Grantee Research Project Results
Final Report: Sustainable Sandhills: Developing a Plan for Regional Sustainability
EPA Grant Number: X832208 aka R832208Title: Sustainable Sandhills: Developing a Plan for Regional Sustainability
Investigators: Parsons, Jon , Perritt, Richard
Institution: Sustainable Sandhills , North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources , North Carolina Department of Commerce
Current Institution: Sustainable Sandhills , North Carolina Department of Commerce , North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources
EPA Project Officer: Klieforth, Barbara I
Project Period: August 1, 2005 through September 30, 2008
Project Amount: $262,171
RFA: Collaborative Science & Technology Network for Sustainability (2004) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Pollution Prevention/Sustainable Development , Sustainable and Healthy Communities
Objective:
Develop a GIS-based planning tool to assist in the adoption of sustainable land use plans in the counties and municipalities of the Sandhills region of southeastern NC.
Summary/Accomplishments (Outputs/Outcomes):
- August 2005: Grant awarded and project and grant administration begins.
- September 2005: Initial meeting held with 30 regional planning professionals, developers and conservationists to explain the project and to solicit input on the factors to be included in analysis and modeling.
- October 2005 – February 2006: The project team developed initial model criteria based on 9/2005 meeting and the best available geospatial data to represent the concepts of suitability for 5 categories of land use.
- Residential development
- Commercial development
- Industrial development
- Natural land conservation
- Working farm and forest conservation
- March 2006: The project team built draft land suitability models in 5 categories to evaluate the geospatial data and draft criteria and to show concrete examples of how models can represent land suitability on a map.
- April 2006: The project team developed a 90 minute interactive presentation to solicit public input on the relative importance of assets and constraints for the 5 land use categories. The project team conducted a “dry run” of the workshop with the Sustainable Sandhills Board of Directors as the audience, and based on the resulting feedback, significantly altered the format of the presentation to be more understandable by a non-planning audience.
- May – October 2006: The project team used the presentation developed in 4/2006 to complete a set of eight workshops – one in each of the eight Sandhills counties – to solicit public input on the relative importance of assets and constraints for the 5 land use categories. Comments from the first 2 workshops led to separating the Working Farm and Forest land use category into 2 separate categories – for a grand total of 6 separate land use categories. The project team also completed meetings with expert focus groups on all 6 categories during this period. The focus groups gave input and insight to the project teams on weights and detailed criteria for each of the land use categories.
- October 2006: Given the county perspectives on the most important suitability factors and relative importance of assets and constraints along with the insights of the focus groups, the project team analyzed the information and edited the model criteria to prepare for modifications of the draft models.
- November 2006: The project team applied the new criteria to the draft datasets and produced model output for each of six land suitability models.
- January-March 2007: The eight county draft GIS dataset was expanded to 11 counties and updated to the best available and most current data.
- April 2007: The 6 suitability models were run with the updated GIS dataset.
- May – September 2007: Model results were reviewed by Sustainable Sandhills Land Use Team and delivered to two key planners in the region to test “on the job.” The Project Team developed the program for the upcoming workshop to debut “Release 1.”
- September 2007: A regional ¾-day workshop was held with more than 60 planners and developers in attendance. Technical presentations on the details of Release 1 of the suitability models and maps were made in the morning, followed by demonstrations by two key planners in the region on their use of the maps in urban and rural settings. Then a set of afternoon breakout groups gave feedback to the project team on development and conservation models, distribution methods, and other combinations of model results.
- October 2007: NC’s Interagency Leadership Team awarded grant funds to assist in the completion of “Release 2” of the Suitability maps by July 2009.
- October 2007 – March 2008: Suitability map data (shape files) were delivered to more than 40 local government planners and GIS coordinators in the 11 county region. File transfer via external USB hard drive, and face-to-face training sessions with planners averaged 3 hours per county/municipality.
- February 2008: The SS Suitability project was presented to the Military Growth Task Force’s “Strategic Lands Initiative” (SLI), a group of stakeholders from 14 counties surrounding the US Marine Corps’ Camp Lejeune in eastern NC. The SLI plans to complete a set of suitability models and maps similar to the SS project’s, and to eventually unite the two projects into a “super-regional” set of suitability maps for 44 counties in eastern NC.
- March 2008: The Project Team hosted a ¾-day workshop by the Strategic Sustainability Assessment team from the Army Corps of Engineers’ Construction Engineering Research Lab (CERL) and researchers from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Our Project Team and other stakeholders from the SS region identified likely growth scenarios and “strategic interventions” for the SSA team. The SSA Team also used our suitability model results to inform their future growth projections. We hope the collaboration will lead to a Google Earth portal for our suitability maps to be accessible for users without GIS software in 2009. We also hope the collaboration will eventually lead to the development of an “alternative futures” module.
- May 2008: The Fort Bragg & Pope Air Force Base Regional Land Use Advisory Commission (RLUAC) released its 2008 Joint Land Use Study (JLUS) update. The JLUS identifies the “critical” and “important” lands for conservation in the 5 mile zone around the Bragg/Pope installation. The 2008 JLUS update used the suitability maps as the foundation for its land parcel analysis.
- June 2008: The Fort Bragg Base Realignment and Closure Regional Task Force (BRAC RTF) released its Comprehensive Regional Growth Plan (CRGP), a two year study funded by the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s (OSD) Office of Economic Adjustment (OEA). The SS Suitability project was the foundation of the CRGP Regional Planning and Sustainable Development Chapter.
- July 2008: In preparation for Release 2 of the Suitability maps, a Residential, Commercial and Industrial Development focus group meeting was held to refine the layer selection and criteria used in those three development suitability models.
- September 2008: In preparation for Release 2 of the Suitability maps, Working Forest and Natural Areas focus group meetings were held to refine the layer selection and criteria used in those two suitability models.
Future Activities
- Release of a set of suitability maps for a group of 44 counties in eastern NC, based on the SS Suitability project and referred to as the Strategic Lands Initiative (SLI), is scheduled for December 2008. The SLI’s 44 county area includes the 11 SS counties, and uses a single set of criteria defined by a compressed outreach effort and a group of GIS layers available through the NC Department of Environment and Natural Resources NCOneMap project.
- Presentation at the first annual A Conference on Ecosystem Services in Naples, FL, December 8-11, 2008.
- Presentation at the 2009 NC GIS Conference in Raleigh, NC, February 19-20, 2009.
- Release 2 of the SS Suitability models and maps is scheduled for June, 2009. Release 2 will be based on an updated GIS dataset, updated criteria from development and conservation focus groups, improvements gained by collaboration with the SLI, and feedback from users of Release 1.
Conclusions:
- Due to the multiple jurisdictions in the Sandhills region and the lack of a shared planning vision by these jurisdictions, the adoption of a single regional plan for adoption by multiple jurisdictions was not realistic.
- A planning Decision Support Tool that facilitates dialog between stakeholders and across jurisdictional boundaries was selected as the best option for the eventual realization of Sustainable Sandhills’ research objective.
- Stakeholder engagement at every step of the development of the models is critical to the acceptance and eventual use of the results.
- At the end of the project, it is clear that there is a wide range of familiarity and access to GIS data and software amongst the planning, development and conservation stakeholders in the Sandhills region. The next release of the Suitability models and maps will be more widely used and understood if deployed on a web-based platform.
- Incorporation of the other goals and objectives of the Sustainable Sandhills organization into the Decision Support Tool was not accomplished as part of this project, although work continued with key stakeholders in four other areas: Materials Use and Waste, Energy Use, Water Resources and Air Quality.
Journal Articles:
No journal articles submitted with this report: View all 2 publications for this projectSupplemental Keywords:
suitability, conservation, development, infrastructure, ecosystem, evaluation, assessment, decision, planning, sustainable, criteria, potential, model, map, ranking, rating, regional, cultural, community,, Sustainable Industry/Business, cleaner production/pollution preventionRelevant Websites:
Sustainable Sandhills - www.sustainablesandhills.org Exit
Fort Bragg & Pope Air Force Base Regional Land Use Advisory Commission - www.rluac.com Exit
Fort Bragg Base Realignment and Closure Regional Task Force - www.bracrtf.com Exit
Sandhills GIS Association - www.sandhillsgis.com Exit
NC DENR’s NCOneMap - www.nconemap.org Exit
Progress and Final Reports:
Original AbstractThe perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.