the population increase for each unit of analysis.
Natural wetlands loss—Once thought of as swampland or wasteland, wetlands
have become recognized as critical for the ecological and hydrological health of a
landscape. Loss of wetlands has implications for water quality/quantity and wild-
life habitat. The wetlands LRI indicators were developed by extracting the wet-
lands categories from the dataset (i.e. 6000 level) that had converted to urban land
uses. Only comparatively un- or minimally altered wetlands (i.e., excluding agricul-
tural, urban or disturbed wetlands or wetlands rights-of-way) were used in the
analysis. The percent wetlands loss value (WLpct ) was generated by normalizing the
area of wetlands that became urbanized by the original area of wetlands (as of
1986). The per capita wetlands LRI indicator (WLpercap ) was generated by normal-
izing the area of wetlands lost to urbanization by the population growth within
the unit area of analysis.
Impervious surface increase—Impervious surface is becoming an important indi-
cator of water quality degradation within a watershed (Arnold & Gibbons, 1996;
Brabec, Schulte, & Richards, 2002). Impervious surfaces created by parking lots,
road ways and building footprints prevent ground water infiltration, increase
stream surges and channel non point source pollution directly into water bodies
(Kaplan & Ayers, 2000). Estimates of impervious surface are included for each
1995 land use polygon in the NJ LU/LCC data set and were summarized for areas
of new urban growth within the unit area of analysis. In order to estimate the
impervious cover that existed in 1986, polygons that became urbanized during the
1986–1995 study period were assumed to have no impervious coverage in their
1986 condition. The percent impervious surface increase metric (ISpct ) was gener-
ated by normalizing the area of impervious surface estimated for new development
by the impervious surface estimated for previously existing 1986 urban areas. The
per capita impervious surface metric (ISpercap ) was tabulated by normalizing the
estimated area of new impervious surface by the population growth within the unit
area of analysis.

Results

Land Resource Impact indicators were calculated on a municipal scale to ident-

ify localities that experienced the most highly impacting patterns of development in
relation to the selected critical land resources. While the LRIs are designed to
gauge land resource impacts against population growth, a significant number of
municipalities actually lost population during the period of analysis requiring sep-
arate treatment in the analysis (Fig. 1c). Population losers fell into two camps:
older urban/suburban municipalities and rural communities. Most population
losers were older urban and inner-ring suburban communities experiencing out-
migration of populations to the growing outer-ring suburbs. Although urban
166 J.E. Hasse, R.G. Lathrop / Applied Geography 23 (2003) 159–175

and suburban decay are intimately connected to issues surrounding suburban

sprawl, these communities are for the most part already built-out and therefore do
not incur major additional impacts to critical land resources. However, a number
of rural municipalities not only lost population but actually developed significant
tracts of new land. These municipalities exemplify shifting internal urban land use
patterns and suggest problematic sprawling conditions where older urban centers
in these rural towns are abandoned for new housing in the periphery. The popu-
lation-losing municipalities were removed from the per capita land use change
analysis due to the nonsensical nature of the resulting metric value (i.e. negative
value).
Table 1 provides summary statistics for the LRI values by municipality for local-
ities that experienced population growth. Upon examination of municipalities that
increased in population in New Jersey between 1986 and 1995, we find that on
average for each additional new resident: 0.23 ha of land was consumed; 0.05 ha of
prime farmland, 0.10 ha of forest core habitat and 0.02 ha of natural wetlands
were lost; and 0.05 ha of impervious surface were created. These summary statistics
provide a baseline by which municipalities can be gauged as experiencing more
impacting or less impacting patterns of growth than other New Jersey munici-
palities on average for each metric.
Urban growth during the period between 1986 and 1995 follows an S-shaped
curve starting in the northern part of the state swinging west then east across the
central neck of New Jersey and then south and west (Fig. 2a). In southern New
Jersey the pattern diverges around the Pinelands National Reserve with growth lin-
ing the Atlantic coastal region and in an arc fringing the Philadelphia-Camden
suburbs. Fig. 2b shows the pattern of urban growth in percent of total municipal
land area demonstrating how extensive new urbanization is occurring across the
state with a large number of municipalities experiencing significant growth rates
(e.g., > 5.5% increase in urban area). The per capita urban growth map (Fig. 2c)
highlights the urban growth that has occurred in the more exurban areas of the
state. It is in these relatively rural municipalities that large lot development is rap-
idly consuming large land areas. Areas of negative population growth (shown as
cross-hatched in Fig. 2c) are shown centered around the inner ring of New York
City suburbs in northeast NJ, the older urban centers along the southern Delaware

Table 1
Summary statistics for LRI indicators for municipalities that gained population
PopDpct UGpct PFpct FCpct WLpct Spct
Mean: 12.2 13.0 9.4 11.7 3.1 11.2
Median: 8.1 8.8 2.4 5.8 1.0 7.9
Max: 70.7 78.6 100.0 100.0 100.0 70.4

UGpercap PFpercap FCpercap WLpercap ISpercap

Mean: 0.232 0.053 0.103 0.014 0.052
Median: 0.109 0.004 0.020 0.005 0.030
Max: 3.823 1.769 3.000 0.646 1.183
 J.E. Hasse, R.G. Lathrop / Applied Geography 23 (2003) 159–175 167

Fig. 2. Urban growth as depicted by: (a) raw land use/land cover change, (b) percentage areal growth
by municipality, and (c) per capita areal growth (i.e density) by municipality.

River valley (e.g., Camden and Salem areas) and the south central Pinelands region
which is home to Fort Dix Military Reservation and McGuire Air Force Base.
During the 1986 to 1995 study period, 23,314 ha of farmland were lost directly
to new urban growth (Hasse & Lathrop, 2001). What is perhaps more significant is
the loss of prime farmland (Fig. 3a). While prime farmland accounted for 53% of

Fig. 3. Prime farmland loss as depicted by: (a) raw land use/land cover change, (b) percentage areal loss
of prime farmland attributed to urban growth by municipality, and (c) per capita areal loss of prime
farmland by municipality.
168 J.E. Hasse, R.G. Lathrop / Applied Geography 23 (2003) 159–175

all farmland under the plow in 1986, it accounted for 60% of the development that
occurred on farmland. This loss suggests that prime farmland is more vulnerable to
urbanization than non-prime farmland. The percentage prime farmland loss indi-
cator shows the greatest hotspots of farm loss were in those municipalities adjacent
to the urban cores of northeast, central and southwest New Jersey (Fig. 3b). While
the absolute magnitudes observed were not necessarily the largest, these munici-
palities lost high percentages of their existing available prime farmland (using the
amount of prime farmland in 1986 in each municipality as the basis). In compari-
son, the per capita farmland loss shows a dramatically different pattern with the
highest values occurring in what have been largely rural farming areas of north-
western and southwestern New Jersey (Fig. 3c). The percentage prime farm loss
indicator shows where farming is most at risk by highlighting areas where the last
remaining prime farmland is being lost. The per capita indicator shows prime
farmland loss from a different perspective by highlighting those communities where
farmland is being consumed at a comparatively high per capita rate.
The largest single type of landscape change that occurred to development growth
in New Jersey over the last decade was the urbanization of forested lands. A total
of 27,158 ha of forested land were converted to urban land uses during the nine-
year period of analysis (Hasse & Lathrop, 2001). Core forest loss totaled 26,931 ha
during the same time period (Fig. 4a). The percentage forest core indicator map
(Fig. 4b) shows a pattern similar to that of the percentage prime farmland loss
with the hotspots of loss centered around the outer ring of northeast, central and
southwest suburbs but also additional hotspots along the Atlantic coastal plain.

Fig. 4. Forest core loss as depicted by: (a) raw land use/land cover change, (b) percentage areal loss of
forest core attributed to urban growth by municipality, and (c) per capita areal loss of forest core by
municipality.
 J.E. Hasse, R.G. Lathrop / Applied Geography 23 (2003) 159–175 169

Fig. 5. Wetlands loss as depicted by: (a) raw land use/land cover change, (b) percentage areal loss of
natural wetlands attributed to urban growth by municipality, and (c) per capita areal loss of natural
wetlands by municipality.

The per capita indicator highlights the greatest losses in the still largely forested
regions of northern and southern New Jersey (Fig. 4c).
A total of 10,433 ha of unaltered natural wetlands were converted to developed
uses from 1986 to 1995, generally in small patches (Fig. 5a). The percentage wet-
land loss map (Fig. 5b) shows the greatest percentage losses of the remaining stock
of undisturbed wetlands occurred in the urban and more densely settled suburban
municipalities where wetlands often represent the last remaining areas of undevel-
oped land. The per capita wetlands loss map (Fig. 5c) shows a more scattered pat-
tern with the highest values found in some of the more established but still
expanding suburban areas in central NJ as well as more rural areas that are on the
outer fringes of expanding suburban development in both southern and northern NJ.
Approximately 15,460 ha of impervious surface were added between 1986 and
1995, which equates to a 9.2% increase statewide. As expected, the impervious sur-
face increase map (Fig. 6a) closely matches the spatial pattern of the urban growth
map (Fig. 2a). Impervious surface has increased in a comparatively consistent basis
in municipalities across the state with the exception of the already ‘built-out’ urban
core and a handful of rural municipalities (Fig. 6b). Per capita impervious surface
increase shows a more localized pattern highlighting a comparatively small number
of municipalities as being hotspots of large per capita impervious surface gains
(Fig. 6c).
The combined-LRI indicator measures provide a composite view to examine the
coincidence of the individual land resource impacts. Fig. 7a,b respectively depict
the percent cumulative and the per capita cumulative sum for all five individual
metrics. The municipalities with the greatest combined percent change—LRI’s were
170 J.E. Hasse, R.G. Lathrop / Applied Geography 23 (2003) 159–175

Fig. 6. Impervious surface increase as depicted by: (a) raw land use/land cover change, (b) percentage
areal increase of impervious surface by municipality, and (c) per capita areal loss of natural wetlands by
municipality.

generally those in or directly adjacent to the more established ‘outer ring’ suburbs.
In contrast, the municipalities with the greatest cumulative per capita LRI’s were
generally those in the more rural exurban areas. The most overall sprawling muni-

Fig. 7. Summation of the individual LRI components provides a means of characterizing overall land
resource impacts. Cumulative percent impact (a) demonstrates patterns of significant magnitudes of
overall impact on critical land resources. Cumulative per capita impact (b) demonstrates patterns of
inefficient resource impact in relation to the number of residents accommodated with new housing.
Municipalities with both above average percent and per capita impacts (c) characterize the most inef-
ficient patterns of urban growth (i.e. sprawl) in relation to land resource impacts.
 J.E. Hasse, R.G. Lathrop / Applied Geography 23 (2003) 159–175 171

cipalities in terms of land resource impacts were identified by selecting munici-

palities that exhibited both above average percentage and above average per capita
LRI’s (Fig. 7c). These municipalities stand out as experiencing the most significant
magnitudes of impacts to land resources while doing so in a relatively inefficient
manner in terms of the number of new residents accommodated by the growth.

Discussion

The NJDEP LU/LCC data set provides a rich data set with which to examine
the subtleties of New Jersey’s dynamic landscape and the impact of sprawling
urban growth. However, one can easily get lost in the complex dynamics and mul-
tiple transitions between numerous LU/LC categories; thus the need to clarify the
picture through the use of comparatively simple indicators. The suite of additional
LU/LCC-based indicators, what we term Land Resource Impact (LRI) indicators,
provide an alternative and more sophisticated means of quantifying the impact of
spatial patterns of urban growth on these important land resources. Recognizing
that not all urban growth has equivalent impact, our LRI indicators attempt to
further restrict the possible set of land use/land cover changes and focus only on
those aspects of urban growth that we consider especially significant in terms of
their stresses on critical land and natural resources. For example, the Prime Farm
LRI measures only the loss of farmland on the prime farm soils, the soils that are
most critical to the long-term sustainability of agriculture in the state. Likewise, the
Forest Core LRI attempts to focus efforts on the core or interior forest habitat, the
habitat that is most critical to the long-term preservation of forest-dependent wild-
life that are threatened or endangered within the state. While derived from the
NJDEP LU/LCC data set, they require either additional GIS data sets (e.g., the
prime farm soils coverage) or additional spatial analysis (e.g., edge-buffering to
determine interior forests). This additional data or processing is not prohibitive
and easily accomplished at a statewide scale, as we’ve demonstrated.
While overall magnitude of low-density new growth is itself an indicator of
sprawl, we propose that it is necessary to de-couple the amount of growth from the
problematic or dysfunctional characteristics imparted by sprawling growth. In con-
sidering long-term sustainability of development, it is important to consider the
efficiency of new development (i.e., hectares of new development in relation to
number of people supported). Under this reasoning, sprawl is considered inefficient
new urban growth. In an attempt to quantify this aspect of urban sprawl, we calcu-
lated our five LRI indicators on both a percentage and per capita basis. It is our
contention that the straight percentage and the per capita measures provide comp-
lementary information with which to examine the spatial patterns of land use/land
cover change associated to sprawl. The percent change indicators measure the
impact on the selected geographic unit’s remaining land resources; while the per
capita indicator provides a measure of land use efficiency of the new urban growth.
In combination, the LRI indicators provide a means of identifying localities (e.g.,
municipalities) where the least efficient and most highly impacting forms of urban
growth were occurring.
172 J.E. Hasse, R.G. Lathrop / Applied Geography 23 (2003) 159–175

A number of important issues must be adequately handled in the LRI approach

to characterizing sprawl. Whereas the absolute and percent measures of LU/LC
change are comparatively straight forward to calculate and interpret, the per capita
measures can be more problematic. One confounding factor is that the per capita
measures rely on population census data that may not be concurrent in time or
correspond to the same geographic units as the LU/LCC data. Certain assump-
tions are then necessary in order to bring the two data sets to a comparable frame-
work. In our analysis, we used linear interpolation to derive the municipal
population estimates and are thus assuming a constant rate of growth between the
decennial census endpoints. A second limitation is that negative population growth
becomes difficult to handle. We did not attempt to further correct for negative
population numbers but instead flagged those municipalities as population losers
and did not calculate a per capita indicator value. A third complication is that the
per capita measures (as we have calculated them) do not explicitly account for
commercial/industrial development separate from residential development. This
distinction might be useful in examining the relative balance between these two
types of development.
Issues of scale are also central to geospatial analysis of urbanization. The areal
unit of analysis chosen for this study was strictly the local municipality. Due to the
sometimes arbitrary nature of municipal boundaries, somewhat different results
would most likely be obtained had a different geographic unit been chosen (i.e. the
modifiable area unit problem, Openshaw, 1984a). Other spatial units such as cen-
sus tracts, zoning regions, counties, watersheds or even parcels could be reasonably
utilized for analysis of land resource impacts at alternate scales so long as concur-
rent population data were available at the same unit of measurement. However, as
there is a close correspondence between municipal units and New Jersey’s locally-
controlled land use decision-making system, a strong argument can be made for
the appropriateness of municipalities as the geographic unit of choice in the case of
New Jersey. Regardless of the scale of analysis utilized, care must be exercised not
to assume that all sub units of urban growth within the unit of analysis have the
same value as the overall unit of analysis (Openshaw, 1984b). Substantial variation
is likely to occur within the unit of analysis as is suggested by the rural munici-
palities that lost population but still developed significant areas of land. A parcel
level analysis would be required to calculate a truly per capita ecological footprint
rather than the municipal average as presented here (Hasse & Lathrop, 2003).
Nonetheless, municipal summaries provide a powerful means of identifying local-
ities with inefficient patterns of land development. Analysis of these data at the
municipal level enables local decision-makers and citizens a window into what has
been occurring in their communities over time.

Conclusion

Sprawling urban growth as it is exhibited in New Jersey and elsewhere in the

United States as well as around the globe, has significant associated social and
 J.E. Hasse, R.G. Lathrop / Applied Geography 23 (2003) 159–175 173

environmental costs and represents a major challenge to land use planning and
management in the coming century. Appropriate land use change data sets and
analytical tools are needed to understand and monitor the patterns and processes
involved in the phenomenon of urbanization. While sprawling patterns of develop-
ment may exhibit many social and environmental impacts unable to be captured by
a geospatial approach, the LRI indicators developed in this research present one
suite of measures for analyzing significant specific landscape impacts to critical
natural resources attributable to sprawling urban growth.
The LRI indicators provide an empirical approach for identifying, comparing
and contrasting development patterns in a markedly more detailed manner for fur-
ther investigation of the underlying processes at play. By identifying the munici-
palities experiencing the most highly impacting (and conversely least impacting)
patterns of development growth on important land resources, policy makers and
researchers can gain better insight into the contributing factors that have resulted
in the most problematic (or least problematic) development patterns now and into
the future.

Acknowledgements

The authors are especially grateful to Marjorie Kaplan (NJDEP) for her exten-
sive feedback, the anonymous reviewers, and the helpful contributions of John
Bognar, Esther Mas and other contributors to the project. This research is
especially indebted to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection
and the team responsible for the development of New Jersey’s digital land use/land
cover change database.

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