Soil Quality and Agricultural Zoning: an Examination of Conflicts

The most common method used by local governments, to prevent conversion of farmland to non-agricultural uses is zoning. An identification of high quality soils may be the most crucial stage in the development of agricultural zoning ordinances. Common soil quality classifications are not adequate in this identification, largely because they do not take local conditions into account. When soil information is used to design zoning ordinances that can withstand litigation, several additional legal criteria must be fulfilled. Four Minnesota county zoning ordinances were examined to determine if soil quality was used as a zoning criterion. Only one of the counties recognized the importance of soil quality in its agricultural zoning ordinances

Sources of Local Geographic Information

This guide is a tool to help you find local information. The list is not comprehensive, but is to give you some starting points on your search. The information available will differ from community to community. The premise of this guide is that you will generally find the information that you want if you ask the right PEOPLE, find the right PUBLICATIONS, and look in the right PLACES. This three pronged approach will help you find information that you never knew existed. Sometimes you will be fortunate and find the information that you seek on the first phone call or visit to an office. Other times a more extensive search will be necessary. Enjoy your search

Expansion of Golf Courses in the United States

Twenty-five million Americans play golf on the nation\u27s 16,000 courses each year. These golf courses constitute a significant national landscape feature. Since 18789, when the game arrived in the United States, golf has filtered down the urban, economic, and social hierarchies to become accepted by and accessible to most Americans. During the ensuing thirteen decades the number, location, and layout of the nation\u27s golf courses have responded to many of the same driving forces that impacted the nation, including decentralization, growth of the middle class, war, economic depression, suburbanization, and the increasing role of the federal government. Four epochs of golf-course growth and diffusion show the growing acceptance of the sport and depict where courses were most likely to be constructed as a result of the prevailing forces of each epoch

An Economic Location Model for Texas Wineries

Sunbelt migration and increased per capita wine consumption have stimulated the opening of 27 new wineries in Texas since 1976. Choosing the location of a winery is one of the vintner\u27s most important decisions. A survey of vintners provided a ranking of locational criteria that was used to develop an economic locational model of winery location. A preliminary model was tested and discarded in favor of a more narrowly defined model. Critical marketing locational criteria included proximity to tourist areas, access to grapes, distance from urban areas, access to an interstate highway, and severity of county alcohol laws

ECOREGIONAL DIFFERENCES IN LATE-20TH-CENTURY LAND-USE AND LAND-COVER CHANGE IN THE U.S. NORTHERN GREAT PLAINS

Land-cover and land-use change usually results from a combination of anthropogenic drivers and biophysical conditions found across multiple scales, ranging from parcel to regional levels. A group of four Level III ecoregions located in the u.s. northern Great Plains is used to demonstrate the similarities and differences in land change during nearly a 30-year period (1973-2000) using results from the U.S. Geological Survey\u27s Land Cover Trends project. There were changes to major suites of land-cover; the transitions between agriculture and grassland/shrubland and the transitions among wetland, water, agriculture, and grassland/shrubland were affected by different factors. Anthropogenic drivers affected the land-use tension (or land-use competition) between agriculture and grassland/shrubland land-covers, whereas changes between wetland and water land-covers, and their relationship to agriculture and grassland/shrubland land-covers, were mostly affected by regional weather cycles. More land-use tension between agriculture and grassland/shrubland landcovers occurred in ecoregions with greater amounts of economically marginal cropland. Land-cover change associated with weather variability occurred in ecoregions that had large concentrations of wetlands and water impoundments, such as the Missouri River reservoirs. The Northwestern Glaciated Plains ecoregion had the highest overall estimated percentage of change because it had both land-use tension between agriculture and grassland/shrubland land-covers and wetland-water changes

Exploring subtle land use and land cover changes: a framework for future landscape studies

UMR AMAP, équipe 3International audienceLand cover and land use changes can have a wide variety of ecological effects, including significant impacts on soils and water quality. In rural areas, even subtle changes in farming practices can affect landscape features and functions, and consequently the environment. Fine-scale analyses have to be performed to better understand the land cover change processes. At the same time, models of land cover change have to be developed in order to anticipate where changes are more likely to occur next. Such predictive information is essential to propose and implement sustainable and efficient environmental policies. Future landscape studies can provide a framework to forecast how land use and land cover changes is likely to react differently to subtle changes. This paper proposes a four step framework to forecast landscape futures at fine scales by coupling scenarios and landscape modelling approaches. This methodology has been tested on two contrasting agricultural landscapes located in the United States and France, to identify possible landscape changes based on forecasting and backcasting agriculture intensification scenarios. Both examples demonstrate that relatively subtle land cover and land use changes can have a large impact on future landscapes. Results highlight how such subtle changes have to be considered in term of quantity, location, and frequency of land use and land cover to appropriately assess environmental impacts on water pollution (France) and soil erosion (US). The results highlight opportunities for improvements in landscape modelling

Review of \u3ci\u3e Roadside History of South Dakota\u3c/i\u3e by Linda Hasselstrom

The best parts of this book are the introductions to South Dakota and to each of the four regions into which Hasselstrom divides the state. In these sixty pages, she distills the state\u27s history and cultural geography. Linda Hasselstrom is one of South Dakota\u27s most accomplished native writers. Her writing is clean and easy to read. She explains what it is to be South Dakotan as only a native could, but retains the ability to step back and see the state objectively. Intended for an audience of armchair travelers, vacationers, and casual history buffs, the book is organized around four geographic regions: the farmlands east of the Missouri River, the Missouri River trench and adjacent counties, the thinly settled ranch land of West River, and the tourist oriented Black Hills and Badlands. Within this framework, Hasselstrom discusses the history loosely associated with particular highways, which are often modern expressions of old transportation corridors. Typically, she discusses local places using a three point pattern: origin of the town name, interesting local event, and summary of a historically important local person. Most towns receive three paragraphs; larger and more historically significant towns are given up to a few pages of discussion. Hasselstrom does not consider every currently occupied town, but she does include several ghost towns