Environmental Planning for Communities: A Guide to the Environmental Visioning Process Utilizing a Geographic Information System (GIS)

The purpose of this Guide is to explain how a GIS can be used by communities as a tool to support environmental visioning as part of the CBEP process. Although significant reference material exists on CBEP and on GIS applications, the use of GIS in the CBEP process has not been presented in a comprehensive document. A few case studies have shown how a GIS can be used effectively during environmental visioning, but a general discussion of that theme has not been prepared. This Guide to the Environmental Visioning Process Utilizing a Geographic Information System (GIS) has been developed consistent with the requirement of CBEP. In this framework, the guide can be utilized to meet the needs of individual media issues (e.g., the watershed management approach to water quality issues) and to support integrated ecosystem analyses, embodying the multiple impacts on air, water, and land resources.