ENVIRONMENTALLY SENSITIVE AREAS - A TEMPLATE FOR DEVELOPING GREENWAY CORRIDORS

Environmentally sensitive areas (ESAs) are landscape elements or place s which are vital to the long-term maintenance of biological diversity , soil, water or other natural resources both on the site and in a reg ional context. They include wildlife habitat areas, steep slopes, wetl ands, and prime agricultural lands. When ESAs are interconnected, they could form greenway corridors consisting of networks of linked landsc ape elements that provide ecological, recreational, and cultural benef its to a community. By implication, the planning process which communi ties use in protecting ESAs could serve as a template for developing g reenway corridors. Many communities faced with the pressures of balanc ing economic development with environmental protection recognize that uncontrolled development may lead to an irreversible loss of ESAs. Com munities, therefore, develop local comprehensive plans that identify t he geographical distribution of ESAs, and specify land-use strategies and regulations for protecting them. However, this traditional form of identifying and protecting ESAs inhibits the potential for connecting them into a greenway corridor for many reasons: (1) the rationale for identifying and protecting ESAs is based on an exclusionary process t hat designates areas not appropriate for development; (2) the procedur es for assessing ESAs are based predominantly on their geographical di stribution, with little consideration of their functioning or the flow of nutrients, species, and energy between the landscape elements; (3) the identification and protection of ESAs focus on individual landsca pe elements such as flood plains and steep slopes, resulting in habita t fragmentation. Fragmentation is perpetuated further by the implement ation of land-use controls such as conventional zoning, which focuses predominantly on protecting individual landscape elements rather than integrating them with adjacent landscape elements and land uses. Moreo ver, communities vary in their capacity to develop and implement appro priate land-use controls that would minimize further fragmentation. Th is paper documents a pilot study that demonstrates the application of a modified abiotic-biotic-cultural (ABC) strategy for assessing ESAs a nd connecting them into greenway corridors in Walton County, Georgia. The ABC method permits assessment of the structure (descriptive) and f unction (relational) characteristics of the landscape for relative eco logical values, which become the basis for designing greenways that se rve specific ecological functions. Application of the method reveals t hat assessing ESAs and the interconnected landscape elements provides a vehicle for developing greenway corridors that serve primarily as a conduit for the movement of animals and secondarily as areas for the p rotection of water quality. To provide for the sustained management of the proposed greenway corridors, procedural guidelines are prescribed for integrating the resultant greenway plan into Walton County's comp rehensive plan.