Texas Landtrends Help

Contents

Use these links to jump to the respective section of the page. Otherwise, just scroll down.

Navigation Overview

When you first visit the Trends Visualizer, the following menu will appear.

Menu

There are several regions for which the data can be viewed and summarized—County, Area, River Basin, Eco-Region, and Custom Selection.

  • County - Data will be summarized at the chosen county level.
  • Area - This region is broken into 6 categories: Statewide, and 5 special areas of interest
    • Statewide - summarizes the data and reports values at the state level, all 254 counties.
    • Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex - summarizes data for the DFW area, including Collin, Dallas, Denton, Ellis, Hood, Johnson, Kaufman, Parker, Rockwall, Tarrant, and Wise counties.
    • Greater Houston - summarizes data for Harris and its surrounding counties, including Brazoria, Chambers, Fort Bend, Galveston, Harris, Liberty, Montgomery, and Waller.
    • I-35 Corridor - summarizes data for the I-35 Corridor between San Antonio and Austin, including Bexar, Comal, Hays, Kendall, Travis, and Williamson counties.
    • Rio Grande - summarizes the southern two Rio Grande counties of Cameron and Hidalgo.
    • Coastal Counties - summarizes coastal counties along the Gulf of Mexico, including Aransas, Brazoria, Calhoun, Cameron, Chambers, Galveston, Harris, Jackson, Jefferson, Kenedy, Kleberg, Matagorda, Nueces, Orange, Refugio, San Patricio, Victoria, and Willacy.
  • River Basin - Summarized by the 23 major River Basins (listed below). River Basins do not follow county boundaries, therefore some data in this section will be missing due to the level at which it is produced, such as population.
    • Brazos
    • Colorado
    • Guadalupe
    • Neches
    • Nueces-Rio Grande
    • Sabine
    • San Jacinto
    • Trinity
    • Brazos-Colorado
    • Colorado-Lavaca
    • Lavaca
    • Neches-Trinity
    • Red
    • San Antonio
    • San Jacinto-Brazos
    • Trinity-San Jacinto
    • Canadian
    • Cypress
    • Lavaca-Guadalupe
    • Nueces
    • Rio Grande
    • San Antonio-Nueces
    • Sulphur
  • Ecoregion - Data is summarized by 11 ecoregions. Like river basins, ecoregions do not follow county boundaries, therefore some data will be missing due to the level at which it is produced.
    • Blackland Prairie
    • Gulf Coast Prairies and Marshes
    • Oak Woods and Prairies
    • South Texas Brush Country
    • Coastal Sand Plain
    • High Plains
    • Piney Woods
    • Trans Pecos
    • Edwards Plateau
    • Llano Uplift
    • Rolling Plains
  • Custom Selection - Allows for a custom summary of up to 10 counties chosen by the user. Press and hold the "Ctrl" key while clicking on the counties in order to highlight the ones you want.

Choose one of the options from the dropdown menu for the chosen region and click the Go button next to it.

After clicking Go on one of the options, The Trends Visualizer displays a map to the right of the box that graphically shows the region you just queried. Below the menu are various trend categories available for the current selection.

categories

Each of the trend categories can be expanded and collapsed, and contain additional sections depending on the type of data being displayed.

To expand (Expand grey,Expand maroon) or collapse (collapse maroon,collapse grey) the sections, click anywhere on the respective trend category bar.

  • Note:If a River Basin or Ecoregion is selected for the query—a Population category will be absent. This is because those regions do not follow County boundaries and the population data was obtained only at a county level. Therefore, an accurate value for the region could not be calculated.

A different region can be selected at any time. Go back to the region dialog box, select the region, and click the go button. Any bar that was expanded will continue to be expanded with the new information.


Maps - Enlarging and Saving

Each map displayed can be clicked on in order to view a larger version. The larger version is overlayed on top of the visualizer in its own transparent window. To go back to the visualizer, simply click again anywhere on the image or screen.

All map images can be saved using your browser's regular means. Usually, this is done by right clicking the image, and choosing "Save Link As..." (Firefox), or "Save Picture As..." (Internet Explorer). Both the regular map image and the enlarged map image can be saved in this manner.

Save As

Charts - Viewing Values and Saving

To view the exact value for each vertical bar, hover the cursor over the bar. The value will appear.

Chart Hover

To save a chart as an image, right click anywhere on the chart and choose "Save as Image". After generating the image, you will have the option to save it to specific location.

Save Chart as Image

To print the chart, right click anywhere on the chart and choose "Print Chart". The Print dialog box will open, select a printer, and click Print.

Print Chart

Tables - Exporting

To pull the values from a table into an external program such as Microsoft Excel, use the cursor to select all the values in the table including the column headings.

Table Select

After selecting, right click in the table and choose "Copy".

Table Copy

Now, you should be able to paste the data into Microsoft Excel. In any cell, right click, and choose "Paste Special".

Table Paste

Choose the "text" option to paste the data as regular text. The data should now show up in individual cells.

Table Result

Calculations

Landuse

The land use calculations were made using the 1997, 2002, and 2007 County Appraisal District data from the State Comptroller’s Office. The land use data is broken up into six main categories; Irrigated Cropland, Dry Cropland, Non-Native Pasture, Native Rangeland, Wildlife Management, and Forest. Using the Trends Visualizer, the land use data is viewed in three different ways:

  • Acreage Totals - This table shows the acreage totals in each land use for the selected region. Other land uses and the total acres in agriculture are also included. The reported land use is shown for 1997, 2002, and 2007.

  • 10 Year Percent Change - This section gives a visual representation of the percent change in acres of land use over the 10 year time period from 1997 to 2007. The green bars represent a gain in acreage for the given land use, and the orange bars show a loss in acreage. In many cases, it was necessary to omit Wildlife Management from the chart due to the drastic increase of this land use. Any land use type that has been excluded from the chart because of an extremely high or low percent change will be noted directly below the chart. The actual percent change for each land use can be seen in the chart by placing the cursor over its respective bar.

  • Maps - The Comptroller data for land use is reported based on Independent School Districts (ISD). The data on the maps is shown at the ISD level instead of on a county level. This allows for a more accurate depiction of land use across the state. There are two sets of maps under the land use category. The first set of maps show the percent of the total reported agricultural land that is in each land use category. There is a tab for each land use category above the maps, and each tab contains the 1997 and 2007 maps for that land use. The next set of maps for land use show the percent change over the 10 year time period from 1997 to 2007. One map shows only areas of increase, while the other shows only decrease.

Several percent change calculations show a 0% change where indeed there was an increase in a certain land use type (for example, Wildlife Management might have gone from 0 acres in 1997 to 3,000 acres in 2007). Percent change is calculated with the following equation : ((Year2-Year1)/Year1)*100. The division by Year1 if it is zero is not calculable (division by zero), so zeroes were used as the result, even though there was a legitimate increase.

Market Value

The market value calculations were made using the 1997, 2002, and 2007 County Appraisal District data from the State Comptroller’s Office. The table in this section shows the average dollar per acre value of land in the selected region for 1997, 2002, and 2007. It also displays the average value per acre for the entire state of Texas as reference. The maps in this section display market value per acre reported at the ISD level. The first map simply shows the dollar per acre value of land across the state in 2007. The second map shows the change in dollar per acre value from 1997 to 2007.

Population

Population data was obtained at the county level from the Texas Department of State Health Services (TDSHS). These may vary slightly from data values in the 10 year census conducted by the US Census Bureau. TDSHS estimates were used over US Census values so that we could compare year to year with the other data in the study which was collected in years the US Census did not occur (1997, 2002, and 2007).

Due to the fact that the population data is only available at a county level, it is only included for County and Area region queries in the Trends Visualizer. If a River Basin or Ecoregion query is selected there will not be a population section. This is due to the fact that the River Basins and Ecoregions do not follow county boundaries so there was no way to make accurate population values when counties were split.

The table in this section shows the population of the selected area for 1997, 2002, and 2007, along with the percent change in population from 1997 to 2007. The same population data for the entire state is also shown for reference. There are two maps in the population section. The first map shows the population by county in 2007. The second map shows the percent population change by county from 1997-2007.

Ownership Size

The ownership size calculations were made using the USDA NASS Census of Agriculture 2007 data. This section looks at 5 size classes of farms; <100 acres, 100-500 acres, 500-1,000 acres, 1,000-2,000 acres, and 2,000+ acres.

  • Farm Count by Size Class - This table simply looks at the number of farms from each size class that are in the selected region.

  • 10 Year Farm Count Change by Size Class - This chart shows the change in the number of farms in each size class for the selected region from 1997 to 2007. The green bars show an increase in the number of farms for that size class, and the orange bars show a decrease in the number of farms. The change in the number of farms can be seen in the chart by placing the cursor over its respective bar.

  • Farm Percent of Total by Size Class - There are two maps for each size class of farms in this section, and there is a tab for each size class located above the maps. Each map shows the percent of total agricultural lands within a designated size class for each county. One map shows the values for 1997, and the other 2007. For example, on the 1-100 acre tab, counties with < 1% (red), show that less than 1% of the total agricultural lands are on farms that are less than 100 acres.

  • Acre Count by Size Class - This table shows the number of acres in the selected region that are in each size class of farm for 1997, 2002, and 2007.

  • 10 Year Acreage Change by Size Class - This chart shows the change in the number of acres in each size class for the selected region. The green bars show an increase in the number of acres for that size class, and the orange bars show a decrease in the number of acres. The change in the number of acres can be seen in the chart by moving the cursor over its respective bar.

Suggested Citations

Web Page

Wilkins, R. Neal, Amy G. Snelgrove, Blair C. Fitzsimons, Brent M. Stevener, Kevin L. Skow, Ross E. Anderson, Amanda M. Dube. "Texas Land Trends." Texas A&M Institute of Renewable Natural Resources. 2009. Texas A&M University. <http://texaslandtrends.org/[Enter_URL_Here]>