Risk Management Research
Research Highlights
Crystal Ball Technology: Visualizing Land-Use Futures
Podcasts
Listen to or download the podcast to learn more about how NRMRL research helps to support the protection of human health and the environment.
EPA land management specialists are helping to generate virtual landscape scenarios for communities in the Farmington Bay Wetlands area of the Great Salt Lake that will enable residents to ‘see’ the ecological consequences of current land use practices, projected over the next 20 years. The scenarios—which include alternative sustainable views of the same landscape—are created by the Alternative Futures Analysis, a computerized assessment tool that combines with Geographic Information Systems to visually portray the long-term impacts of varying developmental decisions on a community’s ecosystem and quality of life.
Background
History richly demonstrates the unforeseen consequences (groundwater pollution, soil erosion, urban blight) of misguided community land-use decisions. Political and economic pressures play a role, but an important factor has been lack of information. Until recently, it has not been technologically possible for community planners to forecast the long-term ecological consequences of project-by-project decisions. But the maturing of the specialties of Landscape Ecology and Information Technology is providing new tools to actually visualize the environmental and quality-of-life impacts of community land-use decisions. Two examples of new landscape technology are: Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and the Alternative Futures Analysis (AFA), a computerized evaluation framework. Working in tandem, these two technologies are enabling resource managers and residents to virtually see (from a bird’s eye or satellite view) how a community and the ecosystem that support it will look in a specified number of years, given current land-use practices. The systems also design alternative scenarios using sustainable land-use practices.
The Alternative Futures Analysis
The Alternative Futures Analysis (AFA), developed in 1990 by Harvard professor Carl Steinitz, integrates GIS maps to display multiple layers of information such as soils, terrain shape, hydrology, species diversity, proposed development, and other factors impacting the biodiversity of a given area. A recent EPA cooperative project using the AFA, selected two ecological outcomes—water quality and diversity of avian habitat—as indicators of ecosystem health in the Farmington Bay Wetlands near the Great Salt Lake. Water quality in the area is currently under threat from encroaching commercial development and an annual two-per-cent population increase. Bird habitat in the area is also threatened: The wetlands provide essential habitat for waterfowl, as well as migratory shorebirds and water birds from both the Pacific and Central flyways of North America. The Farmington Bay research goal was to develop a series of AFA landscape scenarios to allow residents to visualize how the regional landscape will look by 2030 if current land-use development continues, along with some alternative scenarios based on sustainable land-use practices.
Research Questions
Researchers constructed the AFA scenarios by posing the following fundamental questions:
- How should the landscape be described?
- How does the landscape operate?
- By what actions might the current landscape be altered?
- How can we judge whether the current landscape is working well?
- What predictable differences might the alterations cause?
- How is a decision to alter or conserve the landscape to be made?
The answers to these questions formed a set of ecological endpoints or outcomes focusing on the two selected indicators of water quality and avian habitat use.
Project Action
Using satellite imagery (the same type used by Google-Earth), combined with ground-level GIS evaluations of wetlands and land use of the surrounding community, the project researchers constructed a current land-use scenario, plus four alternative visions of land use projected out to the year 2030. Some notable elements of the scenarios:
- Contributing watersheds and shorelines of Farmington Bay. These included the Great Salt Lake, the largest saline lake in North America. Even small fluctuations in the lake level can drastically alter area landscapes.
- Farmington Bay Wetlands. These receive and treat runoff from the Salt Lake and many streams originating in the Wasatch Range, all of which have been altered by agricultural and urban uses. The study factored in abundance and condition of vegetation in the wetlands, growth of invasive plants, and ability of wetlands to recover and remove excess nutrients, among other elements.
- Other Variables. The AFA inputs also included projected population growth, uses of ‘lost’ wetlands, condition of avian habitat, bird presence and use, and other indicators of quality and quantity of the water supply and avian habitat.
In addition, the four optional scenarios factored in beneficial conservation, restoration and development activities as the bases of a more sustainable ecological future for the area.
Potential Outcomes
The GIS/AFA system is a transparent way of organizing and communicating complex scientific information to a diverse group of stakeholders. Explicit community-wide ecosystem management goals can be more readily achieved through an open community process that illustrates a set of plausible and visible alternative futures. The technology is flexible enough to deal with the potential challenges revealed in the AFA optional scenarios. And the two basic indicators (water quality and avian habitat use) selected for this study can be expanded for more elaborate conservation planning models. ‘Seeing’ the future through AFA models can help communities determine whether the quality of life they want for themselves is sustainable, given their present land-use practices. Best of all, it can also show them a vision of an achievable future.
For more detailed information on the AFA analysis of the Farmington Bay Wetlands, visit: Alternative Futures Analysis of Farmington Bay Wetlands in the Great Salt Lake Ecosystem (EPA/600/R-10/032) March 2010
Contact
Technical Contact Joseph Schubauer-Berigan, schubauer-berigan.joseph@epa.gov
Media Contact: Steve Doub, 513-569-7503
New NRMRL Publications
EPA Documents
Data Report on Ecosystem Monitoring for the Ashtabula River Environmental Dredging Project (PDF) (240 pp, 39.2 MB) (EPA/600/R-11/102) September 2011
Environmental Technology Verification Report, Applikon MARGA Semi-Continuous Ambient Air Monitoring System (PDF) (47 pp, 876 KB) (EPA/600/R-11/106) June 2011 | Verification Statement (PDF) (5 pp, 144 KB)
Environmental Technology Verification, Test Report of Mobile Source Selective Catalytic Reduction, Johnson Matthey SCCRT, Version 1, Selective Catalytic Reduction Technology With a Catalyzed Continuously Regenerating Trap (PDF) (57 pp, 1.91 MB) (EPA/600/R-11/114) July 2011 2011 | Verification Statement (PDF) (4 pp, 120 KB)
Experimental Stream Facility: Design and Research (EPA/600/F-11/004) March 2011
Guidance to Facilitate Decisions for Sustainable Nanotechnology (PDF) (75 pp, 1.08 MB) (EPA/600/R-11/107) 2011
Science in Action, EPA Growing DASEES (Decision Analysis for a Sustainable Environment, Economy, and Society) To Aid in Making Decisions on Complex Environmental Issues (PDF) (2 pp, 236 KB) (EPA/600/F-11/023) September 2011
Science in Action, Innovative Capping Technology to Prevent the Migration of Toxic Chemicals From Contaminated Sediments (PDF) (2 pp, 332 KB) (EPA/600/F-11/009) June 2011
Science in Action, PLACES Program Helps Communities Onto the Path of Sustainability (PDF) (2 pp, 220 KB) (EPA/600/F-11/005) April 2011
SPECIATE 4.3: Addendum to SPECIATE 4.2, Speciation Database Development Documentation (EPA/600/R-11/121) September 2011
Water Supply and Water Resources Division (EPA/600/F-11/024) 2011 Note: This is available for Public view in Science Inventory. Type in EPA/600/F-11/024 or 238296.
Journal Articles 
Balu, A.M., B. Baruwati, E. Serrano, J. Cot, J. Garcia-Martinez, R.S. Varma, and R. Luque. (2011). "Magnetically Separable Nanocomposites With Photocatalytic Activity Under Visible Light for the Selective Transformation of Biomass-Derived Platform Molecules." Green Chemistry, 13, 10: 2750–2758.
Benson, M. and A.S. Garmestani. (2011). "Can We Manage for Resilience? The Integration of Resilience Thinking Into Natural Resource Management in the United States." Environmental Management, 48, 3: 392–399.
Carey, A., G.J. Norton, C. Deacon, K.G. Scheckel, E. Lombi, T. Punshon, M. Guerinot, A. Lanzirotti, M. Newville, Y. Choi, A.H. Price, and A.A. Meharg. (2011). "Phloem Transport of Arsenic Species From Flag Leaf to Grain During Grain Filling." New Phytologist, 192, 1: 87–98.
Huling, S.G., S. Ko, S. Park, and E. Kan. (2011). "Persulfate Oxidation of MTBE- and Chloroform-Spent Granular Activated Carbon" Journal of Hazardous Materials, 192, 3: 1484–1490.
Khan, B., M.D. Hays, C.D. Geron, and J.J. Jetter. (2011). "Differences in the OC/EC Ratios That Characterize Ambient and Source Aerosols Due to Thermal-Optical Analysis." Aerosol Science and Technology, 46, 2: 127–137.
Pinto, P.X., S.R. Al-Abed, E.F. Barth, C. Loftspring, J. Voit, P.J. Clark, and A.M. Ioannides. (2011). "Environmental Impact of the Use of Contaminated Sediments as Partial Replacement of the Aggregate Used in Road Construction." Journal of Hazardous Materials, 189, 1-2: 546–555.
Santo-Domingo, J.W., R.P. Revetta, B. Iker, V. Gomez-Alvarex, J. Garcia, J. Sullivan, and J. Weast. (2011). "Molecular Survey of Concrete Sewer Biofilm Microbial Communities." Biofouling, 27, 9: 993–1001.
Smuleac, V., R.S. Varma, S. Sikdar, and D. Bhattacharyya. (2011). "Green Synthesis of Fe and Fe/Pd Bimetallic Nanoparticles in Membranes for Reductive Degradation of Chlorinated Organics." Journal of Membrane Science, 379, 1-2: 131–137.
Zia, M., E.E. Codling, K.G. Scheckel, and R.L. Chaney. "In Vitro and In Vivo Approaches for the Measurement of Oral Bioavailability of Lead (Pb) in Contaminated Soils: A Review." Environmental Pollution, 159, 10: 2320–2327.
Proceedings Papers
Matthews, J., A. Selvakumar, W. Condit, and R. Sterling. (2011). "Gaps of Decision Support Models for Pipeline Renewal and Recommendations for Improvement" In: Proceedings International Conference on Pipelines and Trenchless Technology (ICPTT), Beijing, China, October 26–29. | Abstract
You will need Adobe Reader to view some of the files on this page.
See EPA's PDF page to learn more.