Land use change detection and quantification of prime agricultural lands in Southern Ontario

Spatiotemporal land use change evaluation and quantification are essential for supporting and enhancing land use policies and for the sustainable management of land resources. To quantify the semi-decadal change in land use particularly prime agricultural lands in Southern Ontario, maps and matrices of spatial and temporal change of agricultural lands to other types land uses including built-up land were prepared from the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) land use data. Then, the spatial and temporal changes of capable soils for agriculture and built-up land was evaluated. Finally, the amount of capable soil change in different regions and periods was calculated. The area of built-up and agricultural land has increased and decreased by 68% and 4% from 1990 to 2020, respectively. The amount of change in agricultural lands to built-up land in the period of 1990–2005 and 2005–2020 was 1179 and 1640 km², respectively. In these periods, 920 and 1204 km² of highly capable soils for agriculture have been converted into other land uses, respectively. The results showed that the change in agricultural lands to other types, specifically built-up areas and loss of highly capable soils for agriculture has increased over the recent years.