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 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 Land Trends data through the web-based mapping service. This program provides decision-makers and stakeholders with timely information to support working lands' conservation and strategic planning within a spatially explicit context.

Many of the award-winning web tools developed under the Land Trends program are used in both everyday contexts and for major military planning. 

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. Access the Data Explorer > https://data.txlandtrends.org/

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 for an intersect query based on user-input geospatial data layers. The tool produces a report with maps and relevant information for the landowner to use in property management plans. Access TxMAP > https://txmap.nri.tamu.edu/