A group of researchers at Rutgers is collborating to study and address one of New Jersey's most pressing issues: the rapid development of the state's landscapes. Building on existing research, like the landscape change research project at Rutgers' Center for Remote Sensing and Spatial Analysis, the research program team is participating in a larger national trend that was the focus of a recent NSF workshop.

While in many cases landscape change is a natural process, human land use change is now the single most important factor influencing New Jersey’s environment. These changes are largely the result of the urbanization and its attendant residential, commercial, transportation and to a lesser extent industrial development. While some level of new development is needed to keep up with New Jersey’s expanding population, the ramifications of urban growth and sprawl on New Jersey’s agriculture, natural resources and overall environment are many fold. As the leading academic institution dedicated to bettering our understanding of our state’s environment, it is appropriate that Cook College and the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station (NJAES) take on a leadership role in providing the New Jersey government and citizens up-to-date information on changing land use patterns, the implications of urban growth on the state’s resources and develop innovative planning tools to minimize the adverse impacts of urban growth.

There are five key objectives of the New Jersey Landscape Change Research Program:

1) to advance the application and development of new remote sensing and geographic information system technologies for mapping and quantifying land use and land cover change;

2) to assess the implications of land use change on environmental, climate, and quality of life issues of importance to the Mid-Atlantic region, such as habitat loss and fragmentation, ecosystem service or function, water quality degradation, sprawl and loss of open space and farmland;

3) to develop a land use change modeling capability to analyze future scenarios of landscape change;

4) develop innovative planning tools that will assist communities in minimizing the adverse impacts of urban growth; and

5) to communicate this information to a wide audience of stakeholders.

As part of our program development efforts we are soliciting outside input with two main objectives: 1) to refine the scope and objectives of a New Jersey Landscape Change Analysis Program here at Cook-NJAES; and 2) position ourselves to compete for significant multidisciplinary funding to support such a program effort.

 

• Steve Ventura, Director of the Land Information and Computer Graphics Facility at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
• Jim Wickham, EPA
  
• Dana Tomlin University of Pennsylvania --

• Our latest draft of the Landscape Change Research Agenda
• Minutes from the first Meeting of the Landscape Change Research Program Team (Spring '03)
  
• Personal Statements of interest by participants in the landscape change program
  
• A recent presentation of the research program at the Council of Educators for Landscape Architecture. The bulk of the presentation is available as a ppt file.
  
• Current brochure
  
• As part of the Rutgers Landscape Change efforts we have submitted this proposal to NSF. While it only represents a very small part of Rutgers' landscape change agenda, it demonstrates one of the ways that we are pursuing the topic.
  
  

• The Landscape Change Project at CRSSA
• The NSF-Sponsored Landscape Change Workshop and the final report from the workshop.
• Advanced Environmental Geomatics -- a Jr/Sr colloquium that focused on the topic of landscape change.

David Tulloch, dtulloch@crssa.rutgers.edu, 732 932 1581
Grant F. Walton Center for Remote Sensing and Spatial Analysis, Rutgers University