Land Use Planning

LAND USE PLANNING

by Antonio C. Antonio

September 5, 2013

Planning for land use purposes is very important.  Urban areas will have to accommodate more area which will be dedicated for future conversion to residential, commercial and industrial purposes to meet population growth.  Food security is also a parallel issue and concern which will have to be seriously taken into consideration.  Land cover maps play an important role in land use planning.

Please allow me to share a land cover map of Madison, Wisconsin, USA.  The land cover surrounding Madison have been colored in the following manner: Open Field – yellow and brown; Water (lakes) – blue; Urban Surfaces – red.

This land cover map is particularly important in urban planning.  The Madison County government could have a good idea on the following (just to mention a few):

1.     How much land has been developed and dedicated for urban housing and infrastructure;

2.     How much land is being utilized for agricultural activities;

3.     Identify ideal areas for additional housing without sacrificing areas that already designated for agricultural activities;

4.     Identify the areas where new infrastructure, especially bridges, to ease the traffic situation;

5.     Identify areas where additional roads could be built to support their present road network;

6.     Identify flood potential areas and build new infrastructure, especially waterways and flood canals, to anticipate flooding in case of abnormal amount of rainfall;

7.     Identify the ideal infrastructure to be built around the lakes, rivers and water ways; and,

8.     How landscape ecology planning and management could best be made to preserve the ecology of the landscape.

Just my little thoughts…

REFERENCE:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NLCD_landcover_MSN_area.png

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