An approach for greenway suitability analysis

Greenway analysis is designed to identify and measure the suitability of po tential sites for greenway development. This evaluation can be regarded as an extremely difficult task due, in part, to the large number of criteria a nd large volume of data that may be required for the determination. The pur pose of this paper is to present an approach to greenway analysis that inte grates suitability analysis with geographic information system (GIS) techno logy to identify suitable sites for greenway development in the town of Pre scott Valley, AZ, USA. This approach identified five major steps involved i n the greenway analysis, these include: identification of land-use function s, spatial data collection, development of weighting values, data integrati on and analysis using GIS, and output evaluation. Land-use function identif ication, and weighting values were developed from a wide range of resources including the Prescott Valley General Plan, surveys, expert opinion and pu blished literature. Spatial data were obtained from federal, state, and loc al agencies. Where specific data were not available, these data were collec ted from the site using inventory techniques. Three land-use functions were identified for the Prescott Valley study area, wildlife habitat, recreatio n, and riparian corridor For each of these functions, four or five primary factors were determined. Additionally, for each factor, a land capability r ating was established. Results of the surveys indicated that normalized wei ghtings for the functions were 1.0 for wildlife habitat, 0.862 for recreati on, and 0.653 for riparian corridor Rankings for the primary factors within the functions ranged from a high of 0.468 to a low of 0.049, with the sum of weighting values for all factors within a function equal to 1.0. Land ca pability values for attributes within factors were set as high, moderate, l ow, and no capability. All data were integrated into a vector-based GIS sof tware and a total of 14 coverages were created, Spatial analysis was perfor med using an overlay technique combining all factors within a function, and then by combining all resulting factor outputs to produce an overall green way suitability analysis. The final analysis was then evaluated by a panel of experts to determine its accuracy and potential for use in a greenway de velopment plan. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.