GIS and Land Use Planning

Many communities choose to or are required to have a comprehensive land use plan with zoning and land-division ordinances. Their goal is to guide the communities land use, economic development and resource management in a certain direction over a period of time. Land use planning is based on a combination of factors including zoning, population density, soil suitability, locations of floodplains, and the types of existing land uses. These forms of data can be displayed spatially and include attributes in tabular format, making them suitable for Geographic Information Systems (GIS). For example soil surveys include spatial data of the soils and tabular data describing the soil suitability for land uses ranging from picnic areas to industrial parks. Much of the soil spatial data for U.S. locations is already available in digital form, and even more is available in tabular form. GIS can make land use planning significantly more time efficient due to the fact that layers containing all of the land information data can be displayed and analyzed at once, providing an abundance of easily accessible data and eliminating the need to flip through a number of maps. In addition to determining locations for particular land uses many plans are also met with contention by citizens in the community. The ability to show the people an easily readable map, which takes into account all the goals and factors of planning for the community could be pretty effective. Furthermore the database created for the community can easily be reviewed and updated periodically to meet the growth needs of the region.

Links:

GIS for Urban and Regional Planning
Implementing GIS for Land Use Planning and Management in Lagos State
GIS in Land Use Planning
Planning Change: Case Studies Illustrating The Benefits Of Gis And Land-Use Data In Environmental Planning

Image: Old Map Weekly Planner by George Hodan