 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| back | fwd |
Abstract
A GIS Analysis Tool to Determine the Environmental Impact of Transportation CorridorsTrack: Transportation and Logistics
Author(s): Ilir Bejleri, Paul Zwick, Andy Lyons
To improve the environmental review process and project development of transportation projects in the State of Florida, the Governor's office and an intra-agency group, including several federal and state agencies, have developed the Environmental Screening Analysis, a methodology and process aimed to screen proposed transportation corridors for potential environmental impacts. Based on the proposed guidelines, the Florida Department of Transportation and the University of Florida have implemented the Environmental Screening Analysis Tool, a semiautomated wizard-driven GIS-enabled application. Through integration of ArcView and MS Access and based on a very large standardized State-wide GIS database maintained at the University of Florida, the application analyzes any proposed corridor and the adjacent areas in any part of Florida for major environmental flaws. The tool provides quantitative indicators to measure the impact severity and provides maps highlighting impacted areas, all in Web-ready HTML format. In addition, it allows for customization of criteria and tests, addition of new criteria, sharing of criteria and tests between the users, and comparative analysis of multiple corridor alternatives. Current research directions of expanding the application to analytically determine the path of least environmental impact and an attempt to implement the tool on the Web are briefly discussed.
Ilir Bejleri
University of Florida
431 Arch. Building
Gainesville, FL 32611
USA
Phone: (352) 392-0997
Fax: (352) 392-3308
E-mail: ilirbeu@yahoo.com