Changing Landscapes in the Garden State: Land Use Change in New Jersey, 1986–2020

October 2025

Funding for this project (1986-2020) was provided by the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station and the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture Hatch program. The authors would like to acknowledge the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) for the Land Use Land Cover (LULC) data, as the primary data set analyzed in this report.

Overview

The research team consisted of Richard Lathrop (Rutgers University) and Kate Douthat of the Rutgers University Center for Remote Sensing & Spatial Analysis has recently completed a study examining New Jersey’s urban growth and land use change over the past three decades. The analysis reported herein focuses on the change in the state’s land use/land cover occurring between the spring of 2015 and spring of 2020 based on the DEP New Jersey Land Use/Land Cover Change (NJLULCC) data set. The 2020 state land use/land cover dataset is the seventh in the series since 1986, representing six time periods: T1 (1986-1995) to T6 (2015–2020).

This project updates earlier work this same general topic conducted in collaboration with Dr. John Hasse of Rowan University on that examined urban growth and associated land use change from 1986 to 2015 time periods.

Key Findings

Conversion of green space to new urban development in New Jersey has continued to slow from its historic high pace of new urban development in the 1990’s and 2000’s. Between the year 2015 and 2020 (T6), New Jersey expanded the amount of urban land by 18,802 acres, equivalent to a rate of 3,760 acres of new urban development per year. This rate represents a continuation of the trend of decreasing areal amount of urban development initiated during the Great Recession of 2008. In comparison, urban development grew at a pace of 16,852 acres per year in the late 1990’s.

The net rate of upland forest land converted was moderately higher in T6 (‘15–‘20) than in T5 (‘12–‘15) with 1,936 acres converted per year in T6 vs. 745 acres per year in T5 . Wetlands exhibited dynamic gains and losses with an overall net mapped decrease of 232 acres per year in T6. The continued conversion of upland and wetlands to urban land uses represents an ongoing loss of ecosystem function, as these ecosystems play a critical role in protecting water resources and wildlife habitat as well as removing and storing additional carbon from the atmosphere.

The net rate of agricultural land conversion has consistently declined from an annualized rate of 10,277 acres in T1 (‘86- ‘95) to 1,590 acres per year in T6 (‘15–‘20) . This trend is closely related to the declining amount of farmland consumed by urbanization with 6,114 acres per year in T1, 5,124 acres per year in T3 (‘02–‘07) before dropping to 1,444 acres per year in T4 (‘07–‘12) to 1,061 acres per year in T6. In addition to conversion of agricultural land to urban land uses, agricultural land continues to be abandoned and regenerate to forest. However, this rate of abandonment continues to decline, with only 689 acres per year in T6 as compared to 2,435 acres per year in T3.

Statewide, between 1986 and 2020, Urban land use area increased by 7.0% to cover 16.7% of the Special Flood Hazard Area (SFHA). Looking more expansively, Urban land increased 26,772 acres, or about 11% since 1986 to cover 20.9% of the New Jersey Design Flood Elevation (DFE) zone. Urbanization in the SFHA puts people and infrastructure at higher risk due to the adverse impacts of flooding. Urban development outside the SFHA but within the DFE zone built prior to the 2023 rule may also be at heightened risk from more intense future flooding if not sufficiently hardened or built above potential flood heights.

Report and Data

To access  the full report go to https://doi.org/10.7282/00000565

The source GIS data set is available through the NJDEP Bureau of GIS Open Data website and the NJ Geographic Information Network (NJGIN) website. This project updates our earlier work on this same topic that examined urban growth and associated land use change from 1986 to 2015 time periods.

Acknowledgements

John Bognar of the Rutgers Center for Remote Sensing and Spatial Analysis who was instrumental in assisting in the analysis and website support.

The authors would like to acknowledge the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) for the Land Use Land Cover (LULC) data, as the primary data set analyzed in this report. The data set production and quality assurance was managed by the NJDEP, Office of Information Resources Management, Bureau of Geographic Information and Analysis.