Gross losses of agricultural land to development were substantially higher than the net loss due to significant conversions of forest acreage to agriculture. Compared to New Castle Co., new development in Kent County is dispersed rather than infill, as indicated by large percent increases in frequencies of small residential polygon. The forest fragmentation analysis shows breakup of some major forest polygons west and south of Dover associated with scattered development in those areas. Farmland breakup does not appear to be significant. Forest fragmentation is evidenced by a decline in large forest polygons and a notable increase in frequency of small forest polygons.
Agricultural fragmentation appears to be relatively minor.
The Delaware Natural Heritage Program provided approximately 10 years worth of rare species inventory data georeferenced by lat-long. The database consists of over 2,700 individual records representing field discoveries of animals, plants and invertebrates which are rare in Delaware or globally rare. The records include state and global rarity indices. Review and Implementation Strategy . Once the mapping effort is completed and approved by the Technical Committee, the Spatial Analysis Lab will solicit external review of the maps by county and state planning officials, and obtain input on how these habitat protection priorities can be most effectively implemented as policy.