Rhode Island Land Suitability Analysis for Development Intensity and Conservation

Rhode Island is preparing its third state land use plan since 1975, but this will be the first time GIS technology was used as a major planning component in a future land use project. This project will benefit the Land Use Plan by providing geographic data, analysis results, and total acreage calculations for specific land use, land cover, and analysis areas. ArcGIS 9 was used to model various geoprocessing tools, such as SQL queries, and a development intensity matrix was used to assess land suitability and assign potential development intensity and conservation categories to all land in the state.

The future land use project is being completed in phases. The first phase consisted of conducting the land suitability analysis on a statewide level. The objective of this phase was to identify concentrated areas of natural resources and limitations to development. The eight key layers that were selected and investigated were agricultural lands, drinking water surface supply reservoirs, flood hazards, groundwater, major forested areas, rare species, soils with development constraints, and surface water/wetlands.

The second phase of the land use project was to assign land to development intensity categories ranging from areas most suitable for dense development to areas most suitable for protection. A decision rule matrix was created for the initial assignment of land based on concentration values from the land suitability analysis, proximity to sensitive water resource areas, and proximity to public water and sewer. The Development Intensity Based on Land Suitability, Sensitive Water Resources, and Infrastructure map shows the statewide initial development category assignments and locations of available public water and sewer.

Future phases in the land use project will include analysis of undeveloped and unprotected areas for future development and conservation.