Atlantic Coastal Pine Barrens

By Terry L. Sohl ¹

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Ecoregion Description

 

The Atlantic Coastal Pine Barrens is a disjunct ecoregion covering approximately 19,200 km² (7,400 mi²) of the coastal plain of New Jersey, Long Island in New York, and Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket, and nearby islands in Massachusetts (fig. 1).  The region has a wide variety of ecological systems, including cedar swamps, stunted pitch pine and oak forests, sphagnum bogs, coastal salt ponds, dune systems, and the nation’s only maritime grasslands.  Due to generally acidic soils, agricultural activity is often limited to acid-loving crops such as blueberries and cranberries, although areas of the ecoregion support fruits, vegetables, and other crops (fig. 2).  While parts of the ecoregion represent some of the best-preserved natural habitat in the Eastern United States, other portions of the ecoregion are among the most highly developed lands in the country.

 

Contemporary Land Cover Change (1973 to 2000)

 

Overall rates of land cover conversion were low compared to all other Eastern U.S. ecoregions (fig. 3).  The footprint of change in the ecoregion (i.e., the percentage of area that changed at least one time from 1973 to 2000) was 5.8 percent (table 1).  Change per period was relatively constant, hovering around 1.5 percent change per time interval (table 2).  When normalized to account for varying time period lengths, annual rates of change peaked during the 1980 to 1986 time period and declined in subsequent periods (fig. 4).

While overall change rates were low, significant land cover trends are apparent.  The Atlantic Coastal Pine Barrens experienced a 15 percent increase in population between 1970 and 2000, from 9.6 to 11.0 million people (U.S. Census Bureau).  Locally, population increases have been more dramatic, with Cape Cod experiencing a doubling in population over the same time period.  Accommodating this growth was the primary driver of land change, as developed lands increased from 25.5 percent to 30.2 percent of the ecoregion area from 1973 to 2000 (table 3) (fig. 5).

Most of the development occurred at the expense of agricultural and forest lands, as both underwent significant net declines in every time period (fig. 6).  Over 900 km² of land was developed from 1973 to 2000, resulting in the loss of 310 km² of forest and 530 km² of agricultural land (table 4).  The proportion of all change caused by development steadily increased throughout the study period (table 5). 

Agricultural lands dropped from the fourth most common land cover in the ecoregion from 1973 to 1992 to the fifth most common by 2000 (table 3).  The decline in relative abundance of agricultural land is related to a strong effort to protect native ecosystems within the region, especially the unique pine barren forest.  As less forest land was available for development, the proportion of developed land originating from agricultural land steadily and dramatically increased (table 5).  In addition to development pressures, high tax rates have driven many farmers to switch from vegetable and fruit crops to higher-valued products such as nursery stock, flowers, and sod (Hart, 1991).  These factors prompted the National Farmland Trust organization to name parts of the ecoregion on Long Island and Cape Cod as one of the 20 most threatened agricultural areas in the country.

Forest lands also steadily declined from 1973 to 2000.  However, the rate of decline slowed in the latter half of the study period with the aforementioned effort to conserve these unique habitats.  Specifically, parts of the New Jersey Pine Barrens were designated as the nation’s first National Reserve and later as a U.S. Biosphere Reserve (Mason, 1992; Walker and Solecki, 1999). 

Forms of land cover conversion other than development were relatively minor (tables 3 and 4).  Even changes in the next two most affected land cover classes (mechanically disturbed and mining) were very often driven by development demands.  The mapping of mechanically disturbed lands represents a temporary state of transition for a given area, a transition that often leads to permanent development in this ecoregion.  The area of mined land showed a small increase during the study period, but most of that increase was likely related to increased demand for sand and stone aggregates used in construction.  These development pressures will likely continue to drive land use conversions in the Atlantic Coastal Pine Barrens for the foreseeable future (fig. 7).

 

References

 

Hart, J.F., 1991, The perimetropolitan bow wave: Geographical Review, v. 81, n.1, p. 35-51.

 

Mason, R.J., 1992, Contested Lands: Conflict and Compromise in New Jersey’s Pine Barrens: Philadelphia, PA, Temple University Press.

 

U.S. Census Bureau.  Various Years. http://www.census.gov/prod/www/abs/decennial/index.htm

 

Vogelmann, J.E., Howard, S.M., Yang, L., Larson, C.R., Wylie, B.K., and Van Driel, N., 2001, Completion of the 1990s National Land Cover Data for the conterminous United States from Landsat Thematic Mapper data and ancillary data sources: Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing, v. 67, p. 650-662.

 

Walker, R.T., and Solecki, W.D, 1999,  Managing Land Use and Land Cover Change: The New Jersey Pinelands Biosphere Reserve:  Annals of the Association of American Geographers, v. 89, no. 2, p. 220-237.

Table 1.  Percentage of the ecoregion touched by change

 

[94.2 percent of all pixels in the ecoregion were unchanged throughout the study period, while 5.8 percent were touched by change 1 or more times]

 

	Overall	Number of changes
	spatial change	1	2	3	4
Percent of ecoregion	5.8	5.4	0.3	0.0	0.0

 

 

 

Table 2.  Overall change estimates, margin of error at an 85 percent confidence level, and normalized annual change for each of the four time periods

 

	Period
	1973-1980	1980-1986	1986-1992	1992-2000
Total change (% of ecoregion)	1.5%	1.7%	1.4%	1.6%
Margin of error (85% confidence level)	+/-0.6%	+/-0.6%	+/-0.5%	+/-0.8%
Average annual rate of change (%/year)	0.2%	0.3%	0.2%	0.2%

 

 

 

Table 3.  Percentages of each land cover class for the five mapped dates

 

	1973		1980		1986		1992		2000		Net change 1973-2000
Land-use/land-cover class	km²	%	km²	%	km²	%	km²	%	km²	%	km²	%
Water	3259	16.9	3270	17.0	3278	17.0	3278	17.0	3282	17.1	22	0.1
Developed	4908	25.5	5105	26.5	5344	27.8	5555	28.9	5812	30.2	904	4.7
Mechanically disturbed	38	0.2	7	0.0	20	0.1	17	0.1	18	0.1	-19	-0.1
Mining	78	0.4	91	0.5	110	0.6	122	0.6	124	0.6	46	0.2
Naturally barren	153	0.8	152	0.8	147	0.8	147	0.8	146	0.8	-7	0.0
Forest	4482	23.3	4385	22.8	4270	22.2	4202	21.9	4134	21.5	-348	-1.8
Grassland/Shrubland	19	0.1	27	0.1	29	0.2	21	0.1	20	0.1	1	0.0
Agriculture	3349	17.4	3266	17.0	3112	16.2	2971	15.4	2783	14.5	-566	-2.9
Wetland	2944	15.3	2926	15.2	2920	15.2	2916	15.2	2911	15.1	-34	-0.2
Non-mechanically disturbed	0	0	0	0	0	0.0	0	0.0	0	0.0	0	0.0

 

 

Table 4.  The 5 most common land cover conversions for each of the four time periods

 

			Area changed	% of all
Period	From class	To class	(km2)	changes
1973-1980	Forest	Developed	88	31
	Agriculture	Developed	81	28
	Mechanically disturbed	Developed	22	8
	Forest	Mining	12	4
	Wetland	Agriculture	11	4
	Other classes	Other classes	72	25
			286	100
1980-1986	Agriculture	Developed	138	41
	Forest	Developed	98	29
	Forest	Mining	17	5
	Agriculture	Forest	10	3
	Agriculture	Mechanically disturbed	10	3
	Other classes	Other classes	60	18
			333	100
1986-1992	Agriculture	Developed	130	48
	Forest	Developed	61	22
	Mechanically disturbed	Developed	14	5
	Agriculture	Mechanically disturbed	9	3
	Agriculture	Forest	8	3
	Other classes	Other classes	50	18
			272	100
1992-2000	Agriculture	Developed	179	59
	Forest	Developed	61	20
	Mechanically disturbed	Developed	12	4
	Agriculture	Mechanically disturbed	8	3
	Forest	Mechanically disturbed	6	2
	Other classes	Other classes	38	13
			304	100
Overall:
1973-2000	Agriculture	Developed	528	44
	Forest	Developed	308	26
	Mechanically disturbed	Developed	49	4
	Forest	Mining	36	3
	Agriculture	Forest	28	2
	Other classes	Other classes	246	21
			1,195	100

 

 

Table 5.  The percentage of all change going to developed land and the percentage originating from agricultural lands

 

[Developed lands comprised an increasing percentage of all change from 1973 to 2000, while the percentage of new development originating from agricultural lands has also steadily increased]

 

Developed Lands
Date	Percent of All Change	Percent Originating From Ag Land
1973 - 1980	68.9%	41.2%
1980 - 1986	72.1%	57.5%
1986 - 1992	77.9%	61.5%
1992 - 2000	84.8%	69.5%

 

 

 

Figure 1.  Location map for the Atlantic Coastal Pine Barrens ecoregion.  The underlying land cover is from the 1992 National Land Cover Database (Vogelmann and others, 2001).  The 20 km X 20 km sample blocks are shown in yellow.

 

 

 

Figure 2.  A variety of fruit and vegetable crops are grown in parts of the ecoregion, with vineyards a common sight in parts of the ecoregion. 

 

 

 

Figure 3.  The overall spatial change in all Eastern U.S. ecoregions.  Each bar chart shows the proportion of the ecoregion that experienced change on 1, 2, 3, or 4 dates.

 

 

 

Figure 4.  Estimates of land cover change per time interval normalized to annual rates of change.

 

 

 

Figure 5.  The rapid expansion of housing developments, retirement communities, and recreational centers resulted in an 18% increase in developed area, usually at the expense of forest and agricultural lands.

 

 

 

Figure 6.  Per period net change for each mapped land cover class.  Areas above the zero axis represent net gains for a land cover class, while areas below represent net losses.

 

 

 

Figure 7.  While urban development has occurred throughout the ecoregion, recreational opportunities and the desire for other coastal amenities has resulted in concentrations of development along most of the coastlines.