Tools For Land Use Planning
Project Leaders:
Bruce Maxwell, LRES,
Jerry Johnson, POLS,
Richard Aspinall, GIAC
Our long term goal (5 years) is to produce a suite of user-friendly county planning tools with the primary objective of infusing objective data and analysis into the planning process. These tools would be used to create an awareness of changes occurring in rural land use and associated communities, objectively determine the factors that may be driving changes in land use and communities, and predict some of the socioeconomic and ecological changes that may occur with different types of land use mosaics. Three general types of tools are under various levels of development: 1) GIS or GIS-Linked tools, 2) Survey Instruments, and 3) Ecosystem Response Tools. The GIS tools are constructed within or to interact seamlessly with ARCView GIS and would require minimal training of county planners or interested citizen groups to implement for awareness presentations and land use planning. A current list of tools that we have, know of, or are developing are included in the following Table.
|
GIS Tools |
Primary Use |
Scale |
Time to Complete |
Apprx. Cost for optimum |
Stage of Development |
|
|
Minimum |
Optimum |
|||||
|
County Land Use Change Model |
Projects land use change with broad brush |
County, polygon |
+ |
|||
|
Public Land Use Prioritization Tool |
Interactive GIS to prioritize land for development and conservation |
County, polygon |
^ |
|||
|
GIS Linked LUC Model |
Projects land use change in specific area and identifies drivers of land use change |
10 mile X 10 mile grid max. |
2 mo. |
4 mo. |
|
* |
|
Economic build-out tool |
Compares costs among different types of suburban development |
1 section max. |
+ |
|||
|
Visualization tool (photographs linked with GIS) |
Creates an awareness of how views may change with changing land use |
3-5 points/25 sq. miles |
3 mo. |
6 mo. |
|
^ |
|
Visualization tool (fly-through in GIS) |
Fancy way to look at land use maps and projected future maps |
100 sq miles - County |
1 mo. |
2. mo. |
|
* |
|
Remote sensing used to identify land use (no training data) |
Fully automated way to get past and future land use maps |
County, polygon |
6 mo. |
12 mo. |
|
+ |
|
Survey Tools |
||||||
|
Socioeconomic response tool (Economic Workbook) |
Compares economics and demographics of Community with County and State |
State, County, Community |
* |
|||
|
Community Attitude Survey |
Develops an awareness of attitudes toward changing landscapes |
Community |
+ |
|||
|
Landowner Attitude Survey |
Identifies major factors driving land use change and general land management |
20-25 sample |
6 mo. |
12 mo. |
|
+ |
|
Favorite Views Photo Survey |
Identifies places of value to people in the community |
3-5 points/25 sq. miles |
3 mo. |
6 mo. |
|
! |
|
Ecosystem Response Tools |
||||||
|
Handbook for Volunteer Water Monitoring in Montana |
Citizen based monitoring |
Drainage |
! |
|||
|
Terrestrial Ecosystem Integrity Index |
Identifies a set of measures to monitor ecosystem integrity in response to land use change |
10 0 sq. miles max. |
24 mo. |
36 mo. |
|
+ |
|
Wildlife Habitat ID (GAP Analysis) |
Identifies critical wildlife habitat |
County, polygon |
4 mo. |
8 mo. |
|
* |
*Working, Tested and Published
+Working, Tested, but not Published
^Working, Not Tested or Published
!Currently being developed
?Plan to develop
Information Sources
Some examples of where information can be found:
General Information on Land Use Planning:
Examples of Urban Growth and Land Use Change Models used to create awareness of change: http://weedeco.msu.montana.edu/agroecology.htm
http://esa.sdsc.edu/esalanduse.htm or http://esa.sdsc.edu/landuseb.pdf
National Consortium for Rural Geospatial Inovations in America
Association for Biodiversity Information
Analytical tools that incorporate biological and ecological information into land use planning University of California, Santa Barbara
Urban Growth Models and Visualization Tools, Prescott College, AZ
Center for Spatially Integrated Social Science, UC Santa Barbara
Land Use and Land Cover Change
Using Spatial Data to Assess Septic Limitations
Working with rural residential developers to create sustainable communities. Example
Other Tools:
Analytical Tools:
Statistics:
Data:
Maps
http://sun1.giac.montana.edu/giac.html
Demographics
Combining Education and Local Data Gathering and Monitoring Programs