Texas is comprised of 142 million acres of private farms, ranches and forests, leading the nation in land area devoted to privately owned working lands. These lands provide substantial economic, environmental and recreational resources that benefit all Texans.

Rapid population growth is driving suburbanization, rural development, and ownership fragmentation that increasingly threatens working lands. These threats result in a fundamental change in the Texas landscape, impacting:

• rural economies,
• food and water security and
• conservation of natural resources.

The Texas Land Trends project monitors the status and changes in land use, ownership size, and land values of working lands. Research results are published as topic-based reports through the txlandtrends.org, an award-winning interactive website. Users can also explore and query the Texas Land Trends data through the web-based mapping service. Texas Land Trends provides decision-makers and stakeholders with timely information to support working lands' conservation and strategic planning within a spatially explicit context.

Here's a preview of a few tools we've developed through the Texas Land Trends project:

Data Explorer

This tool allows users to curate land trend data based on their area or areas of interest. Users' custom data queries generate summary statistics demonstrating land demographic data in three primary categories: land use, land values, and ownership. These data are displayed through interactive mapping, tables, graphs, and general text to allow unique visualization of occurring changes in the selected areas of interest.

TxMAP 

We developed a web mapping application that allows users to view and map natural resource data and then publish a summary report on an area of interest. TxMAP enables users, such as private landowners, to define a location to perform an intersect query based on user input of geospatial data layers. The data is grouped into categories that match our program areas of Wildlife Conservation, Rural Land Trends, Military Sustainability, and Private Land Stewardship. The tool produces a report with maps and relevant information for the landowner to use in property management plans.

About the Texas Land Trends Data

The Texas A&M Natural Resources Institute’s (NRI) Texas Land Trends project informs private and public decision-makers about the status and trends of our state’s working lands through the detailed curation and combination of multiple statewide datasets. NRI’s policy is to operate this project based on scientifically and statistically developed principles and protocols. Inherent to this policy is our necessity to maintain and protect the integrity, validity, and security of our data, analyses, and processes.

NRI has dedicated significant resources to developing the methodology used to create our Texas Land Trends database and does not share shape files or raw data with external entities. However, public usability and access to this data is a cornerstone of Texas Land Trends, leading to the creation of our innovative Data Explorer tool. Users can explore specific areas of interest (e.g., counties or ecoregions) or view statewide trends, with results presented through tables, charts, graphs, and maps alongside informative text to help explain common trends. This web tool allows users to visualize the data and even download select graphics. See our About the Data page for all data sources and descriptions.