Land use policy involves allocating land between production alternatives to meet society’s wants and desires. Increase in the affluence in the United States has increased the demand for environmental flows that could be met from public ownership or as joint products of private ownerships. The empirical results of this study indicated that land use patterns remained relatively unchanged between 1947 and 2007. The lack of change suggests that a large part of the demand for environmental services is being as byproducts of other commercial decisions.
This study examines the changes in land use between 1947 and 2007 focusing on the possibility that commercial uses generate significant environmental benefits. In the early twentieth century, land distributions under the Land Ordinance of 1790 as modified by the Homestead Act of 1862 came to a close. While vast tracts in the United States remained under the control of the federal and state governments, private land ownership was limited. Once the distributions from public land had been limited, land in private hands started to accrue rents (i.e., no additional land could be brought into production―increasing the rent accruing land previously in production under Ricardo’s model). These increased rents from commercial uses of land increased the opportunity cost of less intensive uses of land. In addition, urban growth increased the demand for the conversion of farmland into residential and other urban uses. Taken together, higher rents from agricultural and the increased demand for urban uses are typically hypothesized to reduce the amount of land generating environmental services.
The increasing affluence in the United States has given rise to demands for the environmental services generated by land. Environmental values were first given voice in the establishment when the National Park Service was established at the dawn of the twentieth century under Theodore Roosevelt. The trend toward environmental values continues under different auspices. Today, states and local communities have developed mechanisms to retire land from private ownership into public use. For example, in Alachua County Florida, Alachua Forever establishes funding for the purchase of environmentally sensitive ground. In California, developers often are required to invest in environmental offsets in order to develop a specific parcel of land. These offsets are intended to produce environmental flows.
The crux is that some land once deeded to the private sector is now being reclaimed by the public sector. Such transactions secure environmental benefits or environmental flows. The mechanism for capturing these environmental flows, however, may be imperfect. While a variety of trends suggest that consumers have become more environmentally aware, it is not obvious that the allocation at the margin is optimal. Unlike the allocation of goods under the price system, consumers under this allocation method do not balance marginal benefits and marginal costs.
Consider the possible outputs from a particular parcel of land (s)
where yis is the level of output i that can be obtained from parcel s,
where the Ris is the rent accruing to the use of parcel s to use i. This relationship is depicted in
We consider four different outputs from farmland: agriculture (y1s), forestry (y2s), urban uses (y3s), and environmental flows (y4s). The total value from all the parcels of land in a region can be written as
where the rents on each activity i for parcel s is a function of the amount of each output supplied from other parcels and a set of exogenous variables (i.e., z2 are a set of variables that affect the profitability of agriculture such as food prices and the cost of production). These rents follow the complementary slackness conditions from general equilibrium solutions [
where
A key issue in the study of land use is the jointness of production. As depicted in
In the case of forests, commercial forests may generate significant environmental flows such as wildlife habitat. Hence, if we assume
or that the number of parcels planted to commercial forestry exactly meets the demand for products from commercial forestry implying positive rents to commercial forestry. However, in meeting these demands, the forestry sector generates environmental flows
The question in analyzing the land use solution is whether this indirect source of environmental services is adequate to satisfy the demand
In the first scenario (where the rents for allocating land to environmental uses is equal to zero), no additional land will be allocated to produce environmental flows.
An underlying argument to support programs that remove land from private ownership is that the market solution has generated insufficient environmental services. The contention is that private market does not allocate enough land to generate the desired level of environmental services. This disequilibrium is typically hypothesized to be driven by a market failure such as the non-exclusionary nature of most environmental services. The argument is then that the appropriate level of environmental services will only be forthcoming if a government or philanthropic entity enters the land market to produce the desired level of services. However, once the values of the environmental flows are separated from the market transaction (i.e., land is no longer allocated across uses based on market rents), it is difficult if not impossible to answer the basic allocation question―is too much or too little land allocated to a specific use? Schmitz, Kennedy, and Hill-Gabriel [
In this study, we examine the changes in the uses of land in three significant agricultural regions in the United States―the Delta States (Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi), the Pacific States (California, Oregon, and Washington), and the Southeast (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina). These regions represent areas of environmental concern. For example, in Florida the policy questions include the effect of commercial agriculture on the Everglades as well as the urban encroachment on other environmentally sensitive lands such as wetlands. California’s policy questions include the effect of urban growth in environmentally sensitive areas such as Chaparral. These states are also similar in the importance of high-valued agriculture such as fruits and vegetables to agriculture. Finally, these regions have similar levels of public and private forests in each state. The data used in this study are from Nickerson, Borchers, and Carriazo [
To analyze the change in land use over time we use the information inequality to measure the amount of statistical information in the distribution of use. Specifically, we define the statistical information index (I) as
where qi is a posterior distribution and pi is a prior distribution. The information index in Equation (8) was popularized by Theil [
Year | Total Land | Cropland | Pasture | Forest | Special | Urban | Other |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Delta States | |||||||
1945 | 93,006 | 22,192 | 7215 | 51,404 | 3085 | 649 | 8461 |
1949 | 92,855 | 24,283 | 6017 | 52,715 | 3507 | 841 | 5492 |
1954 | 92,855 | 22,162 | 8501 | 51,641 | 3556 | 815 | 6180 |
1959 | 92,690 | 20,808 | 9358 | 53,245 | 3772 | 1118 | 4389 |
1964 | 92,600 | 20,238 | 9433 | 54,624 | 3874 | 1194 | 3237 |
1969 | 92,269 | 24,558 | 8433 | 50,471 | 3162 | 1200 | 4445 |
1974 | 92,269 | 25,054 | 7449 | 50,470 | 3171 | 1407 | 4718 |
1978 | 92,269 | 25,950 | 5777 | 49,453 | 3358 | 1849 | 5882 |
1982 | 92,053 | 24,978 | 7390 | 47,827 | 3470 | 2122 | 6266 |
1987 | 92,053 | 23,888 | 7307 | 47,443 | 3566 | 2416 | 7433 |
1992 | 91,235 | 23,739 | 6357 | 48,269 | 3710 | 2717 | 6442 |
1997 | 91,235 | 22,031 | 5534 | 50,672 | 3694 | 3065 | 6241 |
2002 | 91,224 | 21,046 | 6246 | 50,667 | 4418 | 2251 | 6595 |
2007 | 91,224 | 18,230 | 7209 | 52,317 | 4500 | 2284 | 6683 |
Pacific States | |||||||
1945 | 204,883 | 23,404 | 56,824 | 96,546 | 12,117 | 1857 | 14,135 |
1949 | 204,699 | 27,023 | 60,550 | 97,160 | 12,474 | 2722 | 4770 |
1954 | 204,699 | 26,243 | 59,850 | 89,905 | 14,745 | 2085 | 11,871 |
1959 | 204,500 | 26,134 | 53,965 | 89,863 | 14,621 | 3218 | 16,699 |
1964 | 204,422 | 25,451 | 54,307 | 89,819 | 18,948 | 3681 | 12,216 |
1969 | 204,233 | 24,302 | 52,594 | 89,952 | 19,521 | 4117 | 13,747 |
1974 | 204,233 | 24,786 | 53,761 | 89,747 | 19,663 | 4621 | 11,655 |
1978 | 204,233 | 25,378 | 52,595 | 85,882 | 21,106 | 5215 | 14,057 |
1982 | 204,156 | 25,403 | 52,296 | 85,077 | 21,890 | 5815 | 13,675 |
1987 | 204,156 | 25,236 | 51,981 | 80,576 | 24,974 | 6755 | 14,634 |
1992 | 203,876 | 23,928 | 54,480 | 79,278 | 23,282 | 7377 | 15,530 |
1997 | 203,876 | 24,367 | 52,144 | 76,661 | 31,228 | 7903 | 11,573 |
2002 | 203,840 | 23,949 | 52,337 | 78,296 | 32,344 | 7124 | 9791 |
2007 | 203,840 | 22,110 | 57,040 | 74,021 | 36,821 | 7239 | 6610 |
Southeast States | |||||||
1945 | 124,450 | 26,973 | 8686 | 72,994 | 5212 | 1279 | 9306 |
1949 | 124,242 | 27,919 | 6776 | 74,926 | 5696 | 1876 | 7049 |
1954 | 124,242 | 24,824 | 9967 | 78,114 | 6618 | 1858 | 2861 |
1959 | 124,068 | 21,071 | 13,939 | 76,855 | 7035 | 2904 | 2264 |
1964 | 123,817 | 18,880 | 12,564 | 78,992 | 7352 | 3179 | 2850 |
1969 | 123,581 | 20,424 | 10,498 | 77,061 | 7232 | 3323 | 5043 |
1974 | 123,581 | 20,708 | 11,341 | 76,256 | 7738 | 4042 | 3496 |
1978 | 123,581 | 21,150 | 9285 | 75,078 | 8633 | 5852 | 3583 |
1982 | 123,635 | 20,338 | 10,387 | 73,356 | 8503 | 6815 | 4236 |
1987 | 123,635 | 18,290 | 10,044 | 73,500 | 8630 | 8373 | 4798 |
1992 | 123,377 | 18,053 | 9780 | 73,434 | 9245 | 8042 | 4823 |
1997 | 123,377 | 17,982 | 9116 | 71,938 | 8984 | 9136 | 6220 |
2002 | 123,319 | 14,824 | 8281 | 73,661 | 9099 | 8707 | 8748 |
2007 | 123,319 | 12,483 | 10,288 | 75,150 | 9698 | 8887 | 6815 |
information measure becomes larger. However, others have used Equation (8) as an estimation tool. Specifically, Salois, Moss, and Erickson [
where vi is the share of farmland values in state i, pi is the share of agricultural income in state i, yi is a measure of the share of urban pressure in state i, and
We are interested in two applications of the general inequality measure. First, we are interested in the difference in the distribution of land use by land type between states
where Qst is the share of land in state s as a percent of total land in region r, qsit is the share of state s’s land used for land use i at time t, and Qrit is the share of land in region r in use i at time t. Essentially,
where
Following Moss, Mishra, and Erickson [
Intuitively, if
The inequality between land uses in each region is presented in
In the Southeastern States, Florida dominates the urban land use with 40.1 percent of all urban use in 1945 compared with 27.9 percent of all land. In addition, the Southeast is different in that the share of urban use has been relatively stable over time. Most of the changes in the differences in land use in the Southeast involve differences in pasture. Again, the difference is Florida which accounted for 46.1 percent of all pastureland in the region in 1945. This increased to 54.0 percent in 2007.
The dispersion of land use in the Delta States is fairly small. The differences occur in the other land use category. Most of this variation can be attributed to Louisiana which accounted for 60.3 percent of this category in 1945 increasing to 65.5 percent in 2007 compared to Louisiana’s share of land which was 31.0 percent. Much of
Year | Cropland | Pasture | Forest | Special | Urban | Other | Average |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Delta States | |||||||
1945 | 0.01580 | 0.04892 | 0.00161 | 0.00168 | 0.09724 | 0.18496 | 0.02602 |
1949 | 0.01522 | 0.02256 | 0.00065 | 0.00594 | 0.09763 | 0.16084 | 0.01643 |
1954 | 0.00980 | 0.02312 | 0.00025 | 0.00341 | 0.06142 | 0.09049 | 0.01129 |
1959 | 0.01193 | 0.00065 | 0.00030 | 0.00132 | 0.06250 | 0.51640 | 0.02817 |
1964 | 0.01236 | 0.02759 | 0.00098 | 0.00482 | 0.06350 | 0.64836 | 0.02978 |
1969 | 0.01254 | 0.00066 | 0.00016 | 0.01346 | 0.03134 | 0.31669 | 0.01961 |
1974 | 0.01240 | 0.00131 | 0.00016 | 0.01347 | 0.01307 | 0.33931 | 0.02157 |
1978 | 0.00984 | 0.00030 | 0.00076 | 0.01842 | 0.01710 | 0.32985 | 0.02523 |
1982 | 0.00908 | 0.00331 | 0.00089 | 0.01950 | 0.02178 | 0.24643 | 0.02120 |
1987 | 0.01214 | 0.00382 | 0.00132 | 0.01722 | 0.00732 | 0.19219 | 0.02051 |
1992 | 0.01318 | 0.00642 | 0.00138 | 0.02464 | 0.02363 | 0.25793 | 0.02453 |
1997 | 0.01842 | 0.00142 | 0.00423 | 0.02579 | 0.02829 | 0.39166 | 0.03567 |
2002 | 0.01832 | 0.00280 | 0.00412 | 0.04693 | 0.06406 | 0.23695 | 0.02769 |
2007 | 0.01732 | 0.01760 | 0.00522 | 0.04938 | 0.06499 | 0.26237 | 0.03113 |
Pacific States | |||||||
1945 | 0.03458 | 0.04496 | 0.00362 | 0.13846 | 0.20894 | 0.33894 | 0.05159 |
1949 | 0.03041 | 0.02818 | 0.00271 | 0.13068 | 0.22195 | 0.04883 | 0.02569 |
1954 | 0.03433 | 0.04381 | 0.00576 | 0.14340 | 0.17196 | 0.27485 | 0.04776 |
1959 | 0.03632 | 0.03873 | 0.00544 | 0.13497 | 0.18242 | 0.16725 | 0.04343 |
1964 | 0.04115 | 0.03240 | 0.00530 | 0.09629 | 0.20396 | 0.31661 | 0.04758 |
1969 | 0.05180 | 0.04427 | 0.00450 | 0.10485 | 0.19805 | 0.18391 | 0.04594 |
1974 | 0.04974 | 0.04670 | 0.00429 | 0.09991 | 0.18847 | 0.17688 | 0.04419 |
1978 | 0.04814 | 0.05036 | 0.00700 | 0.08632 | 0.18841 | 0.20276 | 0.04958 |
1982 | 0.04829 | 0.03462 | 0.00657 | 0.08937 | 0.18764 | 0.17270 | 0.04411 |
1987 | 0.04634 | 0.04643 | 0.00287 | 0.06901 | 0.19838 | 0.09593 | 0.04056 |
1992 | 0.05155 | 0.03322 | 0.00551 | 0.05843 | 0.18590 | 0.12732 | 0.04017 |
1997 | 0.05223 | 0.04012 | 0.00865 | 0.10603 | 0.18142 | 0.04835 | 0.04577 |
2002 | 0.04502 | 0.04794 | 0.00727 | 0.09775 | 0.14526 | 0.12570 | 0.04702 |
2007 | 0.05164 | 0.03715 | 0.03178 | 0.11040 | 0.14422 | 0.19577 | 0.05895 |
Southeast States | |||||||
1945 | 0.09015 | 0.10462 | 0.00284 | 0.01048 | 0.04479 | 0.04558 | 0.03282 |
1949 | 0.07574 | 0.13066 | 0.00217 | 0.02821 | 0.04108 | 0.01881 | 0.02844 |
1954 | 0.05715 | 0.11441 | 0.00007 | 0.04217 | 0.00982 | 0.12467 | 0.02590 |
1959 | 0.05536 | 0.15445 | 0.00082 | 0.04772 | 0.01297 | 0.24549 | 0.03475 |
1964 | 0.02358 | 0.15979 | 0.00381 | 0.02657 | 0.01894 | 0.37707 | 0.03298 |
1969 | 0.02477 | 0.19141 | 0.00655 | 0.07173 | 0.05435 | 0.14155 | 0.03587 |
1974 | 0.01629 | 0.17373 | 0.00620 | 0.10603 | 0.08086 | 0.10446 | 0.03474 |
1978 | 0.01223 | 0.22659 | 0.00870 | 0.09300 | 0.04086 | 0.17520 | 0.03791 |
1982 | 0.01577 | 0.23907 | 0.00877 | 0.08652 | 0.04611 | 0.09931 | 0.03977 |
1987 | 0.01444 | 0.21309 | 0.00938 | 0.13306 | 0.05512 | 0.13060 | 0.04311 |
1992 | 0.01424 | 0.21631 | 0.01195 | 0.14475 | 0.04356 | 0.08541 | 0.04337 |
1997 | 0.03012 | 0.23996 | 0.01627 | 0.12904 | 0.04967 | 0.10010 | 0.04973 |
2002 | 0.00434 | 0.20823 | 0.01839 | 0.10480 | 0.08902 | 0.05079 | 0.04311 |
2007 | 0.01461 | 0.18497 | 0.01384 | 0.12536 | 0.09123 | 0.02748 | 0.04329 |
this use is attributable to Louisiana’s swamps such as the Atchafalaya Basin.
Overall the inequality of land use does not show dramatic changes in land use over time. Especially apparent is the lack of reallocation to either the special or other land use categories, the exception being Florida. The land use inequality for the special category use in the Southeastern States increased from 0.01048 in 1945 to 0.12536 in 2007. This change in inequality is associated with an increase from 30.0 percent of special land use in Florida for 1945 to 51.6 percent in 2007. At the same time the other land use category for Florida declined from 32.3 percent of the Southeast in 1947 to 12.8 percent in 2007.
There is more information regarding the changes in land use across regions as depicted in
Finally, turning to the change in land allocation over time,
A widely held belief is that the increased affluence in the United States since World War II has increased the demand for environmental services and these are being met through the reallocation of land from commercial
Year | Cropland | Pasture | Forest | Special | Urban | Other | Average |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1945 | 0.05505 | 0.18546 | 0.00490 | 0.02625 | 0.00890 | 0.00620 | 0.04577 |
1949 | 0.04435 | 0.25053 | 0.00592 | 0.01820 | 0.01521 | 0.09184 | 0.05995 |
1954 | 0.03529 | 0.16342 | 0.01272 | 0.02795 | 0.02240 | 0.07109 | 0.04852 |
1959 | 0.02669 | 0.09338 | 0.01233 | 0.02155 | 0.03002 | 0.13964 | 0.03744 |
1964 | 0.02673 | 0.10502 | 0.01460 | 0.04614 | 0.02960 | 0.07436 | 0.03800 |
1969 | 0.05572 | 0.12883 | 0.01182 | 0.06730 | 0.02985 | 0.02374 | 0.04397 |
1974 | 0.05586 | 0.13538 | 0.01135 | 0.06410 | 0.03502 | 0.03822 | 0.04592 |
1978 | 0.05767 | 0.17955 | 0.01339 | 0.06327 | 0.05940 | 0.05551 | 0.05549 |
1982 | 0.05281 | 0.14077 | 0.01222 | 0.06608 | 0.06464 | 0.03788 | 0.04817 |
1987 | 0.04995 | 0.14464 | 0.01655 | 0.08276 | 0.07652 | 0.03689 | 0.05273 |
1992 | 0.05694 | 0.17039 | 0.01837 | 0.06353 | 0.05142 | 0.03538 | 0.05651 |
1997 | 0.04364 | 0.18284 | 0.02141 | 0.11431 | 0.05778 | 0.00607 | 0.06121 |
2002 | 0.04675 | 0.18453 | 0.02094 | 0.10363 | 0.08290 | 0.01930 | 0.06242 |
2007 | 0.04271 | 0.16220 | 0.02943 | 0.12037 | 0.08390 | 0.05809 | 0.06962 |
State | Inequality | |
---|---|---|
Arkansas | 0.01887 | |
Louisiana | 0.02767 | |
Mississippi | 0.03273 | |
Delta States | 0.01651 | |
California | 0.09043 | |
Oregon | 0.04799 | |
Washington | 0.10001 | |
Pacific States | 0.07112 | |
Alabama | 0.08107 | |
Florida | 0.18794 | |
Georgia | 0.08064 | |
South Carolina | 0.10028 | |
Southeast | 0.08728 | |
Total | 0.05471 |
uses such as agriculture into reserves, parks and other environmental uses. For example, the farm bills have included payments for the conservation reserve program (CRP) which removed environmentally sensitive land from production. These CRP payments increase the environmental flows from agricultural lands. In addition programs such as Florida’s plan to buyout US Sugar’s land between Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades was intended to provide environmental benefits to the Everglades and Florida Bay between the mainland of Florida and the Florida Keys. In addition, several contend that the desire for environmental flows may limit the conversion of land into urban uses. In this study we examine the allocation of land across uses including cropland, pasture, forests, special (which includes the local, state and national parks), urban, and other. In general, changes between these uses have been small over time. There is some evidence of increased demand for environmental flows with the growth in the special category in California and Florida. However, these increases are often created by reductions in forests that also provide certain environmental amenities. In addition, there is little evidence that the desire for increased environmental flows limit the growth of urban land use over time.
The lack of private markets for environmental flows from land in most states suggests that these demands are met through traditional land uses. Forestry provides many of the same environmental flows produced by the transfer of land public ownership (i.e., parks and wildlife reserves). One of the dominant questions remains―of the land transferred from other uses into parks and recreational areas, how much is transferred at full price? Stated slightly differently, how much of the land transferred into environmental uses meets the marginal rental condition posited in the theoretical model?
Agricultural technology also has contributed to significance improvements in environmental stewardship. For example, the adoption of no-till air seeding equipment has greatly reduced soil erosion in the high plains grain growing area of North America [
A debate centers on the private stewardship of land and the need for regulation. Evidence suggests that farmers and ranchers have increasingly adopted best management practices that are environmentally friendly. For example, set-backs from waterways increase the land’s ability to provide water quality. Ranchers in North Florida may receive the County Alliance for Responsible Environmental Stewardship (CARES) [