58

Using GIS suitability analysis to identify potential future land

use conflicts in North Central Florida
ABSTRACT: This article presents the Land Use Conflict Identification Strategy (LUCIS) that employs role playing and
suitability modeling to predict areas where future land use conflict is likely to occur. A simple land use classification
system of conservation, urban and agricultural land was derived from E. Odums Compartment Model to organize land
use suitabilities and compare land use preferences (Odum 1969). The strategys six step process includes 1)
developing a hierarchical set of goals and objectives that become suitability criteria, 2) inventory of available data, 3)
determining suitabilities, 4) combining suitabilities to represent preference, 5) reclassifying preference into three
categories of high, medium and low, and 6) comparing areas of preference to determine the quantity and spatial
distribution of potential land use conflict.

A case study in north central Florida, USA, is used to demonstrate the strategy and to provide results for consideration
and discussion. The study area occurs in a region with a trend of steady population increase that has resulted in
conversion of lands with conservation and agricultural importance to urban use. Altogether the results suggest
considerable conflict among the three basic land use classifications, but particularly between urban and agricultural land
uses. LUCIS results have the potential to be used in at least three ways including decision support for local or regional
planning activities, environmental regulation, or population modeling including representations of alternative futures
(McHarg 1969, Lyle 1985, Steinitiz 1990, Steinitz et al 2003, Ahern 2001 and Hulse et al 2004).



Keywords: land use conflict, land use change, suitability analysis, land use preference, hierarchical goals, single utility
analysis, multiple utility analysis, pairwise comparison, analytic hierarchy process, regional land use planning, alternative
futures
Margaret H. Carr and Paul Zwick
Margaret H. Carr
Associate Dean and Professor
Department of Landscape Architecture
Co-Director, GeoPlan Center
mcarr@[Link]


Paul Zwick
Associate Dean and Professor
Department of Urban and Regional Planning
Director, GeoPlan Center
paul@[Link]
Journal of Conservation Planning Vol 1 (2005) 5873
Carr, Zwick / J ournal of Conservation Planning Vol 1 (2005) 58 73
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INTRODUCTION
Each year of the last decade of the last century at least
300,000 more people arrived in the state of Florida than
those who left it (BEBR 2005). Thats just a number, but
visualize it in real terms: from the time you sit down to
breakfast with your coffee and newspaper to the time you
brush your teeth and turn out the lights at night more than
800 people have entered the Sunshine State. Given
Floridas current average population density of 116
persons per square kilometer, that is approximately 2,600
square kilometers of land use change every year. If
protected lands and waters are excluded from
consideration, the changed area exceeds 3,500 square
kilometers per year. The current annual rate of
population growth in Florida is 2.6%, which will double the
current population in less than 30 years. Needless to say,
planners and policy-makers are trying to find ways to
anticipate and accommodate this rapid growth without
sacrificing environmental integrity, economic viability and
quality of life for all Floridians. Given national and global
population trends, similar rates of land use change are an
almost universal issue (Dale et al 2000). While this study
uses north central Florida as a case study, the
methodology has potential global application.
This paper will present a role playing approach to
geographic information systems (GIS) suitability analysis
aimed to improve regional planning by identifying
probable areas of future land use conflict. It was
developed in a graduate design studio at the University of
Florida in collaboration with twelve students from the
departments of landscape architecture and urban and
regional planning and will be referred to as the Land Use
Conflict Identification Strategy, or LUCIS, for short.
The conceptual basis for LUCIS was derived from the
work of Eugene P. Odum, one of the 20th centurys
foremost ecologists (Table 1). Odums classic Strategy of
Ecosystem Development (1969) proposes four general
land use types in a simplified model so that growth-type,
steady-state, and intermediate-type ecosystems can be
linked with urban and industrial areas for mutual
benefit (Odum, 1969 p. 268). In Odums Compartment
Model, each area in a landscape can be grouped into one
of four types: (1) productive areas, where succession is
continually retarded by human controls to maintain high
levels of productivity; (2) protective, or natural areas,
where succession is allowed or encouraged to proceed
into the mature, and thus stable, if not highly productive
stages; (3) compromise areas, where some combination
of the first two stages exists; and (4) urban/industrial, or
biologically non-vital areas (Lyle, 2002 p. 178). Odum
writes that by dividing land use into these categories, and
by increasing and decreasing the size and capacity of
each compartment through computer simulation, it would
be possible to determine objectively the limits that must
eventually be imposed on each compartment in order to
maintain regional and global balances in the exchange of
vital energy and materials (Odum, 1969 p. 268). He calls
it a systems-analysis procedure, and notes that it
provides at least one approach to the solution of the
basic dilemma posed by the question How do we
determine when we are getting too much of a good
thing? (Odum, 1969 p. 268).
The Compartment Model was used in LUCIS as a basis
for classifying land use and determining land use
preferences (Table 1). Three, rather than four categories
were used to maximum the contrast among them.
Agriculture served as a direct correlate of Odums
productive category, conservation as a combination of
Odums
Strategic
Ecosystem
Development
Land Use
Classes
LUCIS Future Land Use
Allocation Classifications
Productive
Agriculture The Protection of
Productive Agricultural Lands
Compromise
Protective
Urban/Industrial
Urban Aesthetically pleasing &
functional with limits
Conservation The Protection of
Environmentally Significant Lands
TABLE 1 A Strategic Approach to Future Land Use
Allocation Derived from the Work of Eugene P. Odum
in Strategy of Ecosystem Development
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Odums protective and compromise categories and urban
as the equivalent of Odums urban industrial category.
The combination of protective and compromise
landscapes into one conservation category seemed
justified because conservation lands are, in reality,
comprised of a combination of productive and protective
lands. Take for example a national forest; its multi-use
mandate ensures that the goals of protection and
production will both be met.
Others have cited the value of the Odum approach,
though each used the four compartment model differently
than did LUCIS. Guy Fabos, professor emeritus of
landscape planning at the University of Massachusetts
was a proponent of it as a basis for land use planning
(Fabos, 1985). John Lyle (1934 1998), renowned
professor of landscape architecture at California
Polytechnic Institute at Pomona, renamed the
compromise category human ecosystems and defined it
as those places in which human beings and nature might
be brought to together after a very long and dangerous
period of estrangement (Lyle, 1985 p 15). This renamed
compartment formed the basis for his much revered 1985
work, Design for Human Ecosystems.
Pioneering work on the development of alternative future
land use plans has been accomplished by an increasingly
long series of researchers, (McHarg 1969, Lyle 1985,
Steinitiz 1990, Steinitz et al 2003, Ahern 2001 and Hulse
et al 2004), most of whom have their roots in landscape
architecture and environmental planning as do the
authors here. LUCIS however, stops short of representing
alternative futures, but instead focuses on the comparison
of the results of three suitability analyses purposefully
designed to capture biases inherent in the motivations of
three stakeholder groups: conservationists, developers
and farmers and ranchers dedicated to an agricultural
future. The comparison of the suitabilities results in the
identification of areas of potential future land use conflict.
The three suitabilities are not alternative futures, nor is
the representation of areas of land use conflict derived
from the comparison of the three suitabilities. To our
knowledge, this is a new tack in suitability analysis, one
for which there no direct precedents.
METHODS
LUCIS was developed using the Environmental Systems
Research Institutes ArcGIS software. Although some
analysis steps were conducted using vector GIS,
ultimately all results were converted to grids and the final
results were produced in a raster format. The cell size
used in the case study was 100 m, however, any cell size
could be employed in the methodology. The case study
area, comprised of the Alachua, Bradford, Clay,
Columbia, Gilchrist, Levy, Marion, Putnam and Union
counties (Figure 1, page 61), contains two interstate
highways (in red) I-75 traversing north-south and I-10
traversing east-west. There are four metropolitan areas
in the study area, three within the I-75 corridor. Growth
pressure from the Jacksonville Standard Metropolitan
Statistical Area (SMSA) is being felt in the northeastern
portion of the study area, even though its center is 18 km
northeast of the study area boundary. The study area
remains beyond the influence of the Orlando SMSA.
Three teams, each representing one of the land use
classifications of Table 1, became expert advocates for
their respective classification. Each team rated all lands
in the study area for their relative suitability to support
their assigned land use and the results were compared to
identify areas of potential conflict. More specifically this
was accomplished through six steps:
1. Define goals and objectives (that became the criteria
for determining suitability)
2. Inventory data resources potentially relevant to each
goal and objective
3. Analyze data to determine a relative suitability for
each goal
4. Combine the relative suitabilities of each goal to
determine preference
5. Normalize and collapse the preferences for each land
use into three ranges, high, medium and low
6. Compare the ranges of land use preference to
determine likely areas of future land use conflict
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FIGURE 1 LUCIS Study Area including the following nine counties: Alachua, Columbia,
Bradford, Union, Clay, Putnam, Marion, Gilchrist, and Levy.
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The project continued and included the development of
three alternative scenarios for allocation of projected
population based on defined assumptions about 1) the
sequencing and speed of the conversion of existing
conservation and agricultural lands to urban use; 2) the
densities at which new population was to be allocated;
and 3) permanent set asides (or lack thereof) of lands
with high conservation and agricultural suitability. The
result was a range of alternative future land use scenarios
with associated build out populations and dates.
However, only steps one through six above are part of the
LUCIS methodology and are addressed in this paper.
Step 1. Defining Goals and Objectives
The use of goals and objectives has long been
advocated as a way to describe the mission to be
undertaken by a planner or designer (Steiner 2000, Lyle
1985). Goals and objectives is a loose term that
actually includes at least three elements organized in a
nested hierarchy: a statement of intent, goals, and their
supporting objectives. In some design and planning
situations, further subdivision of objectives is needed, for
example in the development of local government
comprehensive plans in Florida, a list of policies support
each objective (Florida Department of Community Affairs
2005, ESRI 1996)
The statement of intent is a concise description of the
problem at hand that, at a minimum, defines the
geographic area of study and identifies the desired
product. Goals and objectives are a hierarchical set of
statements (ESRI 1996) that first define what is to be
accomplished or identified (goal), and second define how
each goal is to be achieved (supporting objectives).
Step 2. Inventory of Data Resources
Traditionally in environmental planning the inventory
phase has included a survey and presentation of the
ecological and cultural characteristics of a study area and
examination of the relationships among them (Steiner
2000, Lewis 1996, Lyle 1985, McHarg 1969). For the
purpose of LUCIS, the inventory phase was simply the
identification of GIS datasets with the potential to provide
information relevant to the adopted goals and objectives.
For the most part this was an examination of already
available datasets, but in a few cases the creation of new
GIS datasets or hybrids of existing datasets was
necessary.
Step 3. Data Analysis to Determine Relative
Suitabilities for each Goal
Following inventory, each group performed GIS analysis
to create land use suitability layers representing their
goals and objectives. First the analysis steps for each
objective were diagramed in a common flowchart format.
At a minimum each diagram consisted of a GIS dataset
as the input, the GIS function used to determine suitability
assignment, and the resulting dataset representing the
relative suitability.
Assigning Suitability Values The Single Utility
Assignment Process
The assignment of suitability (utility) values for a single
layer was called Single Utility Assignment (SUA)
(Malczewski 1999, ESRI 1996). SUAs fall into two basic
categories, in situ analyses and proximal analyses
(Malczewski 1999, ESRI 1996). In situ analyses result in
a characterization of the relative suitability of each pixel
based on the evaluative criteria being applied (e.g., soils);
proximal analyses produce a characterization of the
relative suitability of each pixel based on its proximity to
amenities (e.g., proximity to roads for convenient access
or its inverse that serves as a measure of potential quiet)
(Malczewski 1999, ESRI 1996). To create an in situ
SUA, each group, in their role as experts, defined the
relative suitability of each physical feature in the layer.
Assuming this expert role created the scenario of
decision under certainty, i.e. it [was] assumed that the
uncertainty involved in [the] decision situation [was] either
a known or a negligible determinant of the
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utilities (Malczewski 1999 p 119). Uniformly, the range
of SUA suitability values used was from 1 to 9 as follows:
1 = lowest suitability
2 = very low suitability
3 = low suitability
4 = moderately low suitability
5 = moderate suitability
6 = moderately high suitability
7 = high suitability
8 = very high suitability
9 = highest suitability
Nine suitability values were employed because it has
been proven to be workable (ESRI 1996). More than nine
values are difficult for humans to visually comprehend
and fewer than nine values decrease the sensitivity of the
process.
An example of an in situ SUA is suitability for visual
preference based on habitat. It requires group consensus
on the visual preference for all habitat classifications
within the dataset. The process of assigning suitability
values for features within the habitat dataset is
accomplished by asking a single question: how visually
pleasing is each habitat type? The range of values for
suitability must, at a minimum, have two suitability values:
one for lowest suitability and nine for highest suitability.
The remaining values between one and nine are to be
assigned by the experts or other chosen participants. No
suitability values may exceed nine, nor may a suitability
value be less than one. Further, suitability values are in
equal intervals, therefore a suitability value equal to five is
three greater than a suitability value equal to two. This is
required because all suitability layers must be in the same
units. Requiring the individual suitability layers to adhere
to these simple rules eliminates the possibility of error
when combining more than one SUA layer into a more
complex suitability layer (Malczewski 1999, ESRI 1996).
If individual suitability layers were allowed to contain non-
bounded values then any mathematical manipulation
(addition, subtraction, etc.) would result in what is
commonly referred to as apples and oranges.
Ranges for proximal suitabilities were created using the
Euclidian straight-line distance function combined with a
reclassification of distance into up to nine suitability
values. Conceptually, the closer a cell location is to an
amenity, the higher the suitability.
Combining Suitability Values: The Multiple Utility
Assignment Process
Once an SUA was generated, there was the need to
combine the results with other SUAs to produce a
synthesis of the multiple criteria (spatial multicriteria
analysis). In our process this step was called Multiple
Utility Assignment (MUA) (ESRI 1996). This step can
employ various combination strategies including weighted
averaging, selection of maximum values, or if, then, else
statements that allow for a complex set of choices. The
combination strategy selected for this project, weighted
averaging, was chosen for its simplicity. Individuals in
each group, serving as the expert for their assigned area
of study, decided the weights to be used for the
development of MUAs at the goal and sub-goal levels. So
through the use of the SUA and MUA processes each
group developed a final suitability surface for each goal.
Step 4. Determining Preference
The next step was to combine the results for each goal
into a map of preference for each land use type. This
was also accomplished using the MUA process, but the
technique for determining weights was different than that
used at the goal and sub-goal level. It employed the
systematic application of pairwise comparisons.

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Pairwise Comparison or Analytic Hierarchy Process
to Determine Weights
Each land use group followed a pairwise comparison
methodology called Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP)
using Expert Choice software ([Link])
(Malczewski 1999, Saaty 1980). Weights resulting from
pairwise comparisons using AHP were derived for a
group of variables by comparing pairs of alternatives, just
like the name implies. Each variable was compared to all
other variables in pair sets assuring that all alternatives
were included in weight development. The weights
derived using the AHP pairwise comparisons determined
the strength individual goals exerted on the final suitability
layer. For example an AHP weight of 0.566 for a
conservation biodiversity goal would mean that 56.6% of
the final suitability surface was derived from the suitability
values in the biodiversity suitability surface. The
advantages of the AHP method are its simplicity, and its
potential to support participation by a wide range of
individuals including experts, community leaders, the
general public, and/or other stakeholders in the process
(Malczewski 1999, Saaty 1980). In fact, pairwise
comparisons could be generated in a public meeting to
demonstrate the influence that various weights have on
the results of the MUA process. This incorporation of
group opinion or preference was, by definition, the way in
which each land use group transformed its relative
suitability for each goal into a measure of their final land
use preferences.
Step 5. Normalize and Collapse Preference into
Three Ranges, High, Medium and Low
Land use preference is an indication of the level of
preference exhibited by the individual land use groups for
each cell within the study area. The values from the final
preference surface for each land use group were
normalized to allow for comparison among them. Then
each preference surface was simply reclassified into
three equal intervals. Other approaches to
reclassification to derive preference from suitability could
be employed, for example analysis of standard deviation
or use of equal area. The equal interval method was
chosen because there was no desire to capture equal
areas of preference for each land use type, but rather to
compare the relative strengths of those preferences.
Step 6. Identification of Potential Areas of Land
Use Conflict
Since LUCIS is based on three land use classifications,
the characterization of land use conflict can be conceived
of as a cube, with each land use preference represented
on one axis of the cube to form a three dimensional
conflict space diagram. The cube is comprised of 27
smaller cubes each representing one of the unique
combinations of high (H), medium (M) and low (L)
preference for conservation, urban and agricultural land
use (Figure 2).
To determine conflict areas, the three normalized and
collapsed land use preference surfaces were combined
and reclassified into areas of conflict and areas of no
conflict as follows. Conflict occurred anytime the highest
preference for a cell was the same for at least two of the
land use classifications (Table 2, page 65). Of the 27
possible preference combinations, 12 produced conflict
and 15 did not.
Use of Role-playing to Develop Suitabilities and
Preferences
LUCIS utilized role playing as a means to capture bias
(Thompson 1978). Each groups ultimate task was to
determine the preference of lands in the study area for
their particular land use classification. For example, the
urban group was to identify urban development potentials
without regard for other land use concerns. The
presence of wetlands as opposed to uplands might be
used as a criterion for lower relative suitability of land for
urban development, but only so far as the presence of
wetlands might increase the cost of development or make
it more problematic, not because of the ecological value
of wetlands. Conversely, the conservation group chose
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not to consider land costs in its determination of
conservation suitability since regardless of the cost per
acre, some lands have enormous conservation value. The
role playing approach was chosen to mimic the reality of
the free market and the unfortunate lack of a broadly
subscribed land ethic. The result was the identification of
some lands as highly suitable by all three groups. As the
process played out, these were identified as the areas of
potential future land use conflict.
TABLE 2 Classification of Areas of Conflict and Areas of No Conflict based on Preference
Rankings for Conservation, Urban and Agricultural Land Uses (in that order)
Areas of Conflict Areas of No Conflict
Code Description Code Description
LLL All in conflict, all low preference LLM Agricultural preference dominates
LMM
Moderate urban preference conflicts with
moderate agricultural preference
LLH Agricultural preference dominates
LHH
High urban preference conflicts with high
agricultural preference
LML Urban preference dominates
MHH
High urban preference conflicts with high
agricultural preference
LMH Agricultural preference dominates
MML
Moderate conservation preference conflicts
with moderate urban preference
LHL Urban preference dominates
MLM
Moderate conservation preference conflicts
with moderate urban preference
LHM Urban preference dominates
MMM All in conflict, all moderate preference MLL Conservation preference dominates
HLH
High conservation preference conflicts with
high agricultural preference
MLH Agricultural preference dominates
HMH
High conservation preference conflicts with
high agricultural preference
MMH Agricultural preference dominates
HHL
High conservation preference conflicts with
high urban preference
MHL Urban preference dominates
HHM
High conservation preference conflicts with
high urban preference
MHM Urban preference dominates
HHH All in conflict, all high preference HLL Conservation preference dominates
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RESULTS
Results are included for four of the six steps described in
the methodology section with an emphasis on
identification of land use conflict. The other steps for
which results are described are goals and objectives;
determining preference; and normalizing and collapsing
preference into three ranges.
Goals and Objectives (Step 1)
Each group defined an overall statement of intent and
supporting goals and objectives that became the outline
of their criteria for determining suitability. Only the goals
for each group are included here to demonstrate the
range of criteria and the bias captured by each set.
Urban Goals:
Maximize opportunities for:
residential development
retail and office/professional commercial development
medium and heavy industrial development
Agricultural Goals:
Maximize opportunities for:
cropland/row crops
timberland/silviculture
livestock/pastureland
orchards and groves
nurseries/greenhouse production


Conservation Goals:
Protect and conserve:
biodiversity
surface waters for human and ecosystem use
groundwater for human and ecosystem use
areas where the process of fire shapes the landscape
wetlands and floodplains for the services they provide
such as flood control, filtration of contaminants,
erosion control and nutrient recycling
lands that provide ecological connectivity
Determining Preference (Step 3)
The final preference surfaces for conservation, urban and
agriculture are found in Figure 3, page 67. One can
begin to see predictable patterns emerging, for example
preference for urban development is highest adjacent to
roads and in proximity to existing urban areas;
conservation preference is highest close to existing
conservation areas, along stream corridors and, generally
in areas away from major roads; agriculture preference is
high on the fringe of urban areas as these agricultural
uses originally supported the establishment of the towns
in their present locations.
Normalize and Collapse Preference into Three
Ranges, High, Medium and Low (Step 5)
Figure 4, page 68, uses conservation as an example of
the visual results of normalizing and collapsing
preference into three ranges of high, medium and low.
Table 3, page 68, captures the percentages of the study
area found in each preference range for each land use
category.
The high preference range for conservation captures the
single largest amount of the study area, followed by
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FIGURE 3 Final preference maps.
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68

FIGURE 4 A comparison of the originally generated conservation preference values with the
normalized and collapsed conservation preference.
TABLE 3 Percentages of the Study Area Found in each Preference Range for Conservation,
Urban and Agricultural Land Uses
Conservation Urban Agriculture
High Preference 48% 43% 43%
Moderate Preference 33% 47% 46%
Low Preference 19% 10% 11%
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moderate preference for urban. The low preference
range for each of the land use classifications captures
less than 20 percent of the study area, with urban being
the lowest at 10%. This last number suggests why urban
growth seems to spread so uniformly across the
landscape of the case study region, i.e., there are few
conditions present that preclude urban development.
Identification of Potential Areas of Land Use
Conflict (Step 6)
Figure 5 represents the application of LUCIS in the north
central Florida study area. A histogram representing the
distribution of cells among the 27 possible preference
combinations is shown along with a map of the areas of
conflict (red) and areas of no conflict (grey).
FIGURE 5 Areas of potential land use conflict, histogram and map.
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Besides simply identifying areas of potential conflict, it is
also possible to determine the character of the potential
conflict and to map it for land use decision support.
Figure 6 is a conflict map representing those areas where
potential conflict with urban preference occurs. The
orange areas are potential conflict between urban
preference and agricultural preference (combinations
LHH, MHH, LMM), the aqua areas are potential conflict
between urban preference and conservation preference
(combinations HHM, HHL, MML), and the yellow areas
are potential conflict between urban preference and the
other two land use classifications (combinations HHH,
MMM, LLL). The black areas are urban preference
without potential conflict. (The white areas are
conservation and agricultural preference areas without
potential conflict that are undifferentiated in this map.)
The green areas are existing conservation lands that
have been laid over the modeling results.
The majority of the conflict between urban and agriculture
occurs along the Interstate 75 corridor where prime
agricultural land is in the path of westward expansion of
three existing urban areas. Most of the conservation and
urban conflict areas occur west of the urban/agriculture
conflict area where a north-south wetland system lies in
the path of westward urban expansion. Similar mapping
can be done from the perspective of the other land use
classifications.

FIGURE 6 Areas of potential urban conflict and no potential urban conflict.

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Table 4 is a tabulation of the relative percentages of the
study area found within all the various combinations of
the no potential conflict/potential conflict zones. Areas of
potential urban conflict (areas of urban preference
conflicting with areas of conservation preference,
agricultural preference or both) are projected to occur in
47% of the study area. Areas of potential agricultural
conflict are projected to occur in 45% of the study area.
Areas of potential conservation conflict capture 36% of
the study area. Areas of conservation preference with no
potential conflict occur in 24% of the study area due to
the quantity of lands already in protective status. Areas
of urban preference with no potential conflict and
agricultural preference with no potential conflict each
occupy 10% of the study area. All together this suggests
considerable conflict among the three basic land use
classifications, but particularly between urban and
agricultural land uses.
CONCLUSION
The LUCIS presented in this paper is a simple method for
identifying the areas where future land use conflicts are
most likely to occur. The results have the potential to be
applied in a number of ways including decision support
for local or regional planning activities, environmental
regulation, or population modeling.
For example, a local or regional future land use plan
might be modified to recommend protection for those
areas of conservation preference with no potential conflict
with, perhaps, little to no controversy. Or similarly, the no-
conflict areas identified as having urban preference might
be included within an urban reserve boundary or some
other land use designation that suggests future
development, again possibly with few objections.
Environmental regulation might be designed to dissuade
development in no-conflict/high conservation preference
areas and encourage development in no-conflict/high
TABLE 4 Percentages of the Study Area In No Conflict Preferred for Conservation Land Use, No Conflict
Preferred for Urban Land Use, No Conflict Preferred for Agricultural Land Use, Conflict Between Urban
and Agricultural Preference, Conflict Between Urban and Conservation Preference, Conflict Between
Conservation and Agricultural Preference, and Conflict Among All Three Land Use Preferences
Classification Hectares
Percent of
Study Area
No potential conflict and preferred for conservation land use 440,955 24
No potential conflict and preferred for urban land use 174,435 10
No potential conflict and preferred for agricultural land use 170,748 10
Potential conflict between urban and conservation land use preferences 201,992 11
Potential conflict between urban and agricultural land use preferences 351,874 20
Potential conflict between conservation and land use preferences 160,381 9
Potential conflict among all three land use preferences 284,505 16
TOTALS 1,787,890 100
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urban preference areas. If protection for agricultural
lands is a community concern, then a package of
disincentives might also be created for the areas of no-
conflict/high agricultural preference. Or, a community
might choose to focus on resolving the future of the urban
conflict areas as these are usually on the margins of
existing urban areas and suggest where future contention
will likely be high.
Further, LUCIS has the potential to either enhance the
development of alternative futures by identifying those
areas in the landscape about which decisions are likely to
be most contentious or it could serve as a basis for
sequencing the distribution of future population either as
a surrogate for more complex population distribution
models or in lieu of sufficient spatial data, for example
locations of new road corridors and utility extensions. In
the classroom studio setting, the results of the conflict
mapping were used to identify a sequence for distribution
of future population in order to visualize future land use
alternatives. These alternatives represented a range of
scenarios including a laissez faire option where existing
densities and development patterns were allowed to
continue unaltered; a new urban policies scenario in
which increased densities in newly developed areas and
infill in existing developed areas were combined to
accommodate projected population growth in a smaller
space than otherwise could be achieved; and a green
infrastructure scenario where existing densities remained
but a network of ecological areas was set aside to secure
a modest framework of ecological connectivity and
protection.
The results of LUCIS in the case study area were
consistent with intuition and trend. With a steadily growing
population, lands with environmental and agricultural
value will continue to be subsumed by urban land uses in
the absence of conscious policies of intervention or
protection. It is possible to demonstrate the potential
impacts of an array of policies using LUCIS as a one-time
modeling strategy or iteratively to capture change over
time. LUCIS combined role-playing to introduce and
exaggerate bias with standard suitability analysis. In real
land use scenarios beyond the classroom, the role-
playing would not be required, but the biases of the
parties involved could be easily captured and presented
in contrast with one another. The result, we believe, will
be a useful GIS strategy with the potential to bring
together findings from the science of biological
conservation and land use decision making.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors gratefully acknowledge the students in the
spring 2004 environmental planning studio, at the
University of Florida. Their studio work contributed much
to this paper. We especially thank Danika Randolph
whose final paper in the studio gave us a jump start with
this article. We also thank Thomas Hoctor, Ph.D., whose
participation in the analysis of conservation suitability
added significantly to the legitimacy of the results.
Landscape Architecture Department:
Mike Bradley
Michelle Hall
Cary Hester
Eva Maria Krueger
Michael Madsen
Anamari Mena
Carmine Oliverio
Danika Randolph
Melissa Werndli
Urban and Regional Planning Department:
Christine Berish
Melinda Fortner
Kevin Minor
Lila Schaller
Carr, Zwick / J ournal of Conservation Planning Vol 1 (2005) 58 73
73
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