Loss of Prime Farmland in Duxbury, Massachusetts

This project and resulting map were made to represent different soil types in Massachusetts, focusing on Duxbury, and how this land has been effected by impervious surfaces. Each of the three farmland types have physical and chemical differences, making Prime Farmland the most ideal soil to have farmland on. Farmland of statewide importance is a slightly less desirable soil but still ideal for different farm uses. Farmland of unique importance is defined as less conventional farmland, such as cranberry bogs, which are considered a type of farmland however since they are located on wetlands, this type of land would not be eligible to build on. This project calculated how many square kilometers of these three types of farmland were lost to impervious surfaces.

Raster data about the soils were used to create a map in the ArcMap program, and information from the attribute tables of the layers are combined to make sense of the data and show where the types of farmland are being lost to construction of things such as impervious surfaces.

Figure 1. This map shows the loss of prime farmland in Duxbury, broken down into the three categories.

	Count	Square Kilometers
Total study area size	623,266	623.266
Prime farmland	47,026	47.026
Farmland of statewide importance	90,766	90.766
Farmland of unique importance	24,703	24.703

Table 1. This table shows the total area of farmland types in the study area of Duxbury, Massachusetts.

	Count	Square Kilometers
Prime Farmland Lost	4,845	4.845
Farmland of statewide importance lost	8,028	8.028
Farmland of unique importance lost	626	0.626

Table 2. This table shows the loss of farmland by farmland type in Duxbury, Massachusetts.

Conclusions: The data and map show that some farmland in each of the farmland categories has been lost to imperious surfaces. Farmland of statewide importance lost the most land at 8 square kilometers. This is most likely due to the land being versatile, and the fact that most farmland is also a good area to build on due to the soil composition not being too wet. The least land lost was that of unique importance. This is most likely due to this land being comprised of wetlands, causing the land to be much harder to build on and less desirable for any construction.