Montana State researcher part of study on decline of development on forest and agricultural land

By Meaghan MacDonald-Pool

MSU News Service

BOZEMAN — A Montana State University researcher is part of a new study that finds rising gas prices led to a steep decline in the development of forest and agricultural land across the country from 2000 to 2015 compared to the previous two decades, resulting in a broad shift toward denser development patterns throughout the United States.

Published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, Daniel Bigelow, assistant professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics and Economics in the College of Agriculture, and researchers from Oregon State...