Project Background
The Hill Country Alliance (HCA) is a nonprofit organization whose purpose is to raise public awareness and build community support around the need to preserve the natural resources and heritage of the Central Texas Hill Country. They promote responsible and planned growth in a region under tremendous pressure to urbanize. HCA utilizes many community resources to enhance the understanding of our rapidly growing population as well as attempt to help the environment cope with the growth as seamlessly as possible. One such resource is the Geography Department at Texas State University - San Marcos. Each semester HCA brings interesting challenges to the Advanced Geographic Information Systems II class, GEO 4427.
Project Information
PAKK's objective was to employ GIS capabilities for illustration and measurement of land area identified by stream buffer guidelines expressed in the Regional Water Quality Protection Plan (RWQPP). The intended use of this data is to present stakeholders with a first order of protection through depiction of setback buffers around streams. The cartographic output provided by PAKK in addition to data and analysis results, will be utilized by HCA and future GIS analysis teams in continuing to gather and aggregate stakeholder input that will prepare them to embark on a full build-out landuse map. The goal of our project was to construct general overview maps to assist in facilitating discussions of the many criteria to consider in urban and rural growth planning. The geographic scope in regard to the stream buffer analysis and land area calculations, is a 17 county area of the central region of Texas called the Hill Country. The geographic scope in regard to the web GIS maps will be 6 counties of interest to HCA including Hays, Comal, Blanco, Kendall, Bandera, & Medina.