South County Greenspace Project
Location: Washington County, Rhode Island
Date Completed: May, 2002
Client: Sustainable Watersheds Office, Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management.

South County is blessed with a rich cross-section of the New England landscape, from beaches and salt ponds to rural farms and some of the largest forested areas along the Northeast Seaboard.

An outgrowth of the South County Watersheds Technical Planning Assistance Project, which assembled useful tools and techniques for more sustainable planning and design, the South County Greenspace Project set out in the Fall of 1999 to unite the diverse goals of local, state and federal players into a set of physical plans and action strategies for protecting the landscape of South County. Over the course of four meetings with each of the nine towns, Dodson Associates prepared an inventory of natural, cultural and recreational resources using GIS. Each local committee then helped to develop a plan for protection of priority greenspaces and greenways. Later, a regional working group convened to create a vision for protected greenways across the region. Extensive use of three-dimensional GIS images, aerial photography, and visual diagramming helped participants better understand the landscape of their communities.

The results of the project, which is the first regional plan of any kind prepared for South County, include maps describing local and regional priorities for natural, cultural, and recreational resources. A series of composite maps helped to identify areas with an unusual concentration of resources and resulting high value as open space. Specific protection targets and action projects were identified in each category, including a regional multi-use path system, consolidation of sensitive ecosystems within large blocks of conservation land, and a cultural landscape preservation plan. An extensive final report outlined the methodology and resource maps, and laid out a plan for coordinated activity by the many public agencies and private organizations involved in land protection and open space management.

See also: South County Design Manual

Regional Maps: Detailed maps were prepared for each of the nine communities included in the study, then merged into a series of county-wide resource inventory and priority maps. Participants in two regional conferences helped shape action strategies for conservation and recreational development.

Natural Resource Inventory. Click image for full size view.	Priority Natural Resource Areas and Corridors. Click image for full size view.	Cultural Resource Inventory. Click image for full size view.
Priority Cultural Resource Areas and Corridors. Click image for full size view.	Recreational Resource Inventory. Click image for full size view.	Composite Resource Analysis. Click image for full size view.