What is GIS series: How to use GIS to avoid Environmental Conflict

In this What is GIS video, I give another one of my GIS examples. Using GIS for Conflict Avoidance in Environmental Planning.

In many places, owning land does not automatically give you the right to build a house on it. Government might cite heritage, environmental, or some other reason for denying a building permit. Because the right to build has huge implications for the value of a block of land, I wouldn't like to be the one breaking that news to a landowner! But, hang on a minute, for this project I was a part of a team that did just that . . .

Tambo Bluff was a rural estate that was not serviced by town sewerage. Its allotments were environmentally unsustainable because they were too small to deal with wastewater onsite. Both health problems and environmental problems could emerge.

There was a pre-conflict phase, and a post-conflict phase.

The pre-conflict phase was a planning forum where planners were trying to take away people's developments rights. At a planning forum before our involvement, the participants became so angry, security had to be called.

The post-conflict phase. Our approach was to produce GIS maps of environmental factors and environmental constraints. . .
* SOILS: We showed which soils could be built densely on, and which soils needed to have lower density developments on.
* STEEP SLOPE CONSTRAINTS.
* PROXIMITY TO WATER COURSES CONSTRAINTS
* COMPOSITE MAP OF INDIVIDUAL ALLOTMENTS: Using map overlay and other GIS analysis techniques, I modelled the factor and constraint maps onto the cadastral map to create an overall map of compliance with State Legislation and Codes of Practice.

In a town meeting, we explained each GIS map to the stakeholders. The most important map was the composite map. It showed blocks as being developable in white, blocks requiring more detailed analysis in grey, and undevelopable blocks in black. Landowners were calm because they could see there was reasoning behind our independent results.

When reliable maps of themes that are relevant to planning problems are used to communicate to stakeholders, planning forums tend to go much more smoothly. Over the years, I have worked on many similar projects. I don't call it Environmental Conflict Resolution any more. I call it either Conflict Minimization or Conflict Avoidance. My team has reproduced these results time-and-time again.

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