Caribbean Undeveloped Land (SECAS Goal Trends)

<p style='margin:12pt 0in 4pt;'><b>Yearly trend </b></p>
<p style='margin:0in;'>Caribbean undeveloped land declined in both Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Across both territories combined, this indicator declined by 0.39% per year from 2017-2022. That is a loss of approximately 279,000 acres of undeveloped land per year. </p>
<p style='margin:12pt 0in 4pt;'><b>On track to meet SECAS goal </b></p>
<p style='margin:0in;'>No. The decline of about 1.56% every 4 years is not enough to reach the SECAS goal of a 1% increase every 4 years. </p>
<p style='margin:12pt 0in 4pt;'><b>Data source </b></p>
<p style='margin:0in;'><a href='https://livingatlas.arcgis.com/landcover/' rel='nofollow ugc'>Esri Sentinel-2 10-Meter Land Use/Land Cover</a></p>
<p style='margin:12pt 0in 4pt;'><b>Confidence in trend </b></p>
<p style='margin:0in;'>Medium. The decline is statistically significant; however, yearly weather changes and human uses can significantly impact classification errors for developed land. </p>
<p style='margin:12pt 0in 4pt;'><b>Interpretation </b></p>
<p style='margin:0in;'>This is an indicator of areas less impacted by development in the Caribbean. While the landcover data has significant issues with misclassification, it does seem like the Caribbean is continuing to lose undeveloped land. Overall loss in undeveloped land is most likely due to development to support tourists and others that don’t live on the island year-round. The population of both Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands actually decreased from 2017-2022. </p>
<p style='margin:12pt 0in 4pt;'><b>Other information available</b></p>
<p style='margin:0in;'>A table of territory-level summaries is available in Appendix I of the pdf report: <a href='https://secassoutheast.org/pdf/SECAS-goal-report-2024.pdf' target='_blank' rel='nofollow ugc noopener noreferrer'>https://secassoutheast.org/pdf/SECAS-goal-report-2024.pdf</a>.</p>