Open Space Inventory Update
DVRPC maintains an inventory of publicly-owned and privately-owned protected open space in the Delaware Valley. Public open space includes all publicly-owned lands used for open space purposes.
For the purpose of this inventory, public ownership equates to “protection”. Privately-owned protected open space includes undeveloped lands that are privately owned, but are protected from development through publicly-funded farmland preservation programs or through conservation easements executed by non-profit land trusts and conservancies. A conservation easement involves the purchase or donation of a property’s development rights to a land trust. Land trusts also sometimes acquire land outright through fee-simple purchases. Sometimes, land trusts donate these “fee-simple” lands to public entities, thereby making them “public open space”.
DVRPC updates this inventory approximately once every four years. The most recent update was finalized in June 2025 and represents conditions on the ground as of late 2024. The three prior inventories depicted conditions on the ground as of the end of 2020, 2016 and 2011 (see bar chart below). Data for the 2024 inventory was provided by each of the counties in the DVRPC region, WeConservePA, and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.
Open Space Highlights and Trends
- Across the entire DVRPC region, the inventory of protected open space increased by 100,255 acres, or 18 percent, from 2011 - 2024. During this time span, private open space saw an increase of approximately 89,900 acres, while the amount of public open space increased by about 10,300 acres.
- Between each of the three time periods – 2011 and 2016, 2016 and 2020, and 2020 and 2024 – the total amount of protected open space increased by 42,700 acres, 38,400 acres, and 19,100 acres respectively.
- The county with the greatest rate of increase in land protection was Chester County, which saw a 29.4% increase in its protected open space acreage.
- Burlington County has by far the greatest amount of protected open space, 237,169 acres, both in terms of total acreage and as a percentage of the county, due primarily to large-scale state land-holdings in the Pinelands, as well as significant protection efforts undertaken by land trusts.
- Chester County notably has the highest amount of private protected open space, sitting at about 107,700 acres.
Data Disclaimer: Tracking change by category over time at the regional scale is not an exact science. For example, land can change categories over time, such as when land owned by a land trust is transferred to a public entity, or land might have been assigned to the wrong category by data providers in prior inventories, but is then subsequently corrected. DVRPC reviews all data files it receives carefully, but the ultimate accuracy of the inventory is dependent on the accuracy of the source data provided by county governments, nonprofit organizations and the states.