UTILIZING CROWDSOURCED DATA FOR VISUAL CONSERVATION DESIGN IN THE MARCELLUS SHALE REGION OF PA
By: Lacey Goldberg, 2015
This paper describes a means for identifying and prioritizing areas for scenic conservation using crowdsourced georeferenced data. The context for this study is the Northern Tier of Pennsylvania, USA, also called the Pennsylvania Wilds and Endless Mountains for its rolling hills and pristine swaths of forest. In the last five years the landscape has experienced much change in the face of shale gas development, in a part of Pennsylvania with a long history of resource extraction. Timber, coal, and now gas are pieces of a complex energy history in Pennsylvania that has negatively impacted and continues to impact the aesthetic and visual quality of this landscape.
By: Tara Mazurczyk, 2015
This project investigates the broader context of water risks. Development, industry, and even natural geomorphic elements have the potential to stress on hydrological and sensitive ecological systems. In an effort to quantify potential water risks, a physical spatial model was developed using ArcGIS ModelBuilder. The theoretical underpinnings for the model emphasizes current location-based data with regional variables to determine the most probable distribution of the given phenomenon. Through a qualitative lens, water risks were evaluated and assigned values depending upon their direct and indirect impact to the landscape.
THE LANDSCAPE CORRIDOR OF PA ROUTE 6
By: Abhinandan Bera, 2015
This research investigates the functioning of US Route 6 in Pennsylvania as a landscape corridor and how that may be impacted by the recent shale gas developments in the Marcellus region. Route 6 is a transit corridor that holds immense historic and cultural significance to the residents of the commonwealth as well as visitors. The dependence of industries including the recent shale gas industry has caused the way it functions to change. Moreover, such a change has led to disturbances on the landscape in terms of natural resources like land, water, forests and habitats as well as cultural resources like local communities and tourism or recreational potentials.