The URBAN LAND category includes most of what normally would be considered developed land. Residential areas, commercial areas, services and institutions, industrial areas, and those developed for transportation and utilities are the primary land uses included in the URBAN category. In addition, there area several open land categories that are included here. Developed recreation areas, whether they be part of a park, educational facility, or private concern such as a golf course, are included in the URBAN series. Lastly, there is also a code used do identify other undeveloped open space in urban areas. Included in this last category would be such areas as large landscaped lawns in corporate business and service centers, parks and residential areas. These areas do not have buildings and pavement characteristic of more highly developed categories, but are given an URBAN code to distinguish them from undeveloped open areas that exist outside an urban setting. The impact of these areas on environmental quality can be suspected to be different than undeveloped areas outside of an urban setting.

Not included in the URBAN category are those disturbed wetlands discussed above. Business parks, large educational institutions, golf courses, transportation right of ways, among other urban categories, often include sections that while not having typical wetlands vegetation, do show obvious signs of soil saturation, and which extend over areas that do have hydric soils. Again, these areas are considered wetlands from a regulatory perspective, even though viewing these areas from the ground or from an aerial photo, you might be inclined to put them in the urban category. The numbers given for the URBAN values below do not include any of these disturbed wetlands areas. Since the full data set allows users to select categories in any of a number of ways, these areas can be included in URBAN calculations if need be. They have not, however, been included in the URBAN numbers shown below.

Included are all land areas associated with agricultural production. The greatest amount of these lands would be areas used in the active cultivation of crops, both row and field crops. Also included, however, are pasturelands and grazing lands associated with horse or cattle raising operations, orchards, vineyards, nurseries and other horticultural areas, and confined feeding operations. In addition, other lands used in support of the agricultural activities, such as the farmsteads, associated barns, stables, and corrals, among others, are also included.

As with the URBAN category, there are also AGRICULTURAL lands that are considered WETLANDS for regulatory purposes. These areas are generally under active cultivation, and so do not support typical wetland vegetation. But these areas do exist on saturated, hydric soils, and are absent the wetland vegetation only because of the active cultivation. The acreage of these AGRICULTURAL wetlands are included in the general category of WETLANDS, below, and not in the category of AGRICULTURE. As with the URBAN wetlands, users of the full data sets can reselect out these AGRICULTURAL wetlands individually and include them in other general categories if need be.

Included is all upland areas covered by woody vegetation. The vegetation may be primarily deciduous, coniferous or a mixture of both, and include scrub/shrub and brush areas as well as mature tree stands of various densities. Also included in this category, with a separate code, are early stage forest successional stands, commonly referred to as old fields. These do not normally have a significant amount of mature trees on them, but are placed in this category because of their potential development to FORESTS. The 14 specific upland FOREST types can be identified and analyzed individually, or grouped into several more general FOREST categories.

Not included in the FOREST category, and in the figures given below, are forested wetlands. New Jersey has many types of deciduous, coniferous and mixed species forests that exist on saturated, hydric soils. These forested lands are considered WETLANDS, both in the specific numeric land use/land cover codes that are given to them, as well as the general category into which these areas are place. Since these forested wetlands also have specific codes identifying the forested wetland type, they can be isolated and analyzed with the other forest categories if need be. They are not, however, included in the FOREST category in the acreage figures below.

Included is both tidal and non-tidal open water bodies of the state. Freshwater lakes, ponds, and reservoirs, and salt and brackish water ponds and enclosed tidal bays, such as Barnegat Bay, are mapped as WATER. Also included are portions of rivers and streams that are greater than 80 ft. in width. (Stream and river sections narrower than this are mapped as single line features in a separate data layer)

Included in the boundaries of several of the coastal Watershed Management Areas are portions of Delaware and Raritan Bays, and a three-mile strip of the Atlantic Ocean. These areas are included in the WMA's, and therefore, in the LU/LC data set, because of water quality monitoring that involves these large open water areas. These open water areas are not, however, included in any of the acreage figures given below for the WATER category. Since these open water areas are each given a unique code in the data sets, however, they can be queried if need be.

Wetlands are those areas that exist where the water table is at, near or even above the soil surface for significant time periods of the year. The soil is, therefore, generally saturated, and only plant types capable of growing under saturated conditions are found. Wetlands serve a variety of ecological functions, and are given special attention in the NJDEP mapping programs, and in environmental protection strategies.

A large number of specific WETLAND types are included here. Bogs, herbaceous swamps, wet meadows, forested wetlands, scrub/shrub and brush covered wetlands, vegetated pond margins, and inter tidal marshes, among others, are mapped. Although not normally thought of as occupying saturated areas, vegetated dune communities are also included under the WETLANDS category to highlight their importance.

While categories exist for both non-tidal and inter-tidal WETLANDS, the non-tidal WETLANDS are mapped in much greater detail. This is because the delineations of non-tidal WETLANDS were originally done under a mapping program developed to support the New Jersey Freshwater Wetlands Legislation. The classification used in the freshwater mapping program was the Cowardin classification system used by the USFWS. This system allows a more detailed division of wetlands types than does the Anderson system. The delineations from the NJFWW program were integrated into the baseline land use/land cover data set, with all of the detail of the original maps intact. These non-tidal WETLANDS can be analyzed according to the more generalized Anderson codes, as well as the more detailed original codes.

As mentioned previously, also included in the acreage values given below, are the disturbed WETLAND categories under NJDEP regulatory programs. These wetlands can be isolated by their numeric land use codes, which place them in the land use categories representative of the use of these areas, if need be. But all such disturbed, altered or modified wetlands have been included in the wetland acreage values included here.

The BARREN LAND category includes a wide variety of specific types, but all are characterized by a general lack of any significant vegetative cover. Included are both naturally occurring barren areas, such as beaches and rock outcrops, as well as artificially created barren areas, where vegetation has been artificially removed. Cleared but undeveloped urban lands, transitional areas, mines, dumps and quarries are also included in the general category of BARREN LAND. Each of these types can be isolated by their specific numeric code if need be, although the acreage values given below for BARREN LAND do include both the naturally occurring and artificially created barren areas.

One type of area within the 7000 series, however, which is not included in the figures, is that identified with the code 7430. These are another class of disturbed wetlands that may be found in a wide variety of disturbed or developed situations. As with the other altered wetlands, these areas show signs of obvious soil saturation. But alterations have led to the removal of any natural wetland vegetation, and grading or other surface modifications may have also occurred. These areas are regulated under the NJ Freshwater Wetlands Regulatory Program, and so are included in the acreage figures as WETLANDS. They can be isolated and analyzed separately using the specific numeric code, if need be.