A good land use layer is an important part of any attempt to do community planning or resource management. The Penn State Cooperative Extension Geospatial Technology program has been actively working on developing methodologies to create new land use data from several sources. These methods include standard aerial image interpretation, remote sensing, and determining land use from cadastral data attribute data. Each of these methods has its advantages and disadvantages. Research that is being conducted to explore the mixing of these datasets to achieve a higher reliability will be discussed. The method of mixing in the reliable portions of cadastral land use data into a seed file for subsequent use during aerial image interpretation will be demonstrated and this same application will be discussed in relation to remote sensing derived land cover.
Stewart Bruce started his career in GIS at Mifflin County in 1996 where he was the GIS and IT Director. At Mifflin County, Mr. Bruce started a county level GIS from the ground up creating a regional GIS system with over eighteen participating municipal organizations. During his tenure he raised over 1.7 million dollars in competitive grant funds to develop and expand the system. Currently Mr. Bruce works for the Cooperative Extension Geospatial Technology Program at Penn State under the direction of Dr. Rick Day. Here he is responsible for assisting local organizations in Pennsylvania through the GIS Outreach and Extension Program. He is now working with several counties doing GIS needs assessments, providing GIS training to local organizations, and working on several other GIS related projects such as land use and web mapping. He received a Bachelors in Geography from California State University, Long Beach in 1994 and a Masters of Science in Geography from Penn State in 1997.
Steven Arnold’s interest in GIS began as a student at Penn State University while taking one of Dr. Rick Day’s courses. As a student, Steve did two summer internships at the Mifflin County Mapping Department under the supervision of Stewart Bruce in 98 and 99. Steve joined the Land Analysis Laboratory at Penn State University in 1999 under the supervision of Dr. Rick Day, where he is currently on staff. He works at the Centre Regional Planning Agency (CRPA) as part of a contract with Penn State as a Senior Research Technologist/Municipal Outreach Specialist. Steve’s GIS experience with CRPA involves projects dealing with land use, growth forecasting, cartography, comprehensive planning as well as other local government issues.