Open Space Priorities Report

Avencia worked with the Greenspace Alliance to create a series of maps showing high priority areas for open space conservation.

Client: Greenspace Alliance of Southeastern Pennsylvania

Challenge: Concerned by the speed at which development is consuming open space in Southeastern Pennsylvania, the Greenspace Alliance prepared an Open Space Priorities Report directed at decision-makers and stakeholders at the state, county, and local level. The centerpiece of the report was a spatial analysis process for three areas: Outdoor Recreation,
Conservation/Ecology, and Agricultural Preservation. For each of these three areas, a spatial model was developed to prioritize land for open space preservation.

Solution: Avencia collaborated with the Greenspace Alliance, Natural Lands Trust, Brandywine Conservancy, and Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission to provide support, training, and consulting services for the project. Avencia helped to develop new data sources, define the modeling criteria, and rapidly iterate versions of the models to produce communicative maps highlighting key areas for conservation.

Outcomes: The resulting models and maps were used by the Greenspace Alliance to create a regional open space priorities report that has since shaped open space acquisition and land planning in the Southeastern Pennsylvania region. This type of analysis is crucial to ensure that limited conservation resources are used to maximum effect.