Downloads
Set 1: 21 Categories by town; development; LU change Set 2: Grouped categories, acreage and change by Town and County |
Overview
Set 1 (September 2003)
The Land Use Summary Statistics tables aggregate land use areas on a town-by-town basis for the commonwealth of Massachusetts. The statistics were generated from the polygon attribute table from MassGIS' Land Use Datalayer for the years for which land use data have been collected statewide, 1971, 1985, and 1999. The 21-class MacConnell land use categories were used as the basis of the tables, which summarize acreage of each land use type, "developed" vs. "undeveloped" land, and change from 1971 to 1985 and 1985 to 1999.
Set 2 (August 2007)
This second set of Land Use Summary Statistics aggregates the 21-class land use into six categories -- Agriculture, Forest, Open Land, Recreation, Urban, and Water. For each category, some of which are further subdivided, there are acreage totals for 1971, 1985, and 1999, as well as acreage and percent change from '71 to '85 and '85 to '99. Totals are available for the entire state, for each of the 14 counties, and for each of the 351 municipalities. Processing was done by the state Department of Conservation and Recreation, Management Forestry Program , based on the Land Use Datalayer polygon attribute table.
Production (Set 1)
The land use data is stored at MassGIS in an Oracle-based ArcSDE format. A series of Oracle SQL*Plus queries were conducted by MassGIS staff, with the results copied into a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. An example of a query is as follows:
SET PAGESIZE 400
SELECT DISTINCT *
FROM (
SELECT C.town "TOWN",
A.lu21_1999 "LU_CODE",
NVL (A.sum_area_acres, 0) "ACRES"
FROM (
SELECT tile_name,
lu21_1999,
SUM (area_acres) sum_area_acres
FROM gisdata.landuse_poly
WHERE lu21_1999 = 21
GROUP BY tile_name,
lu21_1999
) A,
gisdata.towns_poly C
WHERE A.TILE_NAME (+) = C.town_id
ORDER BY C.TOWN
);
In this particular query, areas in acres are being generated for each town, showing how many acres were dedicated to land use type "Woody Perennial" (code = 21) in 1999.
All combinations of years and land use types were produced from the queries, with the results stored in an Excel spreadsheet. Changes in land use areas were also calculated, using the data derived from the queries and formulas referencing them in the same spreadsheet. Finally, two common aggregations of land use areas were also generated -- one spreadsheet that shows the area of developed vs. undeveloped land uses for all years of interest, and three other spreadsheets that show the areas of land use as aggregated by the land use-zoning crosswalk translation codes, one for each year of interest.
When all numbers were calculated, stand-alone Excel worksheets were created from the spreadsheet, an Access database was created from comprehensive imports of the worksheets, and individual dBase tables were generated. The dBase tables were then imported into ArcSDE.
The resulting tables are as follows:
| Table Name | Contents |
| LANDUSE_STATS_71 | 1971 area sums in acres for all landuse types for each municipality |
| LANDUSE_STATS_85 | 1985 area sums in acres for all landuse types for each municipality |
| LANDUSE_STATS_99 | 1999 area sums in acres for all landuse types for each municipality |
| LANDUSE_STATS_7185 | Changes in acreage for each landuse type for each municipality between 1971 and 1985 |
| LANDUSE_STATS_7199 | Changes in acreage for each landuse type for each municipality between 1971 and 1999 |
| LANDUSE_STATS_8599 | Changes in acreage for each landuse type for each municipality between 1985 and 1999 |
| LANDUSE_STATS_DEV | Area sums in acres for each municipality for all years of interest differentiating between "developed" and "undeveloped" landuse |
| LANDUSE_STATS_Z71 | 1971 area sums in acres for each municipality, aggregating landuse types by the landuse-zoning crosswalk code used for the buildout projects |
| LANDUSE_STATS_Z85 | 1985 area sums in acres for each municipality, aggregating landuse types by the landuse-zoning crosswalk code used for the buildout projects |
| LANDUSE_STATS_Z99 | 1999 area sums in acres for each municipality, aggregating landuse types by the landuse-zoning crosswalk code used for the buildout projects |
Land Use Codes
Codes in the MacConnell land use classification scheme used in the tables (21 categories, based on the "LU21_<year>" items):
| Code | Land Use |
| 1 | Crop Land |
| 2 | Pasture |
| 3 | Forest |
| 4 | Non-forested Wetlands |
| 5 | Mining |
| 6 | Open Land |
| 7 | Participation Recreation |
| 8 | Spectator Recreation |
| 9 | Water-based Recreation |
| 10 | Multi-family Residential |
| 11 | High Density Residential |
| 12 | Medium Density Residential |
| 13 | Low Density Residential |
| 14 | Salt Water Wetlands |
| 15 | Commercial |
| 16 | Industrial |
| 17 | Urban Open |
| 18 | Transportation |
| 19 | Waste Disposal |
| 20 | Water |
| 21 | Woody Perennial |
"Developed" vs. "Undeveloped"
The "Developed" vs. "Undeveloped" aggregations were based on the following MacConnell land use codes:
Developed Land = MacConnell codes 7,8,9,10,11,12,13,15,16,17,18,19
Undeveloped Land = MacConnell codes 1,2,3,4,5,6,14,20,21
Land Use/Zoning Crosswalk
The three land use/zoning tables attempt to match zoning codes with MacConnell land use codes to predict future land use. This method was incorporated into the EOEA Buildout Analyses, primarily for display purposes to depict land use at buildout. The Land Use-Zoning (LUZ) Crosswalk Aggregations are as follows:
| LUZ Code | LUZ Category | Land Use Code(s) |
| A | Agriculture | 1,2,21 |
| O | Open Undeveloped Land | 6 |
| C | Commercial | 15 |
| I | Industrial/Transportation/Mining | 5,16,18,19 |
| HDR | Higher Density Residential | 10,11 |
| MDR | Medium Density Residential | 12 |
| LDR | Low Density Residential | 13 |
| VLDR | Very Low Density Residential | does not exist in landuse, solely for zoning purposes |
| U | Urban Open/Institutional/Recreation | 7,8,9,17 |
| N | Natural Land/Undisturbed Vegetation | 3,4,14 |
| W | Water | 20 |
| Also see the Crosswalk graphic |
Attributes (Set 1)
Table field names use the MacConnell land use and LUZ codes and 2-digit year (e.g., 71, 85, 99). Town IDs are based on those used in the Municipalities layer TOWN_ID field.
Maintenance
MassGIS is maintaining this layer.
| Date published: | August 17, 2007 |
|---|---|
| Last updated: | August 17, 2007 |