Priority Assessment and Ranking of Conservation-Eligible Lands (PARCEL): A Flexible GIS Tool for Watershed-Scale Land Trusts

Abstract

The use of geospatial information systems (GIS) by land trusts to locate and prioritize lands critical for conservation has become a crucial step in making the process of land acquisition more strategic, proactive, and fruitful. This project introduces an automated GIS tool scripted in Python for the ESRI ArcGIS environment which allows organizations to readily evaluate a select number of aspects of the conservation value of all property parcels in their target area with a minimum of GIS software literacy. The tool computes a metric of the extent to which each parcel contributes to connectivity of natural green space, draws corridors between natural patches that pass through the most optimal land uses, models areas underserved by open space, and estimates regions of relatively high sediment erosion and deposition. The analysis, with additional criteria, is demonstrated on the Ellerbe Creek watershed in the Durham, North Carolina area, highlighting the significant conservation potential in this highly impaired urban area.