GIS Diagnostics

The Iowa State University Extension GIS Diagnostics Program is designed to assist public and private planning agencies improve the way GIS is being used in their environment. The program prescribes step-by-step strategies to help agencies maximize their use of the technology by incorporating spatial analysis in daily tasks.

1. ECICOG Regional Land Use Inventory

A regional land use inventory to help six eastern Iowa counties plan for future growth is currently under way. This inventory is a cooperative venture between Iowa State University Extension GIS Diagnostics Program, East Central Iowa Council of Governments (ECICOG), Linn and Johnson Counties, and the Johnson/Linn County Public Leadership Group. The inventory will provide spatial evidences of how land cover has changed over the past decade in Benton, Linn, Jones, Johnson, Iowa and Washington counties. The completed inventory should provide a better understanding of what areas in the region need more attention in future land use planning as well as good information on the areas that are growing. The region includes the major population centers of Cedar Rapids and Iowa City. The analysis covers 66 incorporated communities in the six counties. Factors that will be studied include detailed population change from 1990 to 2000, changes in employment from 1990 to 2000, and an assessment of the change in the land cover between 1992 and 2002, based on what was located on the land in those two years, such as farm uses, vegetation, and residential, business and industrial uses. A fourth factor that will be studied is the planning currently in place in the region in the form of zoning ordinances and land use plans.

Research Assistant: Adam Martin-Schwarze

Period: Fall 2006
 

2. Hawarden Land Parcel Geodatabase

A computerized geodatabase that will provide detailed information on all land within the Hawarden city limits is the goal of a project under development by the City of Hawarden and the GIS Diagnostics Program at Iowa State University. The geodatabase will allow the city to provide information to property owners that is more accurate and more detailed than what was available under old manual systems. Data available will include information such as property boundary lines, sizes of parcels, and ownership, assessed values, and tax data for all property within the city. City officials also will be able to print maps of individual parcels and of land use within the city. The project should be completed by the end of the year and ready for Hawarden officials to take over operation of the system, which offers a good demonstration of how GIS technology can be used to support the management of small communities in Iowa.

Research Assistant: Daniel Nack

Period: Fall 2006
 

Spatial Analysis for Local Public Finance Decision Support

The fact that Iowa's rural areas have lost population over the past decades is a well documented problem. It is also well known that migration into a community may depend on amenities like school quality, public parks, roads or subsidies to recruit firms. Therefore, local public finance decisions can affect the in-migration and outmigration processes. Our long-run research goal is to support local public finance decisions related to rural community development. In particular, in this research project we will apply spatial statistics to examine the relationship between student performance and funding for education in the state of Iowa and some of its neighboring states. Spatial statistics accounts for specific location of spatial units of analysis, which in our case are the school districts and counties. The findings will provide an understanding of the distribution of funding for education and effectiveness of school system in Iowa and in some of its neighboring states. This pilot study will serve as a foundation for future work towards the general problem of public finance allocation.

Research Team: Dr. Monica A. Haddad from the Department of Community and Regional Planning at ISU and Dr. Petrutza C. Caragea from the Department of Statistics at ISU, Isha Kaphle and Lan Wei (research assistants)
 

Building a Citizen-Accessible Information System for Managing Iowa's Local Government Networks and Interlocal (28e) Agreements

This project will build a citizen-accessible eGovernment information management system that will strengthen existing and future collaboration between local government units in the area of critical infrastructure protection and service sharing. This information system will allow citizens, local elected officials and local public managers to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of government services to citizens by learning about interlocal (28e) agreements used in Iowa's communities. The extent and type of collaboration among these communities will be represented by GIS maps.

Research Team: Dr. Kurt Thurmaier and Dr. Yu-Che Chen from the Public Policy and Administration Program at ISU, Dr. Monica A. Haddad from the Department of Community and Regional planning at ISU, and Luciane C. Rostagno (research assistant)
 

GIS Site Suitability Modeling to Identify Potential Corn Stover Collection Sites in Northern Iowa

The proposed project consists of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) site suitability modeling to identify potential sites along the Iowa Northern Railway. These sites will serve as collection and storage sites for crop residuals, alternative crops, and waste streams. The goal of this project is to begin developing a corn stover logistics system capable of moving 80,000 tons to 500,000 tons of corn stover to a processing facility. Once implemented, the initial phase of this logistic system will focus on moving about 80,000 tons of corn stover to Cedar Falls Utility Company for the generation of electricity. The study area for GIS site suitability modeling will focus on agriculture fields adjacent to Iowa Northern Rail Company railroad tracks in portions of 14 counties.

The procedures established to identify the specific sites consist of the following: (a) models’ development; (b) data collection; (c) geodatabase organization; (d) spatial analysis; and (e) model evaluation. The ultimate goal is to rate sites based on environment cost, construction cost, and social cost. The final product will consist of a series of maps showing site suitability throughout the study area. These sites will be ranked according to the costs criteria. A field checking stage would be useful, but it is beyond the scope of this project.

Research Team (at ISU): Dr. Monica A. Haddad (assistant professor of Community and Regional Planning and GIS Extension specialist); Paul F. Anderson (professor of Landscape Architecture and Agronomy); Patrick Brown (systems analyst at the ISU GIS Support and Research Facility); and a graduate student from the College of Design (to be selected).