Visualizing Future Landscapes provides options for Natural Resource Managers

Krista Merry, Pete Bettinger, and Bill Hubbard recently published a guide for landscape planning.  Titled "Visualizing Future Landscapes: Options for Natural Resource Managers and Land Use Planners" is a federally funded research and technology transfer project managed by the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources at the University of Georgia. 

The primary objectives of the project include determining a) the best available tools for modeling and visualizing future land use scenarios along with their ecological and economic impacts, b) the application of these tools to develop alternative land-cover change scenarios for a wide range of different landscapes, and c) the most effective strategies, technologies, and key partners for disseminating this information in graphical form to a broad audience. In order to accomplish these objectives, we undertook a literature review and land use / land cover change model synthesis, a needs assessment, several case studies, and the development of a prototype online hypertext web portal the results of which are presented in this report. 

The 150-page document is a 25 MB file.  For more information, contact Krista Merry at kmerry@warnell.uga.edu.