Explanation of Indicator
Rapid and large scale growth is changing Florida’s landscape at an
alarming rate. Massive changes in land use are altering the pattern
of land cover, which may impact the state’s air, water, and natural
resources and the quality of life of Florida’s citizens. In the future
it will be necessary for the state to closely monitor the progress of
land use so as to ensure maintenance of the environmental values
associated with the state.
Improvements in satellite technology now provide the ability to almost continuously monitor land cover. High costs of data acquisition and lack of technical capacity, however, have limited the state’s involvement in satellite imagery. Until this use of technology is more feasible, a useful substitute capable of providing trend data on land cover category has been assembled by the Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission from a series of U.S. Forest Service reports. These reports, however, present information on the entire state which cannot be broken down by county. Based on land inventories conducted at six times (1936, 1949, 1959, 1970, 1980, and 1987), estimates for a wide range of land uses and covers are provided. Estimates of the number of hectares of forest, marsh, agriculture and range, and urban and other lands are provided.
Data Characteristics
SOURCE
A summary of the data from the U.S. Forest Service reports can be found
in an article by Randy Kautz.1 Mr. Kautz can be contacted at the
Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission, 620 South Meridian Street,
Tallahassee, Florida 32399-1600, or at (904) 488-6661.
ACQUISITION
The information is available in hard copy at no cost.
COLLECTION
The information is collected statewide at irregular intervals. It
has been collected for the years 1936, 1949, 1959, 1970, 1980, and 1987.
Data Limitations
The irregularity of the data collection decreases the utility of the
data, and the uncertainty of its future collection may limit its use.
Further, definitional differences in land cover may make the comparisons
with other land cover data difficult. In spite of the limitations, the
data are the best available for long-term measurement of land cover and
land use in the state. Because the data cannot be disaggregated by county,
at the present time it is not possible to display land cover for just
the coastal areas of the state.
Data Analysis
It is important to note that following figures for land area pertain
to the entire state of Florida, not just to the coastal counties.
The land cover figures display area in millions of hectares; one
hectare is equal to 2.471 acres. The data show that between 1936
and 1987, the areas occupied by forest land and marsh land decreased
20.6% and an estimated 55.6%, respectively. During the same period,
the area of agriculture and range lands increased 70.2%, and the area
of urban and other lands increased an estimated 540.4%.
Land Cover 1936 1949 1959 1970 1980 1987 Forest 8.4618 8.4683 7.5676 7.2636 6.9598 6.7223 Marsh *2.8214 2.1451 2.4540 1.4769 1.2295 1.2513 Agriculture & Range 2.4495 2.7261 3.2860 4.1281 4.3772 4.1682 Urban & Other *0.2944 0.4326 0.7196 1.1585 1.4606 1.8852 Total 14.0271 14.0271 14.0271 14.0271 14.0271 14.0271 * denotes values which were estimated
Recommendations
It is recommended that the data collected from satellite imagery be
obtained so that an overlay of data is available for each county to
determine changes in land cover. Another recommendation would be to
have the land cover survey conducted on a county-by-county basis rather
than statewide. If each county surveyed its own land cover every five
years and then reported its findings to the Florida Game and Fresh Water
Fish Commission, the data could be collected and aggregated to obtain a
state total. This would provide for a more accurate assessment of the
land cover in each county and provide a good indication of the patterns
of development for each county.