The Heritage Conservancy
By Clifford C. David, Jr. Executive Director
The Heritage Conservancy strives to preserve the natural and historic
heritage of Bucks County and the Delaware Valley region. The Conservancy
is undertaking a comprehensive historic review and documentation of structures
in Bucks County, and it manages six historic sites.
Regional Initiatives: The Conservancy is currently the host organization
for the Delaware River Greenway Program (a bi-state, multi-county effort)
and is involved in the Delaware & Lehigh Canal Corridor Commission
(a five-county program). The Conservancy is also a member of the GreenSpace
Alliance and "feels that a comprehensive approach to open space, planning,
and land management is essential."
I. SUMMARY OF GIS ACHIEVEMENTS FOR HERITAGE CONSERVANCY
Lower Delaware Wild & Scenic River Study:
Over the past several years, Heritage Conservancy
and the National Park Service (NPS) have jointly studied the lower Delaware
River corridor for designation within the NPS Wild and Scenic River System
(WSR). The addition of GIS at the Conservancy was instrumental in several
components of this cooperative agreement. One of the documents required
by Congress when considering a river for WSR designation is a river management
plan. The Delaware River Greenway Partnership, hosted by Heritage Conservancy,
developed an inventory of locations along the Delaware considered "outstandingly
remarkable" for their natural, cultural, and historic value. This
inventory was used by the Conservancy to contract a consultant, Mapping
Technologies, to develop an ArcInfo format basemap of the lower Delaware
River corridor for use in the river management plan. Much of the data included
in the basemap was taken from United States Geological Survey (USGS) Digital
Line Graphs (DLG) and TIGER census data. However, the addition of the "outstandingly
remarkable" features dataset, created through the Greenway, makes
the maps we produced for the river management plan the authoritative guide
to the valuable resources deserving of protection along the Delaware. The
cost of GIS, both hardware and software, makes this technology prohibitively
expensive for use by local municipalities. Heritage Conservancy has attempted
to alleviate this burden and provide the municipalities along the river
corridor with some sophisticated map products created from the river management
plan. The (insert # of maps made for project) municipality maps produced,
selected sample copies are attached at the end of this report, serve as
land-planning documents which provide local government with a spatial inventory
of local roads, municipal boundaries, and significant natural, cultural,
and historic resources. An International Countryside Exchange program is
being planned through Heritage Conservancy and NPS cooperative agreement
for a portion of the Lower Delaware River corridor. To facilitate the public
outreach portion of the Exchange, presentation maps of the study area were
developed through our GIS. These maps were also used to create brochures
for public distribution.
Neshaminy Creek Management Plan: In January of 1996, we
were awarded a Rivers Conservation grant from the State of Pennsylvania
to develop an analytical model of stream corridor development along a portion
of the Neshaminy Creek in Bucks County. This plan is developing recommendations
for local governments and land owners to aid in protecting the stream corridor,
increase buffer areas, reduce flooding and erosion, and provide other land
use recommendations. We were given this award in part because of the name-recognition
our organization has within the region for land conservation and also because
the technical capabilities that GIS offers put us on equal footing with
competing consulting firms. Data coverages documenting stream locations,
major roads, generalized zoning, and land use were collected from a variety
of sources, including the county planning commission and participating
municipalities. Since the size of the study area dictated that we map at
a large scale (1:24000), this project has also seen some unique experiments
in data collection methods as we attempt to tailor existing data to our
scale requirements. We had a local pilot fly us over the study area and
used the photographs from this flight to generate linework for updating
a land use coverage. The lines were georeferenced to a USGS topographic
quadrangle and then digitized. We equipped a local Environmental Advisory
Committee (EAC) with a bundle of USGS topographic quadrangles and digitized
the field notes they took recording creekside vegetation and stream bank
erosion. The final stage of this project is currently underway, the creation
of an analytical model which will utilize 'McHarg-ian' spatial overlay
analysis. In this respect, the addition of GIS has automated many of the
tasks normally too time-consuming to consider accomplishing with traditional
cartographic methods.
In addition to these projects, we have also used and are using the GIS
'toolbox' for other projects. In January of 1996, Heritage Conservancy
was awarded a $10,000 Greenlinks Grant from the Mercer-Somerset-Middlesex
(MSM) Regional Council in New Jersey. This grant will be used to develop
a database of the conservation easements held by the Delaware & Raritan
Canal Commission (D & R Canal Commission) to aid them in monitoring
and maintaining information on the easement properties. We will once again
benefit from the use of the digitizer as we transfer the location of the
conservation easements from ortho-rectified aerial photos.
II. HERITAGE CONSERVANCY'S GIS GOALS
In April of 1996, Heritage Conservancy was awarded a grant from the
William Penn Foundation in Philadelphia to study the Delaware River watershed
and bring together the many individuals and organizations that deal with
environmental issues in that area. An important component of that program
is to utilize GIS to inventory the greater watershed region and create
some prescriptive models.
Thus, our GIS goals have been significantly expanded since our original
proposal for the CTSP grant. They are as follows:
1. To investigate and identify available GIS data for the Delaware River
watershed and serve as facilitator between the many private businesses,
and local, state, and federal governments.
2. To utilize the GIS technology to inventory and analyze the environmental
and cultural resources of the Delaware River watershed in order to help
maintain the overall health of the watershed.
3. To continue the precedent we have set as a regional 'conservation-data'
clearinghouse. We will continue to serve as a force-multiplier in the region
by putting our cooperating partners in touch with the technology of GIS.
4. To establish a level of expertise in the field of GIS which puts
the Conservancy at the front of conservation organizations in our region.
5. To utilize GIS for internal projects, including target-market membership
development and inventory of Conservancy protected properties.
III. GIS PROGRAM NEEDS FOR 1996 - 1999
We have already identified and secured a number of projects that will
take us into the second year of GIS to include the following.
GIS Partners in the Delaware River Basin Conference The Delaware River
watershed is over one and a half times the land area of the state of Pennsylvania.
Certainly, one of our main challenges is going to be adequately contacting
the many different organizations within this region. A major emphasis of
the upcoming year is to put together a Delaware River Watershed GIS conference
that will gather together the many GIS users. Many organizations within
the watershed continue to expend significant resources to produce data
which has already been completed by another organization. In an effort
to reduce some of this duplication, the Conservancy proposes to host a
GIS users conference for the Delaware River watershed. Our goal will be
to establish a dialogue between those of us working in the GIS community
to limit this duplication. The mission of the conference will be to establish
some cross-organizational goals for the watershed. We hope that out of
this unique opportunity for dialogue will come some watershed-wide consensus
for prudent conservation management.
Integration of GIS into Heritage Conservancy To date, GIS has been used
by the Land Planning Department of the Conservancy for contract services.
GIS can also benefit the organization's internal administration through
innovative applications for membership development. In addition, more people
in the organization may become involved in GIS as the Conservancy explores
options for placing ArcView for Macintosh on the Conservancy's Macintosh
server.
Bucks County Audubon Society The local Audubon chapter was recently
provided ArcView by ESRI and is looking to utilize desktop mapping for
migratory bird data. We have discussed possible ideas with them and look
forward to future projects. In addition, the State of Pennsylvania is a
pilot project area for the National Audubon Society's Important Bird Areas
project. We hope to look into this as well and participate at some level.
Additional Grant Opportunities with Delaware River Greenway Partners
The MSM Regional Council grant is an excellent example of how we can utilize
our GIS for the needs of our many partner organizations. Heritage Conservancy
will continue to research grant opportunities for these groups.
IV. CONCLUSION
In summary, we would like to emphasize that Heritage Conservancy has
taken the role of providing GIS to a great many smaller conservation organizations.
Consequently, we must extend thanks not only from our organization but
also a great many others for the GIS equipment our sponsors have provided
us. In addition, the benefits provided from additional equipment will surely
be shared by many here in the Delaware River valley region.
Clifford C. David, Jr., Executive Director
The Heritage Conservancy
85 Old Dublin Pike
Doylestown, PA 18901
Phone: (215) 345-7020
Fax: (215) 345-4328
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