Ocean County Land Cover Data Analysis

Migle Kavaliauskaite and Connor J Healy

ENVL 4300

Professor Chirenje

Stockton University

8 February 2018
Abstract

Growing human population, economic development, natural resource use, all contribute to land

use changes within states, counties and townships. This change can be analyzed to demonstrate

historic land use changes as well as be used to plan for the future. For this report, land use

changes in Ocean County and Jackson Township were analyzed for the years 1986-2012. Land

use data provided by New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection were used to create

maps portraying variations in six land use type categories- urban, forest, wetlands, water, barren

and agricultural land. Analyzation of these maps showed an increasing trend in acreage for urban

and water categories in Ocean County and Jackson Township. Urban area increased by more

than 33,000 and 5,000 acres in the county and township respectively. A loss in acreage was

observed for the remaining four categories- wetlands, forest, barren and agricultural land, with

forest losing the highest number of acres- 24,000 and 12,000 acres in the county and township

respectively. The changes in land use could be attributed to the population increase and

economic growth in the study areas, resulting in urbanization of previously undeveloped areas.

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................................... i
Introduction ..................................................................................................................................1
Objectives .....................................................................................................................................2
Methods ........................................................................................................................................2
Results and Discussion .................................................................................................................3
Ocean County.......................................................................................................................3
Jackson Township ................................................................................................................8
Neighborhood Orthoquads .................................................................................................13
Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................14
REFERENCES ..............................................................................................................................15
APPENDICES ...............................................................................................................................16
Appendix A – Ocean County Urban Land Use ..........................................................................16
Appendix B – Jackson Township Urban Land Use ...................................................................17

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Introduction
Every state divides its land into categories based on its land use/ land cover. One of such

systems, which is also used in data analysis for this report, is the Anderson Classification

System. The system assigns a four digit code to a land use type (urban, agriculture, forest, water,

wetlands and barren land) in addition to the type of land cover found in that area for example,

residential, industrial, recreational etc. for urban; deciduous, coniferous for forest and so on

(“Land Use 2012 Code List”). Assigning land use/land cover codes allows for easier mapping

and analysis of areas of interest. Since humans depend on land for housing, food and recreational

activities, it is an essential component of our lives. As countries worldwide become more

developed and urbanized, it becomes ever so important to monitor the land use changes because

of how dependent we are on the land and what it provides. However, land use changes often

carry negative environmental impacts. Land development can result in stormwater runoff into

nearby water bodies preventing soil infiltration and aquifer recharge; more commercial

infrastructure could result in more frequent point source water pollution (“Land Use”). Air

quality is also negatively affected as air filtering trees are cut down and replaced by towns and

the reliance on polluting transportation. Increased demand of food production and expanding

agriculture could affect the water supply through pesticide, fertilizer and animal manure runoff

and unsustainable farming practices could degrade soil quality, making food production more

energy and resource intensive. Being able to monitor these and other changes on a year to year

basis allow for appropriate policy decisions to be implemented but some trade-offs will have to

be made. For example, policies directed toward preservation of forested land would decrease rate

of deforestation but on the other hand constrict the spread and development of urban

communities, resulting in greater extent of paved areas (“Land Use and Land Cover Change”).

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 Land use change has to be monitored and appropriate policies need to be assessed which

take into consideration the present and future implications of these policies on people and the

environment. This report seeks to demonstrate land use change in Ocean County and the

Township of Jackson during the years 1986-2012 as well as discuss the reasons behind these

land use changes.

Objectives

The objectives of this lab are to determine land use changes in Ocean County over the

last 30 years; to understand the process of Geographic Information data acquisition from various

online sources; and transform the data into maps to analyze the land use/land cover at the

municipal and county levels.

Methods
Before analyzing the land cover/land use types of Ocean County, the necessary data was

acquired from the New Jersey DEP website (“NJDEP Digital Downloads”, 2018). The data

utilized was the land use /land cover data of Watershed Management areas 12, 13, 14, 19, and

20; for the years 1995, 2002, 2007, 2012. Data for the year of 1986 was broken down into

counties instead of the Watershed Management Areas. For 1995 the coordinate system had to be

defined as New Jersey State Plane NAD1983 (US Feet), before moving forward with the process

of analyzing the land use/ land cover data.

After the data acquisition was completed a Geodatabase was created in ArcMap and

Ocean County boundaries were added as a feature class. Through the use of Geoprocessing tools,

the Watershed Management Areas were merged together to form one feature class for each

individual year, clipped to the boundaries of the Ocean County feature class and exported to the

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Geodatabase. Using the field calculator tool in the ArcMap attribute table the square footage area

of the Shape_Area field was converted to acreage of each land use type for every year.

Once the acreage was calculated, the symbology of the maps were manipulated to show

the land use types in the county. Urban areas were displayed in red, agriculture areas in light

green, forested areas in dark green, water in blue, wetlands in yellow and barren land in brown.

The increase in urban area was looked at more in depth, differences were looked at

between 1986 and 2012. Through selecting all of the urban land use codes in the attribute table,

the differences in the two years were then able to be displayed on adjacent maps.

The largest town in the County, Jackson Township, was looked at next. To do this the

shapefile of New Jersey municipalities was brought into ArcMap, Jackson Township was

selected and exported as a feature class to the Geodatabase. The steps used to process and

analyze land use of Ocean County were repeated for Jackson Township to display the changes

over the years.

To further analyze the change in land use within Jackson Township, raster images

(Orthoquads) of developments along West Veterans Highway were downloaded from the New

Jersey Geographic Information Network Information Warehouse website (“NJGIN”). These

images allowed for a visual analysis of land use changes to be conducted.

Results & Discussion

Ocean County

As the years progressed from 1986 to 2012, urban area in Ocean County expanded West

along the border with Monmouth County and South along the coastline from the North Eastern

extent of the county (Figure 1). It was found that forested areas in Ocean County showed the

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greatest decrease in acreage, with a net loss of 24,330 acres (-12.6 percent) over the 26 year

span. Urban areas displayed the greatest net increase in acreage between 1986 and 2012, with a

net gain of 33,565 acres (42.9 percent). The largest spike in urban expansion was between 1995

and 2002, where the acreage increased by 11,837 acres (12.9 percent). Urban areas took over

what was once barren land and forested land to the North West and wetlands along the coast.

One of the main factors behind the growth into wetland areas was the aesthetic values of

Barnegat bay and the surrounding rivers. Another factor is the proximity to the many beaches

and attractions along the ocean such as Seaside, Long Beach Island and Point Pleasant. It can

also be seen that water is penetrating further into the wetlands along the coast and barren land

further away from the shore, due to sea levels rising at around 4mm/year and a noteworthy

increase in precipitation since the late 1800s (NJDEP, 2017).

Figure 1: Maps of Ocean County displaying the six categories of land use types for the years of
1986, 1995, 2002, 2007, 2012.

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 As shown in Table 1 and Figure 2, in Ocean County forested land acreage decreased the

most (24,330) followed by agricultural land (5,901), barren land (5,017) and wetlands (1,329).

In total, 36,577 acres were over taken by urban development or water.

Table 1: Acreage of the six land use type categories for Ocean County in addition to the net
change for each of the categories over the twenty six year span.
Land Use Type Agriculture Barren Land Forest Urban Water Wetlands Total
1986 11,374 12,065 199,321 78,317 83,699 100,799 485,575
1995 7,691 9,939 192,796 88,444 83,316 102,890 485,076
2002 6,277 9,205 184,270 100,281 84,112 100,931 485,076
2007 5,835 7,818 176,304 109,146 85,844 100,129 485,076
2012 5,473 7,048 174,991 111,882 86,213 99,470 485,077
Net Change -5,901 -5,017 -24,330 33,565 2,514 -1,329

However, the percent decrease of each category shows that agricultural land had the

biggest loss of acreage with a 51.9 percent loss; barren land decreased by 41.6 percent; forested

land acreage decreased by 12.2 percent; and wetlands area declined by 1.3 percent. Urban land

and water were the only categories that increased along the timeline with an increase of 33,565

acres (42.9 percent) for urban development and 2,514 acres (3.0 percent) of water area.

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Figure 2: Graph of changes in land use types in Ocean County.

Looking further into the urban land increases throughout Ocean County it was found that

residential areas held the largest increase by acreage. More specifically, Single family units of lot

sizes up to one half acre, (land use code 1120), had the largest increase from 1986-2012

condensed into the North East section of the county and down along the coast (Figure 3). There

were also small clusters of this category dispersed throughout the center of the county and in the

North West portion. The second highest increase in acreage is in high density single family

homes or multi-family homes, (land use code 1110), located in the North Eastern region and

along the Atlantic Ocean on the barrier islands (i.e. Long Beach Island and Seaside Heights).

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 Figure 3: Maps of Ocean County, displaying urban land cover differences between 1986

and 2012.

In December of 2011, the Ocean County Planning Board published their Comprehensive

Master Plan. Planning Areas from the State Development and Redevelopment Plan were

implemented in Ocean County to restrict the development of the county in certain areas. The

determining factor for each area is the percentage of impervious soil coverage. Ranging from 30

percent in PA2 (Suburban Planning Areas) to 0.3 percent in PA5 (Environmentally Sensitive

Planning Area). Planning Areas 4 and 5 do have exceptions being rural areas and barrier islands;

because of the economic importance of these areas (Ocean County Planning Board, 2011). These

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planning areas have kept development from moving inland towards the New Jersey Pinelands

National Reserve and concentrated towards the shore in the East and Northern part of the

County. As urban development travels to the west along the Northern extent of the county, it

becomes more fragmented and spread out.

Jackson Township

The land use change in Jackson Township between the years 1986 and 2012 is illustrated

in Figures 3 and 4. It can be observed that barren land (depicted in brown) in the south east part

of the town decreased in area, being replaced by water and urban land. Barren land on the east

border also disappeared from the map from 1986 to 1995.

Figure 4: Maps showing land use changes in Jackson Township over a twenty-six year period.

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 The decrease of barren land is further reinforced by the data in Table 2, which shows that

between 1986 and 1995, 972 acres of barren land were lost, which is more than during any other

year interval.

Table 2: Land use change in acres for the six land use type categories in Jackson Township. The
greatest net changes are seen in forest and urban categories.
Land Use Type Agriculture Barren Land Forest Urban Water Wetlands Total
1986 3,171 2,920 41,370 12,696 935 17,519 78,611
1995 2,485 1,948 33,654 11,992 1,041 17,937 69,057
2002 1,861 1,872 30,966 15,022 1,105 17,622 68,448
2007 1,534 1,699 29,205 17,182 1,256 17,390 68,266
2012 1,501 1,391 28,656 17,790 1,272 17,395 68,005
Net Change -1,670 -1,529 -12,714 5,094 337 -124

Another big change in land use occurred within agriculture. In 1986, 1995 and 2002,

agricultural land is visible in the north east section of the town but beginning in 2007, this land

was replaced by barren land or became urbanized. Over 52 percent (1,670 acres) of agricultural

land was lost during the twenty-six year period. The greatest decrease in acreage however, was

in the forest land use category. More than 30 percent of forest land was lost between 1986 and

2012, accounting for 12,714 acres. While the largest portion of land was lost by agriculture, the

greatest acreage loss was incurred by forested land. Forested land was lost throughout the

township, mainly being replaced by urban land. The increase and decrease of land use acreages

for the five years of study in Jackson Township are illustrated in Figure 5 below.

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Figure 5: Graph of changes in each of the land use types in Jackson Township.

Specific changes in the land use/ land cover within the urban category are demonstrated

in Figure 6. The figure shows the total gain, loss or conversion of the land use cover during the

twenty six years of study. It is evident that urbanization of land occurred throughout the

Township, but it mostly changed the north east portion of the town. Much of the land use

category 1100 (single family residences/ multiple unit dwellings) switched to 1120 (single unit,

medium density) between 1986 and 2012.

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Figure 6: Maps of Jackson Township showing the changes in urban land use/ land cover
between 1986 and 2012.

Another important trend is the emergence of 1130 (single unit, low density) land use throughout

the town, replacing previously forested land. In fact, this land use type increased the most in

acreage, from zero in 1986 to over 5,000 acres by 2012 (See Appendix B). A conversion of land

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use type occurred between types 1211 (military reservations) and 1700 (other urban or built-up

land). The largest decrease in acreage from 1986 to 2012 within urban land use occurred with

land use codes 1100 (single family residences/ multiple unit dwellings), 1211 (military

reservations), and 1400 (transportation, communication and utilities). The acreages of all land

uses can be found in Appendix B.

Many factors can be attributed to the loss or growth of certain land use areas. The growth

of urban land in Jackson Township could be due to population increase and economic growth. As

economy increases and becomes more commercialized, it attracts people with work and living

opportunities. As more people move into the region, the town is forced to develop more of its

land to accommodate the growing population. Jackson Township increased from 33,233 people

in 1990 (“Population Data”) to 55,479 in 2012 (United States Census Bureau, 2017). The town

would be very cramped in certain areas with the addition of 23,000 residents if no expansion was

made. An example of this expansion and redevelopment of land in Jackson is discussed later in

this report, for the area surrounding the West Veterans Highway for the years 1995 and 2015.

The only other land use category which increased in acreage was water. The increase of water

seen after 1986 in the southern part of the town is due to a manmade quarry which was filled in

with rain water.

The decrease in forest covered area is largely due to urbanization. Based on a study done

by Rutgers University, it was found that 23,458 acres of developable land was available in

Jackson Township as of 1995 (Ocean County Department of Planning, 2004). This available land

decreased to 15,826 acres by 2009 (Alaimo Group, 2009). Majority of the housing in the town is

occupied by single family, detached homes. In 2000, 81.7 percent of the total housing (or 14,638

units) consisted of single family housing (Ocean County Department of Planning, 2004).

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Between the years 2000 and 2009 the total number of households increased from 14,640 (Ocean

County Department of Planning, 2004) to 19,423 units (Alaimo Group, 2009). Every year new

developments are made, reducing forested and barren land areas. The Township’s 2009 Master

Plan Report noted that development in the town is entering a development phase in which further

development will have to balance environmental constrains. It predicts that there will be “more

applications on parcels that have more extensive limitations, projects that involve resubdivision

of larger tracts to capitalize on available land, and even redevelopment projects involving the

demolition of structures that impede the maximization of lot yield” (Alaimo Group, 2009). It

sounds like future projects will be more costly, time consuming and might even result in land

fragmentation as not every land parcel can be developed due to zoning regulation.

Neighborhood Orthoquads

Figure 7: Orthoquad imagery from 1995 (left) and 2015 (right), of neighborhoods surrounding
W Veterans Highway in Jackson Township.

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 Utilizing raster images such as Orthoquads obtained from the New Jersey Geographic

Information Network website, the land use changes in Jackson Township can be seen at the

neighborhood level. The left image shows that the development of residential housing is

beginning to the North of the main road. To the South development does not seem to be a major

issue other than the development of athletic fields near the school. Fast forwarded to 2015, the

development of residential neighborhoods spreads to the North of W. Veterans Highway and the

neighborhoods take up a large area due to the property sizes and single family homes being

condensed into these areas. The south of W. Veterans Highway, development expansion is

limited, and remains in close proximity with the main road. Orthoquad imagery and Raster files

in general, allow for a more precise look at the changes of land use in a smaller area. The greater

resolution of these images allows for more accurate visual analysis of an area.

Conclusion

Looking at the changes in land use and land cover in Ocean County over the twenty six

year span of 1986-2012 shows that the county is quickly trading in natural resources for urban

expansion. Ocean County’s population is increasing so there needs to be more housing

opportunities for the people who live and work there without the expense of natural land. The

mapping of the county’s land uses can be used to help policymakers balance out development

and conservation of land area within the County, but nonetheless tradeoffs will have to be made.

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References
Alaimo Group. Jackson Township Master Plan. (2009, May 21). Retrieved February 7, 2018
from
http://www.jacksontwpnj.net/documents/maps/masterplan/May222009/OLD_Jackson%2
0Township%20Master%20Plan.pdf

Land use 2012 code list (n.d.). Retrieved February 5, 2018 from
http://www.nj.gov/dep/gis/digidownload/metadata/lulc12/codelist2012.html

Ocean County Department of Planning. Jackson Township. (2004). Retrieved February 7, 2018
from http://www.planning.co.ocean.nj.us/stateplan/15_JACKSON.pdf

Population data for Ocean County municipalities, 1910-2000. (n.d.). Retrieved February 7, 2018
from http://westjersey.org/popoce_04.htm

States Census Bureau. Annual estimates of the resident population: April 1, 2010 to July 1, 2016.
(2017). Retrieved February 7, 2018 from
https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?src=bkmk

United States Environmental Protection Agency. Land use (n.d.) Retrieved February 5, 2018
from https://cfpub.epa.gov/roe/chapter/land/use.cfm

Bolstad, P., Brody, S. D., Hulse, D., Kroh, R., Loveland, T.R., & Thomson, A. (2014). Land use
and land cover change. Retrieved February 5, 2018 from
https://nca2014.globalchange.gov/report/sectors/land-use-and-land-cover
change#statement-16803

Ocean County Planning Board.(2011). Ocean County, New Jersey 2011 Comprehnsive Master
Plan. Retrieved February 7, 2018 from
http://www.planning.co.ocean.nj.us/final_master_plan_2012.pdf
NJDEP, Division of Science, Research and Environmental Health. (2018). Climate Change in
New Jersey: Temperature, Precipitation, Extreme Events and Sea Level. Retrieved
Februay 7, 2018 from http://www.nj.gov/dep/dsr/trends/pdfs/climate-change.pdf
NJ Office of Information Technology, Office of GIS. (2018). NJGIN. Retrieved February 5,
2018. from https://njgin.state.nj.us/NJ_NJGINExplorer/IW.jsp
NJDEP Bureau of GIS.(2002). Land Use Land Cover Classification System. Retrieved February
12, 2018. from
http://www.state.nj.us/dep/gis/digidownload/metadata/lulc02/anderson2002.html
NJDEP Bureau of GIS.(2018). NJDEP Digital Data Downloads in ArcGIS Shape file format.
Retrieved February 5, 2018. from http://www.nj.gov/dep/gis/listall.html

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Appendices
Apendix A: Ocean County Urban Land Use (acreage)
Land Use Code 1986 2012
1100 55356
1109 213
1110 16035
1120 40567
1130 12037
1140 9036
1150 250
1200 6236 8645
1209 1221
1211 3084 2151
1219 109
1300 967 2084
1309 200
1400 3079 2170
1409 43
1410 1995
1411 0
1419 27
1420 179
1440 162
1461 374 492
1462 115
1463 1251
1499 1445
1500 11 18
1600 79
1700 3658 6366
1701 5
1709 667
1710 287
1711 1
1741 5
1750 99
1800 2074 5327
1804 822 1101
1809 197
1810 582
1850 226

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Appendix B: Jackson Township Urban Land Use (acreage)

Land Use Code 1986 2012

1100 7366 711
1109 18
1120 2553
1130 5012
1140 3213
1200 322 588
1209 28
1211 2854 633
1219 16
1300 7 277
1309 8
1400 590 239
1409 3
1410 174
1419 0.1
1420 23
1440 1
1461 120 174
1462 47
1463 210
1499 267
1700 497 2225
1709 176
1710 29
1750 20
1800 571 955
1804 52 142
1809 68
1810 490
1850 108

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