Agricultural Land Loss & Urban Development

"This project will examine changes in agricultural land use, potentially focusing on Minnesota. The primary dataset is National Land Cover Database (NLCD).

Depending on the student’s interests and data availability, the project may focus on one or all of the following:

* Map where agricultural land has transitioned to developed land over time;
* Estimate county-level farmland loss over time using gridded spatial data in ArcGIS or R;
* Manually validate the estimates against online NLCD county summaries; and
* Examine how farmland loss relates to population growth, housing development, income growth, proximity to urban areas, and other local characteristics.

Specific duties may include:

* Collecting, cleaning, and merging spatial, demographic, and economic data;
* Producing maps, summary statistics, and figures;
* Summarizing the findings in a final report and presentation.

Qualifications:

* Interest in agricultural economics, environmental or resource economics, land use, or spatial analysis;
* Experience with R or ArcGIS
* Ability to communicate progress regularly.
"