Abstract

BLM Visual Resources Inventory: Modeling the Landscape at Small Scale
Track: Environmental Management
Authors: Brian Colson

The Bureau of Land Management's (BLM) Visual Resource Inventory (VRI) is the basis for determining how BLM will manage visual resources. This process has a standardized field protocol to conduct the inventory. As BLM manages large amounts of land they have evaluated how GIS could assist with this inventory. BLM Technical Note 407 was developed to incorporate GIS technologies into the VRI. Our study uses this methodology on over 21 million acres in Nevada. Using ArcGIS model builder, digital elevation models, and ArcGIS spatial analyst, large areas can be ascribed a series of values based on seven key factors that follow the field standard. When modeling this many acres, the data must be managed carefully, and special tools were built to handle the large volume of processing. The final result will provide BLM with a series of tools to help classify the landscape for visual resources using GIS technologies.