GIS - What it Can Do For Us

Within The Collaborative there are neighborhoods. Each neighborhood needs to develop a letter of intent or supplemental plan just to have something against which progress and achievements can be made. Each would be dated and permanent until an approved alternative was presented. The "alternative" would be dynamically changing in length, components, and links and appendices. It would become a hyperplan, a dynaplan.

Most of us have had enough of the plan as the "dusty book on the shelf", out of date before it was delivered. Dynamic maps can be created and placed on this web site for everyone in The Collaborative to use for the good of all.

Students and citizens can be requested to assist in developing plan elements, especially those GIS maps and three-dimensional pictures that show how an action or decision has an affect on the entire area. Consultants may be secured to develop some superior baseline parts of the dynamic document. Neighborhoods can be encouraged to use any of the text or map work of others. Perhaps a foundation will support Internet-enhancing work leading toward dynamic planning systems that include citizen-input mechanisms. A system might include: weighing and assigning importance, demand, expectation probabilities, and things that can be substituted to achieve goals and objectives. Hopefully it would display progress, have a feedback system, and automate chart-rooms (Delphi techniques, etc.) leading to improved estimates of the future.

We shall seek projects with Contours, Inc. of Knoxville. and the Conservation Management Institute of Virginia Tech and others.

Contours Geographic Information Services Bill Card P. O. Box 5373 Knoxville, Tennessee 37928 Telephone: 865.257.0258 E-mail: info@contoursgis.com

What's it good for? GIS can be exploited to answer questions of:

1. Location of residences
2. Industrial sites, sidings, and access (or barriers) to railroad movement of products
3. Distance zones from fire, police, schools, institutes and recreation centers
4. Distances from medical centers
5. Flood plains
6. Endangered- or threatened-species occurrence
7. Noise zones - ground and road-related vehicles, aircraft noise
8. Soil erosion (probable tons per acre per year)
9. Noise zones for clinics, rest homes, etc.
10. Hiking and biking trails
11. 4 x 4 trails and intensive use areas
12. Optimum Organic-waste composting sites
13. Autumn leaf color and viewscapes
14. Probable runoff rates for various intensity storms
15. Optimum snow removal deposit sites
16. Water retention to assist in flood control efforts
17. Optimum apartment sites
18. Apartment noise zones
19. Optimum parking sites for "serving" neighborhood centers in fossil-energy crises
20. Optimum sewage line expansion
21. Optimum solid waste and recycling vehicle routing
22. Correlations of locations with emergency room trauma cases
23. Correlations of locations with crime occurrences
24. Solar collector areas (possible building code requirements in select areas)
25. Wind-energy generator sites
26. Utility corridors for the future
27. Viewscapes
28. Vertebrate pest zones
29. Revised gardening zones and tree-planting suitability zones
30. Optimum location of flood-water storage ponds
31. Grazing area potentials
32. Forest site quality and productivity
33. Mines - historical

There are university programs in GIS work. Students are requested to do GIS work for the Clearfork region. Faculty are invited to encourage student project assistance for they can benefit the student as well as the people of The Collaborative and others. Contact, for example, Mr. Jeff Waldon, Conservation Management Institute at Virginia Tech.

Perhaps you will share ideas with me about some of the topic(s) above at RHGiles@RuralSystem.com.

Maybe we can work together ... for the good of us all ... for a long time. Return to the top of page.