NORTH DAKOTA (Prairie News Service) – The U-S is losing its wild landscape to energy, transportation, agriculture and urbanization at a rate of two football fields per minute – and North Dakota’s rate of loss is the highest in the nation.

The new research is sounding alarms about what it means for future generations, especially in light of climate change. The first comprehensive study of the lower 48 states shows how human modification is causing the loss and fragmentation of natural lands, according to biologist and study author Brett Dickson.

He says satellite data shows that from 2011 to 2017, North Dakota lost the most land – a total of two-point-four million acres.

Dickson says neighboring Minnesota lost nearly 700-thousand acres of natural lands from 2001 to 2017 – about 400-thousand to urbanization.

In addition to oil and gas extraction and the installation of pipelines, Dickson says the main forms of development that are modifying landscapes include housing and commercial construction, road-building, agriculture and logging.

The Center for American Progress, which commissioned the study, advocates for protecting 30-percent of all U-S lands and oceans by 2030 to maintain ecological stability.