The Center for Land Use Education (CLUE) at UW Stevens Point was recently awarded a $380,000 grant from the USDA�s National Research Initiative for Rural Development. The grant will allow CLUE to document and analyze the long-term trends in land subdivision in a set of rural Wisconsin communities. CLUE staff will also be working with local planning committees and agencies to jointly develop strategies for managing the unintended negative consequences of land subdivision, or parcelization.

The project, called "Factors influencing land parcelization in amenity rich rural areas and the potential consequences of planning and policy variables", will focus on rural communities where parcelization has the potential to be a major issue. These are most likely communities rich in lakes and forestland, where subdividing land for recreational and retirement use is common.

Eric Olson, Land Use Specialist at CLUE, points out why parcelization is important: "Rural areas and urban areas have traditionally had a relationship of economic exchange. Cities depend on rural areas for food and other natural resources, and rural areas depend on the market demand that urban areas create. Parcelizing the land for urban recreational and retirement consumption is another issue altogether. Now, rather than consuming the fruits of the land, the land itself is being consumed. This will have major implications for both urban and rural economies in the future."

Eric points out that previous research has already shown the negative consequences of parcelization. As land is split up and sold, efficient farming and forestry practices become more difficult to carry out and new threats are introduced to communities. Landowners are less likely to engage in forestry. Farming operations may conflict with rural residents. More homes are put in the path of potentially threatening forest fires. Rural housing introduces exotic species into otherwise intact ecosystems. Shoreland development degrades lakes and rivers.

"The surprising thing," Eric notes, "is that we have no accurate sense of whether or not parcelization is increasing, and even if it is increasing, we can�t really say how fast. There is no commonly used statistic to capture the parcelization phenomenon. In part, this is because it operates in numerous dimensions, including space and time. These historically have been difficult to track".

The study aims to address this challenge by using the latest in computer technology to capture, measure, and project the change in parcels both in space and over time. CLUE faculty and staff will head up an effort to reconstruct historic parcel maps in a geographic information system, or GIS. This will involve working with old paper records of parcel maps.

Doug Miskowiak, a GIS specialist at CLUE, hints at the difficulties involved: "Tracking parcelization over time hasn�t been done much before because the process is very labor intensive. Old maps must be tracked down and then entered digitally into a GIS. Currently, parcels are recorded and updated digitally, but previous records are often discarded making tracking change over time difficult. A protocol needs to be developed to digitally record when new property lines are introduced. Once all the lines have been assigned a �birth date�, we can show parcel patterns and trends at various point in time." The CLUE researchers hope to measure parcelization over the last 100 years.

Once recorded, the researchers can then begin analyzing the changes in parcels for patterns. For example, it should be clear that land adjacent to lakes attract development. But there are other patterns that will likely emerge by comparing a host of geographical characteristics to the parcel maps. From the analysis, the group hopes to be able to predict where new lot divisions are likely to occur in the future. Will new development occur next to urban amenities like sewer and water or natural amenities such as forests? This is where community involvement becomes important.

The project will conclude by training local county governments to monitor parcelization changes on their own with tools currently available to them. Doug Miskowiak suggests that counties use the digital parcel database they currently maintain to track changes in parcelization and land use. "Having a method to monitor land use change and parcelization will help local governments track the progress and understand the implications of their comprehensive plans, both positive and negative."

Anna Haines, CLUE Director, notes communities have tremendous powers when it comes to managing how land is divided. "Often, it�s not a simple question of whether land will divide or not," notes Anna, "The question is how the land will be divided, and this can have serious consequences for both delivery of government services and management of natural resources. Too many very small lots in very remote places have both economic and ecological consequences".

To begin, the CLUE researchers are seeking partner communities that are interested in the project. A call is going out to University of Wisconsin-Extension�s county-based Community and Natural Resource Development educators to find out who is interested in participating. Project communities must have a fairly robust GIS system already in place, as well as some participation in comprehensive planning. Two different counties are being sought, one that is representative of the state�s forest and lake regions and one that is more agricultural in nature. Analysis of parcel maps will begin in the winter, and the entire project will be completed by 2009. n