Abstract
GIS in Land Use Planning on the Navajo Nation Track: Ecology and Conservation Author(s): Wynette Arviso Advanced development in geospatial data analyses and information and computer technologies have greatly facilitated planning initiatives in many Tribal venues across the U.S. Added to the list is the recent innovative application of GIS on the Navajo Nation to aid in long term community and economic planning of the Nation's many Chapters. In these examples, GIS was used to create maps of soil distributions, vegetation types, hydrologic features (rivers, lakes, washes, etc), transportation networks, existing land uses, and locations of traditionally sensitive and culturally significant areas. Much of this information was overlaid on either topographic maps or digital orthoquads and presented at public meetings. The results have met with widespread success and acceptance because GIS not only enhances the Chapters' visual understanding of their communities, the presentation of oversized land maps easily communicates information for native-only speakers, thus encouraging greater participation in land use planning, Finally, it has the effect of unifying the communities because it allows them to work together to identify desired future land uses based on the their vision, goals and objectives. Wynette Arviso JJ Clacs & Company P.O. Box 479 Fort Wingate , NM 87316 US Phone: (505) 488-6131 E-mail: wynette@jjclacs.com |
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