Integrating Geospatial and Web-Based Technologies to Improve Land Use Planning in Coastal New Hampshire

Coastal New Hampshire

Between 1990 and 2005, the population of New Hampshire increased by 18 percent, with the highest concentrations of people settling along the seacoast. The influx of new citizens has led to rapid residential development and the loss of an estimated 17,500 trees per year. As in other coastal areas, the benefits that development brings to local economies can be at odds with the protection of natural resources.

To plan for sustainable and ecologically friendly community growth, planners must understand the current state of natural resources and be able to determine how they will be impacted by different development scenarios. This is especially critical where development pressure is intense and the value placed on natural resources is high.

With support from CICEET, scientists and outreach specialists from the University of New Hampshire are constructing a set of flexible software tools to overcome the common obstacles faced by planners trying to balance growth and resource protection. Using a combination of geospatial data and predictive models, this toolkit will identify current natural resources and predict areas that will experience the greatest growth pressure in the future. In collaboration with New Hampshire’s Natural Resources Outreach Coalition, they are working closely with local officials from the town of Exeter and regional partners to insure the relevance of the tools and to transfer them to planners and decision makers at all levels of technical skill.