Comparison of overlap between (Piscataway) developed and Vacant land derived from TIGER and LANDSAT TM: Map

Map (Piscataway) shows graphic and spatial relationships between TIGER and LANDSAT data.While the percentage of developed land detected by the TIGER data in Piscataway did increase as housing unit density decreased, it did not increase as significantly as it did in Essex Fells. This can be attributed to the issue of land use vs. land cover. Piscataway has a number of areas with corporate office parks and strip development. This type of land use in Piscataway has a large amount of impervious surfaces associated with it, such as parking lots and large buildings. These land covers were detected as developed with the LANDSAT TM data. Using the TIGER data to detect areas based on housing unit density threshold is land use oriented, but it is a restricted set of land use information. Other types of land use, such as office parks and strip development, do not have a high concentration of housing units, hence the failure of the TIGER data to discern these areas as developed