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Urban, Suburban, and Rural Developed Land
The first settlements in Nevada were established in the Carson River Basin (Genoa and Dayton) about 1855 (Rocha, 2002). Over the next few decades small, permanent towns took root, primarily wherever water supplies were sufficiently abundant and reliable to maintain ranching, farming, and mining enterprises. Rural communities dominated the state for the next century. The size of Nevada's towns remained small, in part because the high desert's limited renewable resource base (e.g., water, arable land, livestock forage, wildlife and habitat) proved to be variable and depletable. Almost 140 years passed after the first settlement was founded before the state's population surpassed the one million mark.
In the 1960's, Truckee Meadows (Reno and Sparks) and Las Vegas Valley emerged as rapidly growing urban population centers. Only 25 years later, 80 percent of the population lived in a few cities located in extreme southern and western Nevada valleys. Only 15 years after  Nevada reached the million-population mark, the state added another million. Today, 86 percent of the population lives in metro-areas of Clark and Washoe counties. The urbanization trend is projected to continue.
Information on statewide land development status and trends is limited. The Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) uses satellite images and aerial photos to periodically estimate land use changes on nonfederal land. The spatial analyses show that a total of 381,400 acres (3.6 percent) of the nonfederal land in the state (97 percent of nonfederal land is private) has been converted to developed land. Developed lands encompass urban, built-up rural areas, and rural transportation land, including residential, industrial, commercial, government, parks and schools, highways and roads. From 1987 through 1997, the NRCS mapping analysis showed 61,000 additional acres of land was developed (Table 4-8) (Natural Resources Conservation Service, 2000). During this period, the population increased by about 745,000.
Compared to the population increase, the amount of additional land developed appears to be disproportionately small. This may reflect local government implementation of an "in-fill" strategy (i.e., efficient use of vacant land or redevelopment within an urban area), high-density zoning requirements, or a combination of these land use-planning strategies. Much more comprehensive information about local land development would be needed to more accurately track changes in statewide land use and the inventory of developable private land.
The NRCS data indicates that most of the nonfederal land developed for residential, commercial and industrial purposes replaced agricultural land uses. Of the 26,700 acres developed between 1992 and 1997, the NRCS estimates that 78 percent was rangeland, 15 percent pasture, and 8 percent cropland (Natural Resources Conservation Service, 2000).
New development frequently involves agricultural lands, largely because farming or ranching homesteads and enterprises initially occupied private land in valleys with mild slopes, favorable climate conditions, and dependable, high quality water supplies. Though several mining towns have survived boom and bust cycles, generally these sites are not suitable for large urban and suburban development. Development on timberland is comparatively small. The Nevada Division of Forestry, which tracks timberland conversions, estimates about 3,500 acres have been converted in the past twenty years (Nevada Division of Forestry, 2001). However, urban development in forests has disproportionately large impacts to the resource due to the limited distribution of forests and to their importance in maintaining healthy urban watersheds.
In addition to being the fastest growing state, Nevada has the driest climate, the most mountains, and the largest percentage of federal public lands. These unique characteristics factor into Nevada becoming a very urbanized. Only 12 percent of the land in Nevada is privately owned, most centered along the limited perennial water bodies.
Most private ownership was established early in the state's history, as a result of late 19th century acts of Congress to encourage settlement of the West through federal public land grant programs. Not surprisingly, the lands brought into private ownership contained high resource value lands, which provided reliable, clean water supplies; flat, arable soils; abundant timber; and mineral resource. As a result, a large portion of the limited developable private land consists of valuable water, agricultural, and other natural resources; or possesses characteristics adverse to development, such as rugged terrain, steep slopes, floodplains, or wetlands.
In areas of the state where developable private land is limited and rapid growth is occurring, local governments are required to make difficult tradeoff decisions between building on or adjacent to valuable resource lands or allowing dispersed development patterns. Some success in resolving the developable private land dilemma has been achieved through joint land use and resource planning involving local and federal government, developers, and a variety of community interests. The cooperative approach has produced federal laws, administrative mechanisms, and local public/private land plans that enable sales or transfers of environmentally sensitive private land into public ownership in combination with the acquisition or exchange of public lands that do not possess high resource values. Most of the land sales and exchanges are occurring in urbanizing valleys of southern and western Nevada.
Urban development is transforming Nevada in many positive ways, but some changes have proved be detrimental. Figure 4-9 illustrates how widely distributed urban and rural population centers remain despite a doubling of the state's population in 15 years.
Notwithstanding the appearance of abundant open space between urban and rural population centers, the exuberant pace of urban development has raised region-wide resource issues that are relatively new to Nevada. One is the appearance of urban sprawl, which contributes to disproportionately large impacts on environmental quality. Table 4.9 presents calculated population densities for selected cities in Nevada and in neighboring states. Population density is sometimes cited as one measure of sprawl.
Sprawl is generally viewed as inefficient resource consumption and ineffective land management. A sprawling development pattern extends road and utility corridor construction and expands disturbance in native plant communities, thereby enlarging the area of soil disturbance and erosion, water quality impairment, and noxious weed invasions. Subdivisions built outside urban boundaries often resort to using individual septic systems. Groundwater quality deterioration occurring in several valleys throughout the state is associated with high densities of septic systems.
Regional air quality deterioration in part is due to greater amounts of pollution emitted from the additional vehicle miles traveled and traffic congestion that accompanies sprawl. Mobile source emissions contribute to non-attainment of carbon monoxide and particulate air quality standards in Washoe and Clark County. In both urban and rural counties, subdivisions built in "wildland" areas have become an issue for wildfire management agencies. Homes built in flammable and fuel-rich areas are exposed to greater risk of wildfire damage. When wildfires occur in such areas, fire-fighting resources intended for protection of natural resources must be diverted to protection of structures, resulting in greater resource damage.
In response to rapid growth and sprawling development patterns, local interest in the conservation of open space emerged during the 1990's. Open space resources of concern do not only occur at the urban/wildland interface. In western and southern Nevada, communities are trying to protect natural stream courses, floodplains, wetlands, access to outdoor recreation resources, sensitive species habitats, agricultural greenbelts, cultural sites, scenic views, and wildfire prone forest and shrub lands. Spurred by community leaders, citizen groups, and conservation organizations, local government in Washoe and in Carson City County established an open space advisory board, hired an open space planner, and prepared open space conservation plans. In addition, the citizens of the two counties elected to employ bond and tax initiatives as a means for open space acquisitions.
Progress has been made in joint open space planning between local government and federal agencies in urbanizing regions. Notably, the BLM and USFS have coordinated with Washoe, Carson City, and Douglas County planning departments to update public land use plans at the urban/wildland interface. As a result, the BLM amended land use plans in Washoe and Carson City counties to meet mutually beneficial objectives.
Various land use plan objectives are to: retain and manage certain areas for open space values; identify land for disposal (i.e. sale into private ownership or for nonfederal use under the Recreation and Public Purposes Act); withdraw designated areas from settlement or mineral entry where land use conflicts would arise; retain existing or acquire additional public recreation access to public lands; guide future utility corridor and facility siting; designate areas closed or open to off highway vehicle use; and, identify potential Areas of Critical Environmental Concern.
Another joint federal-local program was established with passage of the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act. Among other things, the Act directs the BLM to collaborate with local government and others in a process for selling designated public lands in Las Vegas Valley consistent with an orderly urban growth pattern. A portion of the proceeds of public land auctions fund projects in southern Nevada that enhance outdoor recreation opportunities and contribute to development of a Multi-species Habitat Conservation Plan. Revenues also are used to acquire environmentally sensitive land throughout Nevada. As of May 2001, 116 parcels constituting 2,410 acres of BLM administered land was purchased at auction, generating $106.4 million. On the acquisition side of the program, 560 acres were purchased associated with the Desert National Wildlife Refuge (i.e., Moapa Valley National Wildlife Refuge, and Ash Meadows) (U.S. Bureau of Land Management, 2001).
Military Land
Nevada hosts several major military bases, air-to-ground bombing ranges, and weapons testing facilities. The U.S. Department of Defense administers activities on military lands that occupy more than 3.1 million acres in Nevada (4.7 percent of state land area). Use and management of natural resources on an area this large has significance for the resources found on military lands themselves, as well as those of surrounding areas.
In southern Nevada, public land has been withdrawn from public entry and allocated to the United States Air Force to support the Nellis Air Force Base (NAFB) and Nellis Test and Training Range (NTTR). The Nellis Range is used for air-to-air and air-to-ground combat training by US composite strike forces  and NATO forces. Every type of combat and combat support aircraft in the Air Force inventory is deployed over the Nellis range. Military special use airspace and ground targets are maintained to support air-to-air combat, air-to-ground bombing, and electronic warfare training. Overall, the NAFB and NTTR is considered the premiere air combat training center in the continental US.
Adjacent to the Nellis Range is the Nevada Test Site (NTS). Occupying just over 800,000 acres, the NTS is operated by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) as a nuclear weapons testing site. Although a moratorium on nuclear testing has been in place since September 1992, NTS is still maintained in "test readiness mode." Adjacent to the NTS is Yucca Mountain, which is the only site in the country being studied as a proposed High-Level Waste (HLW) repository for spent reactor fuel and defense HLW. The Nellis Range, the NTS and Yucca Mountain are located northwest of Las Vegas.
Maps -- 
In north central Nevada, the U.S. Army operates the Hawthorne Army Depot (HWAD). It is the largest munitions depot in the western hemisphere. The depot was established in the early 1930s after the Lake Denmark, New Jersey explosion that injured hundreds in nearby towns. The HWAD occupies 147,000 acres of withdrawn public land, has over 170 support buildings along with 2,400 igloos (i.e., earthen storage magazines). The depot is located next to Walker Lake and the town of Hawthorne.
The U.S. Navy maintains an air station and training range complex in north central Nevada. The Fallon Naval Air Station (NAS Fallon) supports the famed "Top Gun" training school as well as integrated Carrier Air Wing strike training. Air-to-air combat and air-to-ground bombing is conducted in the Fallon Range Training Complex (FRTC), which occupies just over 200,000 acres of withdrawn public land. NAS Fallon is located adjacent to the city of Fallon, about 60 miles east of Reno/Sparks urban area.
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