LANDSCAPE DESIGN

6 1 GIS CD Plans

6.1 GIS & CD Plans
Contents list

Fig 6.1 A medieval GIS, comprised an account book, an abacus and a map

To look after a medieval estate, one required a map, an indexed account book and an abacus (Figure 1). For its time, this was a highly sophisticated geographical
information system. Looking after the Earth and each of its parts requires more data, a better index and more data processing. Computer-based geographical
information systems (GIS) can assist with these tasks. Unfortunately, the title "GIS is user-friendly only to the initiated. For them, it is short, comprehensive
and convenient. Each word reminds them of a significant point:
Geographic: A GIS stores geographic data, of the type that used to be recorded on maps.
Information: A GIS can also store other types of data, like a traditional record book or card index, or a modern database management system (DBMS).
System: A GIS is computer-based. When computers became fashionable, in the 1960s, it was difficult to complete a sentence on a technical subject without
using the word "system. If the data is numerical, it can be used in mathematical operations. If it is textual, it can be indexed and processed in other
ways.

For the non-expert, "GIS is a vacant piece of jargon. Published definitions run along the following lines:

A powerful set of tools for collecting, storing, retrieving at will, transforming and displaying spatial data from the real world for a particular set of
purposes. (Burroughs, 1986)

A system for capturing, storing, checking, analysing and displaying data which are spatially referenced to the earth. (Maguire, 1991).

These definitions emphasize the potential uses of GIS in geography. They do not refer to planning or design, and they are not very helpful in explaining
the superiority of a computer GIS to its medieval precursors. Readers with experience in the use of computer programs for graphics, database and spreadsheet
work can think of the GIS as a union between these three programs: spatial data replaces the medieval map, a database program replaces the indexed account
book, and a spreadsheet program replaces the abacus. As spreadsheet and database programs overlap, a GIS could be described, simply, as a "spatial database.
Is the computer essential? No. But it saves time, improves accuracy and enables a more comprehensive view.

Consider the example of an address list that has been taken into a cell-based spreadsheet (Figure 2). Field B is a column of names, Field C contains their
street addresses. Other fields could hold other tabular data (for example, on family sizes, planning applications or whatever). To make this data "spatial,
or "geographical, extra fields are required. Fields D and E contain x- and y-coordinates that define the geographical location of each address point.
Field F could have z-coordinates, giving height data. The arrows indicate how data of this type can be used to generate maps. This is a GIS. It is not
a magic technology: it is a spatial database. But a GIS does have the capacity to make planning more creative, more useful, more popular and more fun.

6.1A medieval GIS: book, map and abacus

6.2 Planning with GIS
Contents list

Planning offices, everywhere, are using GIS to handle what were once known as plans. At present, many of the systems are used only for map management and
for the spatial indexing of data. This is a consequence of digital mapping. In time, GIS will revolutionize planning as surely as the internal combustion
engine revolutionized transport. Excepting sentiment, there is little reason to keep that old word "planning in use. It derives from an obsolete technique
for representing roads, buildings and landform on flat paper. Computers now provide the means of doing this job more effectively. Using a computer-aided
design (CAD) program, one can switch at will between plan, elevation, and perspective. Wedding a CAD program to a GIS program, one can plunge below the
earths surface or soar above, to take "landscapes of streets, geology, soils, habitats, hydrology, airflow, temperatures, traffic, spatial patterns or
whatever (Figure 6.3). Computer software can produce multidimensional models of the environment, instead of dull old plans. The models can be social, economic,
aesthetic or physical.

So why not substitute the term "modelling for "planning? From a geometrical point of view, the superiority of "modelling is beyond question. Plans can
be generated from 3-D models; 3-D models cannot be generated from 2-D data. Q.E.D. The only drawback to "modelling as a professional title is that it
does not, as yet, imply an ability to guide future events. If one speaks of "the would-be architect of modern Europe or "the planner of a military campaign,
one implies an instrumental role (Figure 4). "Town modeller, by contrast, suggests someone who has extended their skills from modelling railways to modelling
towns. Napoleon used physical models to help his commanders to plan assaults on fortified cities. For similar reasons, todays military spend enormous
sums of money on GIS. They know that the people with the best models are those in the best positions to control events. GIS can be used for missile guidance,
bomb damage reports, arranging logistic support and identifying nodal points in enemy command and control systems.

The military uses of GIS remind one that it can be dangerous for any group or nation to have a monopoly of knowledge. Francis Bacon, meditating on heresy,
declared that "Knowledge itself is power. The environment has suffered, fearfully, in the twentieth century from single-purpose management by experts.
Their power, coming from their knowledge, led to single-purpose planning -- which has been a prime cause of environmental despoliation. Foresters think
mainly of wood production, traffic planners of traffic, housing experts of housing and agriculturalists of food. All these land use experts have caused
harmful negative side-effects on other land uses. Town planners, landscape planners and regional planners have fought against the trend, but with an inadequate
conceptual apparatus and insufficient data. Their strategy has been to promote themselves as super-experts who can coordinate subsidiary experts, as field
marshals coordinate infantry, tanks and artillery.

One great champion of systems planning, J. Brian McLoughlin, commented that

The dilemma is real and formidable so long as we think of the planner as the man whose job it is to tell all the other ("specialist) chaps how to do their
jobs because he knows so much about them and can "coordinate them into a "master plan which is based on a superior view of the public interest. (McLoughlin,
1969)

This was a wise remark, but McLoughlin went on to describe a hierarchical set of planning goals from which he believed it possible to establish "performance
criteria for a definable system. There is an echo of Alexanders Notes on the Synthesis of Form in this vision, and the result was an equally preposterous
technocratic fantasy (Figure 6.5):

Considering economic growth first, an objective might be to maintain area growth in gross urban or regional product at a rate comparable with that of the
nation.

Objectives for residential activity and space may take a number of forms: maximizing total rateable values or rateable values per head of population or
per household could be a popular measure...

An operational objective for journeys to work may be cast in a form such as "the average journey to work should not rise significantly above 5.3 miles.

In matters of environmental quality, more than in all other kinds of planning objectives, noble sentiments are only a beginning; if they are to be capable
of fruitful discussion and subsequent operational use they must be put into a form which makes these possible. (McLoughlin, 1969)

Attempts to define overall objectives for planning usually do result in banalities and platitudes. The 1985 Peoples Plan for the London Borough of Greenwich
asserted that:

ENV1 SUBJECT TO THE AVAILABILITY OF RESOURCES, THE COUNCIL WILL ENCOURAGE AND INITIATE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPROVEMENTS.

J12 W FEASIBLE AND IN APPROPRIATE LOCATIONS THE REFURBISHMENT OF INDUSTRIAL PREMISES FOR CONTINUED INDUSTRIAL USE WILL BE ENCOURAGED EXCEPT W IT WOULD BE
TO THE DISADVANTAGE OF EXISTING INDUSTRIAL ACTIVITIES.

Planners have satirized this aspect of their work with the term "Bomfog: the aim of planning being to promote the Brotherhood Of Man and the Fatherhood
Of God. Note the sexist bias of the joke: it satirizes the masculine approach to planning, as does McLoughlin when he describes the specialists as "chaps.
The existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, who lived with the renowned feminist Simone de Beauvoir, had a broader view. Sartre believed that hard
choices have to made about ways of living, because gaining all ends is impossible. He told of a young man who sought to serve in the army, to give time
to his lover and to care for an ageing parent. The objectives were in opposition to one another -- necessitating an existentialist choice. As a Roman centurion
wrote on a stone in the Western Desert: "There are two things in life: love and power. No man can have both. Society faces dilemmas but does not have
to make single choices. Individuals and groups can define their different choices with different plans. One may favour economic growth, another will favour
environmental protection, another social justice. Sometimes, politicians will have to make compromises and planners will be able to offer advice, provided
they have good information. A spatial database, or GIS, is the best method of holding, organizing, displaying and manipulating the necessary information.

A planning database should make data available to individuals and groups in society, giving them access to power. Everyone needs models of the present in
order to formulate ideas about the future. Those who do not consider the future may not have one. The aim of this essay is to review some of the planning
opportunities that GIS are making available. Old-fashioned plans were often dreary documents, filled with platitudinous beatitudes and dullish maps. The
next generation of planning publications, if lodged on the Internet or released on compact discs (CDs), could be much more exciting publications, containing
sound, photographs, video clips, text and dynamic maps. Consider the statistics. A typical planning document might cost ,30 and weigh 1 kg. It might contain
50,000 words, 50 photographs and 10 maps. Costing a mere 40p, little more than the postage stamp that should carry it into every home, a planning CD could
contain a complete thematic atlas of the local area, a library of photographs, comprehensive statistics and as many words as the Bible. The nearest thing
we have to this format, at present, is the compact disc encyclopedia. If you consult the map section of a CD encyclopedia, it is possible to click on a
town, country or river and find information about population, history, famous buildings and so forth.

On the world wide web town plans can hold vast amounts of data - and can be updated hourly if required. They can also have write-access for citizens to
post their comments on the official plan, or to post their own plans.

The world that lies before us is multi-everything: nations, cultures, fauna, flora, arts, regions, ethnic groups and interest groups. Each has features
that they wish to conserve and develop. With skill, many of their ideas can be fitted together. The terms zoning plan, local plan, development plan and
land use plan, which remain popular in Europe, America and Japan, suggest uniform styles of sanitized development with International Style offices, housing,
industry and roads. The plans that led to such misguided programmes were sometimes known as comprehensive development plans, or CDPs. In future these letters
should be reserved for compact disc plans (Figure 6).

The benefits of GIS are likely to arise in every department of planning. As examples, we can consider planning for utilities, rivers, coasts, local character,
minerals, forests and habitats. If comprehensive planning should ever return to favour, it will have to build upon plans produced by specialists. This
is because the separate plans must exist before they can be integrated. Feudal lords had broader objectives than modern specialists, and comprehensive
information about their own estates. GIS may bring back the comprehensive view, hopefully without the comprehensive power of the robber barons. They are
also well suited to the planning of things that move.

The would-be architect of modern Europe, leaving Moscow in flames

6.3 Utilities planning with GIS
Contents list

In densely populated urban areas, local residents often have the idea that the utility companies are conspiring to disrupt their lives. Soon after a road
is resurfaced, water engineers dig it up to lay a pipe (Figure 7). The road is patched, only to be dug up again by gas, telephone, electricity, drainage
and cable TV companies. Not infrequently, they damage each others service lines, so that further excavations are required. GIS offer a solution to the
problem, which is being implemented in many countries. Soon, the exact age and location of every service line will be recorded in a GIS. Plans for repairs
and renewals will be logged. When one utility company is planning excavations, it will be able to coordinate its work with that of other companies. The
principle is clear and important: separate planning must take place for each utility, and there must be an ongoing endeavour to harmonize plans. This applies
to other categories of planning, as discussed in the rest of this essay, and to other types of utility. The routing of electric power lines, for example,
needs to be done in relation to scenic quality considerations, recreational use of land and planned settlement patterns.

6.4 River planning
Contents list

River planning used to be a very easy matter (Figure 6.10). In urban areas, there were four stages to the procedure. First, river banks were strengthened
with retaining walls. Second, river beds were concreted over. Third, roof slabs were constructed on top of the retaining walls, to make box culverts. Fourth,
the entire river was incarcerated. These measures helped to prevent flooding in some places. There were, however, four drawbacks to the procedure. First,
it was inordinately expensive. Second, it killed the river and degraded the environment. Third, it reduced dry-weather flows and prevented underground
aquifers from being re-charged. Fourth, it caused flooding in other areas. In view of these problems, the historic approach to river planning fell into
disrepute. A new approach developed, which can also be formulated as three principles.

First, water should be detained close to where it falls, to even out the rate at which it enters watercourses. Second, water should be infiltrated wherever
possible to underground aquifers, so that it does not enter river systems. Third, rivers should be allowed to flood, in areas that have been planned for
this purpose. The new approach is better from almost every point of view. It is more effective, environmental, reliable, economic, sustainable, biological
and beautiful. But it does require the cooperation of engineers, architects, town planners, recreation planners, habitat managers, farmers and foresters.
Each group needs to make its own plans, and each has information requirements. A web-based plan is the best way of drawing everyone together.

The primary requirement for all river planning is information about water. Everyone needs to know how much of it there is, where it comes from, and where
it goes to. Time series data are required for:

A past date: information on what happened to surface water before the Industrial and Agricultural Revolutions can be obtained only by estimation, informed
by measurements of what happens to rain that falls on ancient woodlands and grasslands.

The present day: information can be obtained by monitoring and measuring the areas of impermeable, semi-permeable and permeable ground surfacing. This can
be related to soils, borehole information, rainfall statistics and other hydrological data. A GIS database can be of great assistance in collating and
analysing the data.

A future date: predictions can be made for a time when current plans for surface water detention, infiltration and planned flooding have been implemented.

Planning future surface water movement patterns is not a matter of returning to the past, though lessons can be learned. The bad old days saw great floods,
with consequent loss of life and property, often recorded by dates and marks on ancient walls and bridges. The best way to diminish floods is to detain
and infiltrate water as near as possible to the point where it falls. This is described as "source control, because it involves controlling flood waters
at source.

The flood control section of a river CDP should contain data on the past, present and future. This will give planners an idea of what is possible. Simulations
can map the behaviour of flood waters at each of the three time periods. Old paintings and photographs should be included on the CDP, as should literary
descriptions of the river. All this data should be spatially indexed, so that users can click on a point and find out about the rivers recorded history
and possible future. Some of the illustrations will show an Arcadian past. Others will show horrific floods or filthy sewers. Next, there should be photographs
of the river as it is today. Quite often this will just be a dotted line on a map, marking the presence of an entombed watercourse. Users should be able
to pick this line on the screen to find what is beneath the surface, and how the flow varies in periods of high and low rainfall, what plans have been
made for reclaiming the river, by river authorities, municipalities and conservation groups.

Plans for the future should be visionary. Flood control is not the single objective of river planning, though one easily might gain this impression from
books and articles on river engineering. Some of the other objectives, and the ways in which a good river CDP might help, can be conceived as follows.

Sacred planning. Reverence for the works of Nature is a historical characteristic of many great religions. It is gaining strength and may, in time, take
its place alongside the traditional dimensions of religion: ritual, mythology, doctrine, ethics, social customs and religious experience. Because it is
essential to life on earth, water has symbolic power. It would be fine if rivers could be shown on maps as sacred places, to be kept clean, healthy and
beautiful for the sustenance of life on earth. Certainly, the river CDP should contain information on the sacred aspects of water, together with music
and art owing their inspiration to water.

Flood detention. Instead of being waterproofed with roofs and pavings, the surroundings of rivers should be designed like sponges, to soak up water and
release it gradually. River CDPs should contain plans and construction details for this technology, including vegetated roofs, porous pavements, wet ponds,
dry ponds, soakaways, swamps, bogs and floodable landscapes.

Habitat planning. Flood detention and infiltration planning should be integrated with habitat planning. River CDPs should contain proposals for new habitat
creation and the re-establishment of ancient habitats. Vegetation assists in surface water dispersal, by detention, evaporation, transpiration and infiltration.
Future cities will contain a great deal more vegetation than present cities, especially at roof level.

Recreation planning. Recreation re-creates the body and the mind when they are jaded or tired. Rivers can assist. Everyone should be able to drink and bathe
in the waters. This cannot be possible in all rivers at all times. It must be possible in some rivers at all times. River CDPs should provide information
on the existing and proposed situations.

Visual planning. Rivers need visual plans. Spatially, rivers have the potential to be strongly integrative features. In towns, this role can be compared
to that of a dominant theme in an orchestral piece. Separate reaches of a river can be treated as allegro, andante, legato, staccato, crescendo and diminuendo.
Rivers are fascinating in time of flood. As with other riparian characteristics, the visual section of the river CDP should contain studies of the past
and the present, linked to plans for the future.

One of the reasons for assembling all the river planning data on a CDP is that plans can be implemented only with wide support. Individual schools, households,
road engineers and factory owners must work with planning authorities to improve the river environment. Administrative control through environmental assessment
can help. But as in the army, or any other organization, grim regulations are unable to take the place of inspired leadership. Statutory plans must be
led and accompanied by non-statutory plans. Managers do things in the right way; leaders say what is right. We need management plans and leadership plans.

6.5 Coastal planning
Contents list

All the worlds great cities have developed beside water. Yet water planning is hardly ever integrated with city planning. Cities have been seen as one
thing and water bodies as something else. This was partly because the relevant water maps and water data were not available, but mainly because the people
with the power lived in towns and were primarily concerned with the welfare of their own domain. The availability of new data and a growing appreciation
that we inhabit one earth with one destiny are changing the situation. The following example, of a coastal plan, could not be implemented unless a way
is found of bringing together the planning procedures for coastal protection, agriculture, water, sewerage, recreation and habitat management.

Consider a hypothetical coastal resort in North Europe. It was a small fishing and farming village until the late nineteenth century. Then came economic
decline. Refrigeration allowed cheap fish to be imported from afar. Grain from the American prairies flooded into Europe. Luckily, the railways brought
a new source of income. Visitors came to enjoy the scenery, sit on the beach, catch fish and sail in tarry boats. This trade survived until the 1960s,
when holiday-makers moved to the beaches of Southern Europe, in search of sun, sea and sex. The northern village is now sinking further into economic decline.
What can be done?
The municipal council is in thrall to the towns past. Every few years, when the weather is really hot, advertising agents are employed to illustrate sunbathers
in the latest fashions (Figure 6.11). New sea walls are built to defend farmland against the sea. New sea outfalls are built to improve bathing conditions.
Subsidies are requested for fishermen. So-called "landscaping schemes are prepared to make the promenade more attractive. It does not work. To keep the
local shops alive, permission has to be given for large caravan and chalet sites. They spoil the scenery.

What the town most needs is new ideas and new information, which a GIS-based planning system could provide. A compact disc with information about North
Europes tourist industry could be useful. It would show what facilities are available elsewhere and what visitor numbers they attract. This might reveal
that a coastal town in another country had done well by shifting the focus from sunbathing-type use to health-giving active holidays. Data on skin cancer
and the restorative effects of physical activity would support the case for change. Another CDP prepared by wildlife groups could reveal the ways in which
coasts are of great interest to botanists and ornithologists, because of the unpolluted marine environment and the relatively undisturbed native vegetation.
Some farmland could be allowed to revert to marshland. Another section of the CDP, on scenic quality, would draw attention to the unique marriage of water,
reeds and sky, especially in contrast with church steeples in a flat landscape.

Putting this information together, the town council would be able to formulate an imaginative and sustainable development plan, using the idea of green
tourism. Instead of caravans on mown grass, the town could develop summer houses with moorings set amongst creeks, reeds and willows. New channels could
be dug to allow encroachment by the sea into agricultural areas, also providing some higher land for building. New roads could be of unsealed gravel. Sewage
could be composted instead of discharged at sea. Self-build housing could be encouraged, using good materials. New footpaths and bridleways could be planned.
Amateur sea fishing could be developed. An architectural competition could be held for a beautiful multi-purpose landmark building. In summer it could
be used for concerts, in winter for conferences. The town could become an outpost in the salt marsh, as it had been in the Middle Ages, famous for its
seabirds, fish, salty air, music, sweet-scented windflowers, reeds, eccentric cottages and overwhelming air of peace.

Another advantage of the coastal CDP is that it could provide each special-interest tourist group with its own map. Data sets would be prepared for botanists,
ornithologists, zoologists, geologists, local historians, industrial historians, literary historians, agrarian historians, swimmers, sailors, gourmets,
real ale drinkers, artists, equestrians, walkers, cyclists and others. Each has information needs that cannot be met by general issue maps. Cyclists, for
example, when selecting a recreational route, need to know about gradients, motor traffic, wind exposure and scenic quality. For these purposes, a three-dimensional
map is more useful than a plan. Peter Powers has published special maps for cyclists, which show routes in three dimensions (Powers, 1987).

6.6 Local character
Contents list

For good and ill, the scientific method is seen as one of the main avenues to truth. What is the best way of making a building stand up? By structural calculations
of stress, strain and loading. What is the most durable roofing material? Ask a materials scientist. How wide should a road be? It depends on vehicle sizes
and traffic flow. How large should a drain be? Monitor the rainfall and calculate the area to be drained. Such catechisms are hard to fault. If the science
is good, the conclusions will be valid. Furthermore, if the science is good in Iceland, it will also be good in Fiji. The scientific method provided "one
way and one truth. It was a universalist line of reasoning and it produced the International Style of architecture and traffic planning. It eroded local
character all over the world. If you wish urban areas to be the same all over the world, use the scientific method. If you want different results, include
a local character section in local town plans..

A non-controversial example provides a starting point. Britain has many local traditions for the construction of walls. They developed over the centuries,
and many, which are of great beauty, use locally available stone. Limestone is used in the Cotswolds, slate in Wales, flint in Sussex (Figure 12). In other
areas, such as South Wales, the traditional method uses a mixture of stone and turf. These methods are valued and appreciated. But when a new road is planned,
the engineers tend to ignore local traditions. Partly, this is a consequence of seeing the road as one thing, which should have one design vocabulary;
partly, it is a result of parsimony; partly, it is a result of ignorance. Engineering offices used to cluster round government buildings, because they
were a source of work. Sitting in their dingy offices, wearing smart suits, the designers were often unaware of local traditions. Today they sit in smarter
offices, located anywhere, bidding for commissions all over the world. To supply them with local knowledge, it is necessary to prepare local character
CDPs. It would, for example, be useful and wonderful to have a map of local walling traditions. Clicking on a town should call up percentages of wall types,
construction dates, photographs, building details and notes on the current availability of traditional materials. Local walling traditions could be respected.

Local architectural traditions also survive. Scotland used not to have a brick industry, so the best buildings were made of stone. Belgium and Holland,
with excellent clay deposits, have long expertise with brick and tile. It would be unreasonable to require conformity between new buildings and the old
traditions. But designers of new buildings should know about the old traditions. Perhaps they could be applied to paving, to boundary walls and to the
public realm, if not to entire buildings. Some clients and designers are sure to favour the local traditions, when they know what they are. Foreign architects
should not design pastiche "Spanish villas outside Barcelona, when there is a more local and more beautiful Catalan tradition.

6.7 Habitat planning
Contents list

Driving through the new Europe-without-frontiers, one detects pronounced differences between countries. Housing styles remain nationalistic. Few advertisements
cross frontiers. Car types and street signs are country-distinctive. But why should planting design be country-specific?

Not wishing to criticize other countries, I shall focus on Britain, where most twentieth century public planting, especially in urban areas, has been uniformly
gardenesque. The typical mixture has been of "tough, low-maintenance flowering shrubs. The poor old Barberry has been especially victimized. Experienced
at close quarters on a misty Septembers morn, she can be very beautiful, with delicate leaves, bright berries and mellow colours, though she does have
prickles. Seen by the thousand beside dirty roads on grey winter days, with litter impaled on every thousandth prickle, she looks like a cloud of poison
gas (Figure 6.13). It is monoculture. It is factory farming. It is cruel. How these poor refugees must yearn for the mountains of Asia! Planting mixtures
in London, Birmingham and Newcastle are so uniform, one might think soils, rainfall and temperatures were identical. They are not.

From almost every point of view, it would be better to encourage native fauna and flora beside roads. The results would be cheaper to establish, cheaper
to maintain, more interesting, more beautiful and more attractive to wild animals. But what are the native fauna and flora? The information should be available
on a habitat CDP. As with the rivers CDP, it ought to show historic habitats, existing habitats and future habitat potential. Information can be gathered
from vegetation surveys, soil surveys, hydrological surveys, old records and pollen analysis. For nature lovers, a well-planned road should be as readable
as a guidebook. It should tell of damp hollows, dry ridges, deep loams, sandy heaths and other habitat types. This may be easier to achieve in the country
but it is more important in the town. Urban dwellers can lose contact with those natural communities and processes upon which their survival ultimately
depends. In New York City, Alan Sonfist catered to this deep-felt need by making what he called a time landscape. It was conceived as a monument to the
"native trees and vegetation that once thrived where cities now stand (Matilsky, 1992). The choice of species was based on the plants that were present
300 years ago.

6.8 Forest planning
Contents list

GIS have been used in forest planning and management for some years, but mostly to maximize timber production. Forest management involves a great deal of
spatial data, concerning planting, harvesting, brashing, fertilizer application, pest control and other operations. The operations cost money, and they
must be carried out for 50-100 years before the forest yields an income. When the timber crop is ready, harvest operation must be economically planned,
taking account of proximity to extraction routes and other factors. GIS have proved themselves a useful tool in all these data assembly and analysis tasks.

GIS can also be applied to the other objectives of forest management: nature conservation, recreation and scenic quality. In the nineteenth century, private
landowners frequently placed these objectives on an equal footing with timber production. Twentieth century state-managed forestry discounted their importance
almost to zero. Forestry became single-objective timber production, until the 1970s decade of environmental protest. Foresters, who had always seen themselves
as conservators, were then alarmed to find themselves arraigned as anti-environmental wood butchers. Management practices were adjusted and a small step
was taken towards multi-objective forest planning. GIS can help in taking the process some more steps down that long road.

It is good practice for experts in timber production to broaden their management objectives, but it is not enough. Other experts, in nature conservation,
recreation, and scenic quality, must have an active role in forest planning. So must members of the public. And they all require information, which should
be made available on a forest planning CDP. Specialist and generalist forest plans need to be prepared simultaneously, and continually updated.

Contents list

6.9 Mineral planning
Contents list

Conventionally, mineral planning is regarded as a damage limitation exercise. While understandable, this is both unimaginative and short-sighted. Mineral
working offers the most stupendous opportunities for creative landscape change. If the sought-after material is dug in the best possible location, the
post-extraction landscape can be more beautiful and more useful than the pre-extraction landscape. But what is the best location? Answering this question
requires spatially referenced information, which can be assembled as a computer database. Two types of information are necessary: on the existing environment
and on the proposed future environment.

It is the data on the proposed environment that poses the challenge. This concerns the future plans of both public and private planning organizations: housing,
recreation, industry, utilities, agriculture, waste disposal, water storage, road construction, everything. The aim is to contribute to these objectives
by mineral extraction. In a featureless plain, a new depression is likely to have many competing uses. At a coastal location, a new harbour can be made.
In many places, new water bodies can he shaped.

6.10 Environmental assessment
Contents list

The idea of land developers submitting an environmental impact assessment (EIA) derives from Americas National Environmental Policy Act of 1969. It required
developers to make a statement detailing every proposed action that would have a significant impact on the quality of the existing environment. This necessitated
a great deal of investigative work. If environmental data is made available to potential developers in the form of GIS it will make the development process
more efficient and more environmentally responsible. Planning authorities can use the GIS data to produce strategic environmental assessments (SEA) with
regard to possible future developments.

Conclusion

A GIS model is like a subway map. It is diagrammatic. It helps you to find your way about. But it does not tell you where to go. Some people will always
choose to stay put; others will want to move forward. They are unlikely to agree on a unitary plan, especially one that has been prepared by old-fashioned
technocrats with a commitment to "progress and "optimal states of affairs. We all have needs for information: about the environment, about its history,
about each others plans for the future. The strength and power of GIS should be used to make data available in ways that facilitate good decision-making.