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Case Study Landscape Planning with GIS By Susan Smith
Route 66 holds many memories for travelers who took to the roads during the 1950s to explore America. The old route, which has been lost in development throughout much of the west, just happens to run through Albuquerque, New Mexico, as a 17-mile stretch known as Central Avenue. Sites Southwest, LLC, an Albuquerque planning and landscape architectural business, is responsible for leading a design team to develop economic revitalization strategy as well as to design a comprehensive streetscape for the historic route. Using input from the community as well as economic data developed by its in-house planners, Sites Southwest generated 3D views and illustrative computer GIS maps using ArcView and aerial photography.
(Author''s Note: This case study is fully outlined in the book GIS for Landscape Architects, by Karen C. Hanna.)
Principals George Radnovich, Phyllis Taylor and Bob McCabe have put together their creative heads, using their combined backgrounds in GIS, planning and landscape architecture to solve a number of different challenges. They use GIS databases to illustrate topography, planning concepts, programmatic information from demographics, and market information. According to Radnovich, "We look at our company as vertically integrated. Meaning, we are able to use GIS and planning techniques at the initial stages of any given project to determine how the project will effect a given locality. We can then determine what the development market might be and the necessary implementation policies. And that information would guide the landscape architects who design the projects."
In only four years, Sites Southwest has garnered several high profile contracts such as the master plan for the Albuquerque Biological Park, and the Japanese Garden within the Botanic Gardens of the Biological Park. They will start soon on the Bosque Revitalization for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which encompasses a stretch of the Rio Grande almost 13 miles long. Plans include restoration for the vegetative cover of the Bosque, as well as infrastructure improvements, and passive recreation components such as parking, trail access, etc. Maps produced for this project will include land use, neighborhood (including cultural landscape history characterized by ownership, economic function and demography), neighborhood change, slope maps, soil maps, vegetative cover, wildlife, fire hazard, gap analysis, infrastructure, and existing recreational facilities. The last map they will do will be an aggregate of the highlights of each of these: an overall constraints map. "This will show where our opportunities and constraints exist, with regard to infrastructure, wildlife and other environmental impacts." Radnovich explains that the way planners use GIS is typically very different from the way landscape architects use it. The challenge is to create GIS information that can be useful to all disciplines. The data used consists of census data, aerial photos, topography, and planimetric data from cities and counties, and USGS gap analysis. "Typically we have planimetric data created by a photogrammetric company such as Bohannan Huston, to get a more detailed map that includes coordinate data (x,y,z)," says Radnovich. After the work is completed the maps and plans produced for the given project are turned over to the city, county or federal agencies and attached to the larger GIS database. Sites Southwest uses the software used by most of their clients, namely, Spatial 3D Analyst, ArcView and ArcInfo for GIS, as well as AutoCAD and MicroStation for the actual plans. They also use LandCADD, 3D Studio VIZ, and Adobe Illustrator and PhotoShop for simulations. |
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