NJ Map

NJ Map is a suite of internet-based geospatial tools and map themes designed to assist New Jersey municipalities and local level stakeholders in better visualizing and understanding their environment.  Created and maintained by the Rowan University’s Geospatial Research Lab (GeoLab) since 2011, NJ Map helps facilitate sound land use and environmental management decisions in order to achieve sustainability goals and objectives. Each of the tools are intuitively designed so that volunteer citizen users (such as planning board members, environmental commission members, watershed organizations, green action committees, citizen groups, etc.) can have easy access to the vast amounts of geospatial data available for New Jersey that are typically only accessible to trained GIS professionals.

The best way to learn what NJ MAP can do is to use it for yourself. Check it out here.

The NJ Map suite of tools features the following projects:

• The Municipal Landuse Dashboard is an easy-to-use tool that animates the landuse change that has occurred from development within each county in New Jersey.  Users can see charts and tables that correspond with a map of a specific county. 
  
  
• The New Jersey Conservation Blueprint allows private citizens, municipalities, non-profits, and various levels of state government to identify priority lands considered for conservation as they relate to the following four themes:  water, ecology, agriculture and community greenspace.  The Rowan University Geolab has collaborated with The Nature Conservancy, New Jersey Conservation Foundation and a consortium of 21 conservation-focused groups both governmental and non-profits, to develop a shared, living blueprint of lands to be protected in the next few decades.  This tool is particularly timely as many studies estimate New Jersey will fully “build-out” by 2050. This means that unprotected lands and forests within the state will either be preserved or developed in the next 40 years. 
  
  
• The New Jersey Municipal Buildout Modeler and the Highlands Watershed Cluster Buildout Moderler aim to help visualize current and future zoning and its impacts on the environment at the parcel level in New Jersey. The Buildout Modeler is an interactive map that allows anyone with access to a computer with internet the ability to explore local level impacts as they pertain to zoning changes. The tool’s central focus is on the nitrate impacts that will occur due to future development proscribed by local zoning ordinance. It also allows towns to develop “what if” or alternate zoning scenarios. These buildout modelers give towns the tools to more effectively plan for zoning that helps to protect water resources.
  
  
• The Land Change Viewer provides interactive animated mapping of two decades of urban growth and open space loss in New Jersey from 1986 through 2007. It was produced as a companion to a 2010 research study that summarizes New Jersey’s land base during this two decade period.