Engineers and supervisors of the Pima County Planning and Sanitation Departments use the various large- and regional-scale maps and reports to identify hazardous areas, plan major sewer lines, deny or alter construction plans in flood-prone or flooderodible areas, and permit or deny real estate development in mineral deposit areas.

land-use planning in the Connecticut Valley with examples from the folio of the Hartford North quadrangle, Connecticut" by Pessl and others (1972).

Evaluation of study results

The urban area projects are pilot studies to develop

• Publication of "Seismic Hazard and Land-Use Planning" by Nichols and Buchanan-Banks (1974). An outgrowth of San Francisco Bay regional studies, the report summarizes and demonstrates the need for land use planning in areas of known seismic hazards.

• Publication of maps showing the potential sources of gravel and crushed-rock aggregate in certain areas of the Front Range Urban Corridor, Colo., specifically, (1) the Boulder-Fort Collins-Greeley, (2) Greater Denver, and (3) Colorado Springs-Castle (2) Greater Denver, and (3) Colorado Springs-Castle Rock areas (Colton and Fitch, 1974; Trimble and Fitch, 1974a, b). These maps are the basis of local jurisdictions' preliminary evaluation of land development plans in response to State legislation that requires an evaluation of all mineral resources (metallic and nonmetallic) and geologic hazards before a real estate development is approved.

• Publication of "Relative Susceptibility of Lakes to Water-Quality Degradation in the Southern Hood Canal Area, Washington" by Bortleson and Foxworthy (1974). A result of early studies in the Puget Sound urban area, the report presents a method of evaluating future lake quality that has been adopted by State agencies.

• Completion of 23 open-file maps in Allegheny County, Pa., showing landslide susceptibility. An outgrowth of the Greater Pittsburgh region urban area study supported by the Appalachian Regional Commission, the maps are a valuable aid to land use planners, developers, and residents in avoiding the widespread natural hazard of landslides.

• Completion of six open-file, single-topic, earthscience maps of Montgomery County, Md. (Froelich, 1974a, b, c, d, e, f) and maps of the geology, mineral resources, and construction conditions of Prince Georges County, Md. (Hack, 1975a, b, c). The maps of the Baltimore-Washington urban area study are being widely used by regional planners, decisionmakers, and developers for land use management.

• Completion of about 33 single-topic earth-science maps in the Connecticut Valley urban area. These kinds of maps and their uses are explained in a report entitled "Geologic and hydrologic maps for

lection and presentation that appear to be most useful to land use planners and decisionmakers. All the urban area studies have focused on regional planning and problems, yet local jurisdictions have been major users, perhaps because of the lack of essential earthscience data at larger map scales. At the urging of project personnel, some local governments have developed their own earth-science expertise to apply existing data to local needs. In the San Francisco Bay region, for example, four of the nine counties and one major city have established full-time geologist positions, and several other communities employ consultants or earth scientists part time, whereas none were employed in 1970 when the study began.

A survey was conducted to assess the extent to which maps and reports from the San Francisco Bay region study have been applied in land use decisions (Kockelman, 1975). The following applications identified during the survey are indicative of the widespread use of the study products at all levels of government:

"The SFBRS Program has:

A. Raised the level of consciousness about natural hazards in

the user community.

B. Begun to bridge the communication gap and improve information transfer among scientists, planners and decisionmakers.

C. Developed new, more detailed earth-science data for a complex geological area larger than Connecticut.

D. Expanded the focus and content of earth-science studies in other urban areas.

E. Strongly influenced the organizational structure of USGS, making it more responsive to data-application needs of others.

F. Strengthened the environmental requirements of and responses to HUD programs in the Bay area.

G. Improved the capability of ABAG (Association of Bay Area Governments) in environmental assessment, regional planning and decisionmaking.

H. Improved the capability of county and local planning agencies to perform environmental assessments and land use planning and to prepare codes and ordinances.

I. Experimented with new methods of data presentation and begun the development of a common language among scientists, planners, and users of resources."

The report also states that "Much still remains to be done to strengthen the fledgling impact of earth sciences in land use and environmental planning decisions." Perhaps the most valuable result of the continuing urban area studies will be the extension of effective communications between earth scientists, iand use planners, and decisionmakers throughout the United States. If so, we may one day truly achieve a harmonious balance wherein man makes full use of land resources while he maintains esthetic and environmental values and avoids natural hazards.

RESOURCE AND LAND INVESTIGATIONS
PROGRAM

The Department of the Interior established the Resource and Land Investigations program in September 1972 to mobilize more effectively its technological capacity and scientific competence for making objective analyses of land use alternatives. The Survey was assigned to take the lead in developing a technology and an information base for efficient and safe resource and land development in collaboration with other Interior agencies. The Survey's input to this program comes principally from the multidisciplinary studies. conducted under the aegis of the Earth Sciences Applications program.

The purpose of the program is to improve technical communication between the collectors and analysts of resource and land information and the planners, managers, and decisionmakers in Government, industry, and the public sector. This goal is accomplished by coordinating the activities of the several Bureaus in those cases where a multidisciplinary perspective would improve the Department's ability to communi

cate with the planning community and by coordinating the Department's technical response to complex issues relating to land resource analysis. To improve the transfer of technical information in the planning community, directories, catalogs, and bibliographies are compiled and distributed that describe the information products, services, and research. The program also provides for technical assistance to aid planners in the acquisition and interpretation of information and in the development, selection, and application of planning tools.

The Resource and Land Investigations program in fiscal year 1975 included activities to:

Identify and assess the utility of selected information products, geographic data systems, and data sources to State and local planning communities. • Develop and distribute directories of data holdings and special information products of the Department of the Interior.

• Identify technical expertise in the Department that is needed by regional, State, and local planning communities and develop administrative procedures to make appropriate personnel available for consultation.

• Support and coordinate the preparation of guidebooks to planning methodologies.

Accomplishments during the year included the completion of guidebooks and other reports on: • Utility corridor siting-A guidebook to methods for locating power transmission lines and pipelines and evaluating potential environmental impacts (GrafWebster and others, 1974a).

• Powerplant siting-An annotated bibliography on factors influencing the location of thermal power generating facilities (Graf-Webster and others, 1974b).

• State land use programs-A series of background papers on land use planning and program analysis prepared by the Council of State Governments' Task Force on Natural Resources and Land Use Information and Technology (1974a, b, c, d, e; 1975a, b, c) as part of a grant from the Geological Survey. • Environmental analysis methodology-A review and annotated bibliography of methodologies for evaluating environmental impacts (Bennington and others, 1974).

within the planning community to provide specific information for land use information systems, critical environmental area planning, and assessment of the utility of information products for planning needs.

GEOGRAPHY PROGRAM

The Geography program links and integrates social science information and the techniques of geographic analysis with earth-science information collected by the Geological Survey. Activities of the program include:

• Mapping land use and land cover on a nationwide basis.

• Developing and demonstrating techniques of land use mapping using remote sensor data and a geographic information system for handling land use data.

• Conducting field investigations and participating in multidisciplinary studies that contribute to solutions of problems arising from interactions of land use practices and environmental factors.

• Contributing to the National Atlas project.

Planning and implementing programs designed to promote wise use of the land depend in part on a knowledge of the present distribution of and temporal changes in different types of land use and land cover and on a knowledge of where urbanization and other types of development are occurring. The location, area, and percentages of land use and land cover are among the types of statistical data used by Federal and State legislators and local officials to determine land use policy, to project demands for different types of land use, to predict where future development pressures will occur, and to formulate plans for regional development. Current land use and land cover data also support Federal and State planning for developing energy resources, managing public lands, siting public facilities, developing recreational areas, managing water resources, and assessing potential and actual natural disaster damages.

National land use and land cover mapping and data compilation

In fiscal year 1975, the Geological Survey established a Land Use Data and Analysis program to collect a comprehensive national baseline set of land use and land cover data that would alleviate or remedy many of the shortcomings of various types of existing data. Maps of current land use and land cover for the entire Nation are being prepared at 1:125,000 scale (1.25 kilometres to the centimetre, or 2 miles to the inch). Additional maps are being prepared in overlay format to relate current land use and land cover data

to other sets of information such as: (1) resources on and ownership patterns pertaining to Federal lands; (2) certain resource management data, such as drainage-basin management; (3) political subdivisions, for example, counties and States; and (4) various types of census data.

The classification system being employed to map land use and land cover was developed in cooperation with many Federal and State agencies, employs common terminology, and is flexible (Anderson and others, 1976). Applied research has been conducted to assess the accuracy of the maps, as well as that of the data requirements and inventory methods, such as the application of Landsat digital data to land use and land cover mapping needs.

A computerized geographic information system has been developed to store and retrieve the data compiled under the national land use mapping program and other Survey land use and land cover research projects. The system includes: (1) entry of digitized land use and land cover maps and other related data; (2) editing and updating of the data base; and (3) retrieval and manipulation of the data for area measurement, comparative analysis with other data, and other analytic applications. Statistical reports are being prepared that present land use and land cover data for counties, watersheds, census county subdivisions, and federally owned land.

Experimental and demonstration land use and land cover maps are produced to test various mapping techniques, remote sensor applications, regional applications, classification variations, computer applications, and combinations of map scale and minimum area depicted.

Geography program personnel have provided technical assistance to users of Geological Survey land use and land cover data and maps and to those who desire to use the data in conjunction with computer software developed by the Geography program or who need the data converted to use with other systems. For example, the Geography program is cooperating with and assisting the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and the Soil Conservation Service to utilize the Survey's land use and land cover data in their resource management and planning. A cooperative Geological Survey and Forest Service test of the utility of the data in implementing requirements of the Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resource Planning Act of 1974 was started in fiscal year 1975.

Geography program accomplishments during the year included:

• Compilation of land use and land cover data for approximately 1,036,000 square kilometres (400,000

square miles) during the first year of the national land use mapping effort (fig. 53). Emphasis was placed on mapping coastal areas, energy production areas, and areas covered by other Geological Survey program cooperative agreements such as the Greater Atlanta metropolitan area.

• Compilation of regional and large-scale land use and land cover maps for the phosphate development area in southeastern Idaho for use in the preparation of an environmental impact statement by the Environmental Impact Analysis program. • Completion of land use maps for the Greater Pittsburgh area, Pa., Lycoming County, Pa., and the Kentucky River Area Development District for the Earth Science Applications program's urban area studies.

Completion of 85 percent of the Central Atlantic Regional Ecological Test Site (CARETS) Project final reports for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. These reports describe the results of studies of land use patterns and trends in the Norfolk, Va., area, image interpretation techniques, land use mapping accuracy, land use and air-quality

planning, streamflow estimation using remotely sensed data, coastal ecosystems and environmental problems, environmental impact assessment, user evaluation, and geographic information system development.

Study of limitations on future resource development and urban expansion related to existing patterns of land use in the Little Rock, Ark., area in cooperation with the Ozarks Regional Commission. Land use and land cover data were combined with soils data (such as permeability, structure, and agricultural potential), 100-year flood limits, mineral deposits data, and fish and wildlife information to produce a statistical data base that could be used in assessing limitations on future resource development and urban expansion.

Finally, Geography program personnel started a study of the development of the oil and gas industry on the Louisiana coast in fiscal year 1975 to determine the impact on land use and land cover of canal system expansion, maritime facilities siting, and changes in the labor force since 1947.

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