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Loss of Open Space
A number of recent assessments cite the loss of open space as a top threat to the health and sustainability of ecosystems. This loss also reduces the ability of forests and grasslands to provide a multitude of public benefits, services, and products, including clean water and air, wildlife habitat, scenic beauty, and recreational opportunities.
Loss of open space has three aspects:
- conversion – the replacement of natural areas with buildings, lawns, and pavement,
- fragmentation – the division of open space into smaller isolated areas, and
- parcellation – the subdivision of large acreages into smaller ownership parcels.
As significantly more people migrate from urban areas and populate rural areas--often adjacent to and within forested areas--a zone is created in which humans live intermingled with undeveloped forestland known as the wildland-urban interface (WUI). The WUI poses a challenge to the management of public lands for forest health and public enjoyment.
The Forest Service is working to provide tools and create partnerships in an effort to conserve open space and achieve a sustainable balance between growth and conservation. A national Open Space Conservation Strategy has been released.
Current projects related to loss of open space
Other resources and publications:
Cooperating Across Boundaries: Partnerships to Conserve Open Space in Rural America
Human Influences on Forest Ecosystems: The Southern Wildland-Urban Interface Assessment (4 MB PDF)
Living on the Edge: The Wildland-Urban Interface in the South
Forests Under Seige: Fragmentation Accelerates in the South
Encyclopedia of Environmental Threats
US Forest Service National Sustainability Report
USDA Sustainable Development mission
National Agroforestry Center - Working Trees for Communities
Ecosystem Services - Neighborhood Trees
Forest Inventory and Analysis National Program
Fragmentation and Land Use Change research
Land Use and Land Cover Change and Loss of Open Space research
Lifestyle Behaviors, Consumption Patterns, and Land Management research
Southern Forest Resource Assessment
Southern Appalachian Assessment
Great Lakes Ecological Assessment
The Highlands of Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania
