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Alternative Futures |
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Change: Existing Conditions |
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Monroe County is roughly 30 miles long from north to south and 35 miles across from east to west. From the 'Vegetation and Wetlands' map which was derived from interpreted satellite imagery, it appears that much of Monroe County is covered by trees. But, a closer look reveals that the area under much of that tree canopy is already developed and that little of the undeveloped land is protected from future development. The current land use pattern is shown in the 'Existing Conditions' map. The darker orange represents development without tree canopy. The lighter, yellow-orange shows development covered by tree canopy. The several shades of green and blue are covered with vegetation and water. These are either public land or undeveloped private land. Please keep this image in mind: it is the starting position for each of the Alternative Futures. |
Current landscape policy in Monroe County in 1993 consists only of 'Conservation Plan 'A'' -the publicly owned or legally regulated lands. The 'Existing Infrastructure' map shows a well connected network of roads (although many of those roads are in need of up-grading) and the existing pattern of sewer service. The analysis and synthesis for each of the Alternative was performed on several software packages including ARC/INFO and ArcView (ESRI, Inc., Redlands, California), Imagine (ERDAS, Atlanta Georgia) and Map Factory (Thinkspace, Inc., London Ontario). When the Alternatives were configured, the POLYTRIMS (Center for Landscape Research, University of Toronto, Ontario) program developed by John Danahy and others was used to produce the perspective views. |