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Improving Coastal Land Use Planning Through the Application and Evaluation of the Interoperability of Three Decision Support Tools
Project Description
Increased population growth in coastal areas can result in pollution, habitat loss and degradation, overfishing, invasive species, and increased threats due to coastal hazards. Understanding the linkages between land use strategies and their effects on coastal-marine ecosystems is critical to the development of sound land use policies that minimize impacts from population growth and maintain the social, economic, and ecological values of our coasts.
A unique partnership of local, state, and federal agencies; academic institutions; and non- and for-profit organizations worked together to develop an integrated land-sea planning toolkit that assists planners and resource managers in applying ecosystem based management to land use planning.
Aransas County, Texas was an ideal study location for the development of an integrated land-sea planning toolkit. The county’s watershed promotes a healthy estuary with highly diverse habitats that support the area’s growing recreation and tourism industry, as well as estuarine-dependent commercial and recreational fisheries. However, Aransas County has recently experienced rapid population growth and there is a strong community interest and involvement in maintaining the resource-dependent quality of life in this region as the population increases. The goal of the toolkit was to provide Aransas County with the ability to make land use planning decisions that maintain the desired, eco-driven quality of life.
The partnership collaborated with the local community to apply three decision support tools: CommunityViz, NatureServe Vista, and N-SPECT. The three tools were integrated to: (1) evaluate the current condition and sustainability of the ecosystem and socio-economic indicators, (2) evaluate future development trends based on current policies and economic forces, and (3) develop alternative land use strategies to meet sustainability objectives for ecological and socio-economic values.
How the tool(s) were used in this project
- CommunityViz® (provided by Placeways) supported development and analysis of land use scenarios and socio-economic indicators.
- NatureServe Vista® (provided by NatureServe) provided the ability to depict ecological values, evaluate impacts from land use scenarios, and develop alternative land use scenarios.
- N-SPECT (provided the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Coastal Services Center) was used to predict sedimentation and pollution changes from different land use scenarios and identify areas that are key contributors of these inputs.
The technical use of the tool(s)
This project is designed to demonstrate how interoperating three decision support systems can aid integrated land-sea planning. The three core tools of the toolkit are all extensions to ESRI’s ArcGIS® software and thus are able to interoperate by utilizing the same software platform. A common geospatial database was developed and used in all three tools to create and assess a series of scenarios that depicted: (1) current land use; (2) expected land use at a future time, and (3) preferred future land use.
Scenario development begins in CommunityViz, which directly supports generation of land use planning maps. These maps are exported to NatureServe Vista, which incorporates additional detail about land use, management, and disturbance and also analyzes the scenario for impacts on terrestrial and freshwater elements. Vista exports the scenario to N-SPECT to assess water quality impacts. N-SPECT results are then incorporated into a marine plume model to predict the location and concentration of pollutants in the marine ecosystem coming from runoff. N-SPECT and the marine plume model results are later sent back to Vista for impact assessment of terrestrial, freshwater, and marine conservation elements.
Vista and N-SPECT are used to pinpoint conflicts between development scenarios and conservation goals, as well as to generate alternative scenarios or site mitigations. These alternatives are exported to CommunityViz for integration into additional scenarios. Indicators (or performance measures) were calculated for each development scenario and compared for differences in indicator performance. CommunityViz provides tools for easily estimating indicators and was used in this project to summarize both socio-economic and ecological indicators and assess the impact of different development scenarios.
Input from local stakeholders, scientific experts, resource managers, and political officials was required at several stages of the tool workflow. Information regarding current land use policy, development trends, conservation elements, conservation goals, and habitat/species viability requirements was gathered through a series of workshops, as well as through personnel communication.
Additional tools can also be added to the toolkit to provide specific analyses but were not the subject of our interoperability evaluation. These include:
- ISAT provided by NOAA CSC (www.csc.noaa.gov/isat) for calculating impervious surface coverage to input into CommunityViz and NatureServe Vista.
- MARXAN provided by the University of Queensland (www.ecology.uq.edu.au/index.html?page=27710) for generating optimized conservation solutions. MARXAN is currently interoperable with NatureServe Vista.
Tool evaluation
The results of this project clearly showed that the integrated land-sea planning toolkit supports ecosystem based management and can be used to mitigate many of the potential problems associated with increased human activity in coastal communities. This type of land use planning approach ensures that ecological goals are achieved, while still accomplishing socio-economic objectives. Although this type of planning approach requires a significant commitment from planners, resource managers, local officials, scientists, and stakeholders, its benefits are tremendous and can assist growing coastal communities with land use planning and resource management decisions.
Management outcomes
The following outcomes resulted from this project:
1. Successful and ongoing partnership among Mission-Aransas NERR, local governments, and local organizations to support adaptive land use and resource management decision making.
2. A demonstration case study of the innovative application and integration of tools from the land use planning, water quality, and ecosystem management sectors that will benefit all coastal communities.
3. Summary report of the project methods and results was developed for the local stakeholders of Aransas County, Texas.
4. Local stakeholders, scientific experts, and resource managers were able to see the potential applications of the toolkit, as well as some of its limitations and assumptions, at a series off workshops and hands-on trainings.
5. Detailed technical guide for the the Integrated Land-Seal Planning Toolkit that describes and generalizes the problem, approach, tools, interoperability model, and data inputs and outputs.
Project Partners
Key Stakeholders and Participants
- Local Governments (e.g., City of Rockport, Town of Fulton, Aransas County)
- Developers
- Land Acquisition Organizations (e.g., Aransas First)
- Local Resource Managers (e.g., TX Parks and Wildlife, US Fish and Wildlife Service)
- Researchers (e.g., University of Texas Marine Science Institute, Texas A&M University Corpus Christi)
Submitted by Denalisian (not verified) on Mon, 12/26/2011 - 13:45.
It was good information. Thanks for sharing. I make training videos about ms project
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