This study was an academic exercise in environmental planning and in using
GIS in making land use decisions. The exercise allowed us to consider design
principles in environmental planning. It taught us about the functionality of
GIS, its applications as well as a working knowledge of ArcView software.
The power of GIS as a tool to investigate a great variety of questions in
many different disciplines is tremendous. GIS has applications in demographic,
economic, historical, public health, political and economic analysis and in
other academic domains. GIS allows investigators to study relationships
between different data and present the relationships in geographic terms using
maps and overlays. It allows investigators to view changes over time. And in
our study it allowed us to isolate possible building sites based upon a
variety of environmental and cultural criteria.
GIS as a tool is as powerful as the questions asked. Like other scientific
domains, a change in methodology, or a change in factors or criteria, or a
change in the sequence of steps used in the analysis can change the outcome of
the investigation.
The Proposed Site
We successfully isolated nine possible building sites based upon a variety of
environmental and cultural criteria. A site was then chosen from the nine sites
based upon its location within the watershed and its proximity to
transportation corridors. After further analysis of the site using topographic
maps, it became apparent that an important criterion might have been neglected
in our investigation. We failed to consider topography. We in fact have
situated our development on the side of Forked River Mountain and our fifty
acres of land that we planned to develop has a 100-foot change in elevation
from the surrounding land. We also discovered two nuclear power plants as well
as an active gravel pit within 3-4 miles . Thus, factors not considered can
have important ramifications when considering environmental planning and
building site selection.
We believe that our methodology in building site selection was successful
in that nine possible sites based upon important criteria were identified.
However, site selection only based upon a mechanical ArcView analysis has
limitations. We believe that after several building sites are identified that
each site must be evaluated and analyzed based upon each site's unique
characteristics. Without such an analysis, poor decisions in environmental
planning and community development will undoubtedly result.