The Role of Agriculture and Forest Land in the Long Island Sound Area: A USDA Planning Aid

Excerpts from the report: In terms of physical area there are over 3,486 square miles or approximately 2.23 million acres of land in the seven counties of the Long Island Sound Study area. [The Study Area is 1,208,719 acres.] The Census of Agriculture shows that there were approximately 251,000 acres classified as farmland in 1969, or only 12 percent of the total land area. The remainder consists of urban places, public lands, and other private holdings not classified as farms. About 50 percent of the land area or one-half million acres is forest land. The Long Island Sound Regional Study is a comprehensive study of land, water and related resources of Long Island Sound and portions of Connecticut and New York. It is a multi-disciplinary effort of state and federal agencies with the goal of outlining a program for the orderly land and water resource development in the area. A specific set of issues within this broader perspective deals with land use changes and improvements in the planning process. Many demands are being made upon the land, some conflicting, some complementary. In an expanding urbanized area such as the Long Island Sound region, land in cropland and forests is often classified as undeveloped and assumed to be available for other uses. It is the intent of this report to point out how the continuance of these land uses contributes to the area. Reasons for deferring urbanization of rural lands include preservation for crop and forestry production, wildlife habitat, environmental enhancement through landscape variety, erosion control, water storage, buffer zones, and recreation experiences. A fundamental reason for such deferred development is to keep one's options open, so that irrevocable land use decisions are not made without considering the implications.