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Figure 1.2 Major Participants in the Florida Statewide Greenways System Planning Project.

Role of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection

The Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) was the lead agency for the 1995-1998 ISTEA Enhancement Project. Senior staff from DEP's Office of Greenways and Trails were responsible for directing all project activities including:

· Planning and running periodic meetings of the project's lead planning partners - All project tasks were undertaken by a Lead Planning Team consisting of staff from the Office of Greenways and Trails (1995-1999), the University of Florida (1995-1999), the National Park Service's Rivers, Trails and Conservation Assistance Program (1995-1996) and 1000 Friends (1995). This team met periodically to address project issues as they arose, coordinate project tasks and plan activities involving all team partners. The Office of Greenways and Trails planned and chaired all Lead Planning Team meetings and kept records of meeting results.

· Directing the preparation of work plans for all project participants - At the start of the project, each of the project's lead planning team members prepared a detailed work plan outlining project tasks and interim products. These work plans were reviewed by the Office of Greenways and Trails and, once approved, were used to track progress and support invoicing and payments.

· Planning and hosting technical review sessions and other project-related meetings - Solicitation of technical input on the appropriateness of assumptions and methodologies used in the greenways design process was critical. Starting in 1995, the Office of Greenways and Trails planned and hosted sessions involving DEP staff and worked jointly with the University to host sessions involving outside reviewers. See Section 3 for a detailed description of technical review sessions and other project related meetings.

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· Coordinating project-related public input forums - Another project activity that will ultimately contribute to the acceptance and long-term success of the greenways in Florida was the planning and hosting of Florida Greenways forums to inform and solicit comments from the general public. The Office of Greenways and Trails coordinated the planning and hosting of these events, including the Florida Greenways Workshops held between February and October 1996 and DEP/Council/RGTF public workshops held in 1997 and 1998.

· Supporting the meetings of the Florida Greenways Coordinating Council and its associated committees and advisory groups _ The Greenways Council, its Planning Committee, and its six Regional Greenways Task Forces played critical roles in greenways design. Staff at the Office of Greenways and Trails provided planning and administrative support for the meetings of these groups (See Section 4 for more details).

· Addressing legislative issues _ Working with DEP's Office of Legislative Affairs, the Office of Greenways and Trails addressed legislative issues that arose during the project period. This was accomplished through response to legislative questions, attendance, when requested, at legislative meetings, and other appropriate activities.

· Administering budgets and disbursing project funds - As the lead contact for the Florida Department of Transportation on all programmatic and financial aspects of the ISTEA funding, the Office of Greenways and Trails prepared and administered budgets for each of the Lead Planning Team partners, reviewed quarterly progress reports and disbursed funds on performance of scheduled work plan tasks. In addition, the Department kept records of all project-related expenditures, reported periodically to the Department of Transportation and, when necessary, responded to questions and requests for additional information from that agency's project managers. The Office of Greenways and Trails also prepared budget requests to support greenways for inclusion in DEP's annual budget requests.

· Developing the Implementation Plan - Last but not least, DEP was responsible for development of the "5 year implementation plan" mandated by the legislature. This was completed with assistance from the Greenways Council, members of the RGTFs, the Trails Council, the general public and the University.

Role of the University of Florida

Although this Project has been based in the University of Florida's Department of Landscape Architecture it involved faculty and students from a broad array of other departments within the University community. Expertise in spatial analysis and GIS was provided by faculty and students from the Department of Urban and Regional Planning. Research on the planning of wildlife corridors, landscape ecology and reserve system design by faculty and students from the Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation laid the groundwork for the Project, was furthered by the Project and is still being carried on today.

Project Tasks

The University's responsibilities and the source of additional information for each are as follows:

· Development of Project Goals and Objectives - Section 2 of this Report

· GIS Data Acquisition and Classification _ Section 6 of this Report

· Development and Refinement of a GIS Decision Support Model _ Section 3 of this Report

· Recommendations for Greenways Implementation - Released in July 1996 as Section 5 of the University's Final Report for Phase I of the Florida Statewide Greenways System Planning Project

· Support of Public Participation in Greenways Planning - Section 4 of this Report

· Development of Design Guidelines for Intersections of Greenways and Transportation Corridors - The Final Report for this task is available from Bob Grist at the University's Department of Landscape Architecture or from the Department of Transportation's Environmental Management Office.

· Development of a digital database representing lands of owners who do not wish to be included on greenways maps _ Section 5 of this Report

· Preparation of Reports, Maps and Digital Data for Distribution _

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- Phase I, Final Report Florida Statewide Greenways Planning Project, July 1996;

- Phase II, Interim Report Florida Statewide Greenways Planning Project, July 1998;

- this Report;

- sections of the 5 year Implementation Plan titled Connecting Florida's Communities with Greenways and Trails, September 1998; and

- various releases of the Florida Geographic Data Library _ described in Section 6 of this report

Role of Other Key Project Partners

Three other groups played particularly important roles in the Project: the Greenways Commission and the Greenways Council and the Trails Council.

Florida Greenways Commission

The Commission, which was created by Governor Lawton Chiles in 1993, provided technical input and general guidance during the project's first year in 1995. The Commission's System Design Committee, which met five times in 1995, played a critical role in the initiation of the Statewide Greenways System Planning Project. During that year committee members worked closely with the University Team in reviewing design goals and objectives, identifying available data resources, providing technical input on GIS modeling approaches, including the location of model test areas, and evaluating the model's initial results. As a whole, the Commission reviewed project progress at its quarterly meetings and provided input when requested on key project issues. Additional details on the Commission can be found in Sections 2 and 4 and in Section 8, Appendix 2.

Florida Greenways Coordinating Council

The Greenways Council was created in 1995 by the Florida Legislature. Council members were named by the Governor, Speaker of the House and President of the Senate to categories defined in the legislation. This group held its first meeting in November 1995. In 1996 and the first six months of 1997, the Council continued the project advisory role started by the Commission in 1995. In the last half of 1997, the Council and its six Regional Greenways Task forces provided critical review of the preliminary physical plan. In addition, the Council and the DEP held a second series of public forums designed to solicit input on the preliminary plan. In 1998 the Council oversaw the completion of the Implementation Plan, "Connecting Florida's Communities with Greenways and Trails". Additional details on the Greenways Council and can be found in Section 4 and Section 8, Appendix 3.

Florida Recreational Trails Council

The FRTC was created by the Florida Legislature through Chapter 260 F.S., originally passed in 1979. The committee assisted with reviews of the GIS Model and participated in the review of model results. The Trails council was also active in the development of the Implementation Plan. Additional details on the Trails Committee can be found in Section 4 and in Section 8, Appendix 3.

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Section 2

Foundations for the Design of

Florida's Statewide Greenways System

Introduction

The University's greenways system design is based on goals and objectives developed in 1995 at the start of the Project. These goals and objectives were in turn based on guiding principles from two sources. Conceptually and programmatically, the recommended design follows the findings and recommendations contained in the Florida Greenways Commission's (the Commission) December 1994 Report to the Governor. The design also reflects an integrated landscape approach that incorporates the theories and practices of a number of professional disciplines including landscape ecology and conservation biology, environmental planning and design and GIS spatial analysis. This section paraphrases and includes key excerpts from the 1994 Report to the Governor including a definition of greenways and a discussion of the benefits to be derived from greenways. A description of an integrated landscape approach to design follows and the Section concludes with an explanation of the specific goals and objectives that directed the process of greenways delineation.

The Florida Greenways Commission December 1994

Report to the Governor

The Commission's December 1994 Report to Governor Lawton Chiles provided the primary foundation for the physical design of a Statewide Greenways System. The Commission's over-riding recommendation and intent was that Florida should make a concerted effort now to create a Statewide System of Greenways linking existing and proposed conservation lands and trails. Refer to the Commission's Report (1994) or its Summary (1995) for additional details on the Commission's recommendations pertaining to the design and implementation of the Statewide Greenways System.

Defining Greenways and Greenway Systems

What is a Greenway?

The word greenway brings to mind two images: green suggests forests, fish and wildlife, river floodplains, and linear open spaces that generally are greener than adjacent lands; way implies a route or path. But greenways are really many colors. . . . blue waterways, earth-colored working landscapes, gray urban corridors. Together they describe corridors that cross a variety of landscapes, ranging from pristine natural areas to landscapes transformed by human habitation.

In his book, Greenways for America, Charles Little (1990) defines a greenway as:

· A linear open space established along either a natural corridor, such as a riverfront, stream valley, or ridgeline, or overland along a railroad right-of-way converted to recreational use, a canal, scenic road, or other route.

· Any natural or landscape course for pedestrian or bicycle passage.

· An open-space connector linking parks, nature reserves, cultural features, or historic sites with each other and with populated areas.

· Locally, certain strips or linear parks designated as a parkway or greenbelt.

Within the landscape, greenways serve at least three major functions: they protect and/or enhance remaining natural, cultural and historical resources; they provide linear open space for compatible human use; and they maintain connectivity — between conservation lands, communities, parks and other recreational facilities, and cultural and historic sites. Connectivity is a critical landscape characteristic important to the health, well-being, and aesthetic values of human communities and vital to the maintenance of functional native ecosystems and landscapes. While the ability of greenways to "link" other resources is important, not every greenway is a connector. Some stand on their own as important linear ecological resources,

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like riparian, floodplain corridors, and recreational resources, like trails and bikeways.

Greenways Diversity. Greenways can be as wide as a watershed or as narrow as a trail. Some are publicly owned; some are established on private land by easements or other methods that protect valuable natural areas and cultural/historic sites or allow public access along trails. Some are managed only to conserve native ecosystems, and some are purely recreational. Some are "green," following ridgelines or other upland features, some are "blue," following rivers and wetlands, and others are more urban in nature.

While categorizing greenways helps us understand their different forms, in reality types blend and overlap. From a conceptual standpoint, it is possible to divide greenways into different types. But in reality, all greenways fall along a continuum of natural and cultural/historical landscape features and functions and associated human uses that depend upon discrete, site-specific factors, management considerations and overall public purpose.

Greenway Landscape Features. Greenways often encompass natural landscape features, such as rivers and floodplains, ridgelines, forests, interior or coastal wetland systems, shorelines, beaches and barrier islands. They can also encompass a variety of altered or human landscape features, such as historic and archaeological sites, utility and abandoned railroad rights-of-way, canals, dikes, and roadside corridors.

What is a Statewide Greenways System?

While greenways are important conservation, recreation and cultural-historic sites in and of themselves, what sets greenways apart from other initiatives is its emphasis on connections.

Florida's system is intended to create the opportunity for the maintenance and restoration of connectivity, from North Florida to South Florida, of ecological systems, flora and fauna dependent upon them and of ecological processes. The ecological elements of the statewide system will be critical for protecting Florida's native biological diversity in the face of rapid human population growth. It is also intended to create the opportunity for trail users to travel, without interruption, from North Florida to South Florida. It is further intended to protect sites and landscapes of cultural and historic significance.

The linked landscapes have the potential to enhance the quality of the recreational experience when trails are located within them, while the trails should not compromise the environmental quality of the linked landscapes within which they occur. Cultural features also have the potential to enhance the quality of the recreational experience while the trails should not diminish the protection provided to these sites and landscapes.

Such an integrated statewide system will foster an understanding of sense of place and will enrich the quality of life for Floridians and visitors alike.

Components of a Greenways System

A greenways system is composed of hubs, links and smaller sites consisting of natural or restored native habitat as well as recreational, historical and cultural features. The hubs anchor the system and provide an origin or destination for people, wildlife and ecological processes moving to or through it. Hubs come in many different sizes, from large protected nature reserves to smaller regional preserves and parks to ecological, recreational and/or cultural/historic sites that serve as trailheads. Links are the connections that enable the system to work. They range in size and function from large ecologically-based landscape linkages to small multi-use and single use trail corridors.

Figure 2.1 Components of a Greenways System.

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Greenways systems can be designed and implemented at many different scales. A local greenways system can encompass natural, recreational and cultural/historic features within a single community or county. A regional greenways system might link conservation areas, parks and trails within one or more watersheds. A statewide greenways system can link community and regional greenways systems. Multi-state greenways systems constitute the building blocks for national conservation and recreational strategies.

Links - Many different types of links can go into creating a greenways system. For example:

· Landscape linkages. Large protected areas, such as the Pinhook Swamp that connects the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge and the Osceola National Forest, provide sufficient areas of space for native plants and animals to flourish while also serving as corridors connecting ecosystems and landscapes. Landscape linkages can also provide space for the protection of historic sites and opportunities for human use like hunting, fishing, canoeing, swimming and hiking.

· Conservation corridors. Less extensive linear protected areas, such as the upper Hillsborough River, serve as biological connecting corridors and, in many cases, also provide opportunities for compatible outdoor, resource-based recreational activities.

· Trail corridors. Designated routes, such as the Florida Trail, provide access to and appreciation of the values of natural areas and other greenspaces, present diverse resource-based outdoor recreational opportunities, and enhance the understanding of historical sites and cultural diversity. Trail corridors include linear urban open spaces, such as the Pinellas Trail, that accommodate moderate to intense recreational use for residents and visitors.

· Greenbelts. Protected natural lands or working landscapes, such as the one being planned around Lakeland, surround cities and serve to preserve native ecosystems and/or agricultural productivity as well as to balance and direct urban and suburban growth.

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· Utilitarian corridors. Linear features, such as powerline and pipeline rights-of-way and canals, may also help connect recreational, cultural or natural system features.

Hubs and Sites - System hubs and sites come in all shapes and sizes, and serve different purposes. For example:

· Reserves. Large protected areas, such as Everglades National Park/Big Cypress National Preserve, serve as primary sites for conserving biological diversity and natural resources such as fisheries and fresh water. Reserves also can protect important historical and cultural sites and provide some nature-based recreation opportunities.

· Managed Native Landscapes. Large publicly owned lands, such as the Apalachicola, Osceola, and Ocala National Forests, managed for resource extraction as well as natural and recreational values.

· Regional parks and preserves. Less extensive hubs of regional significance, like the San Felasco Hammock State Preserve outside Gainesville, or Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary in Collier County, provide ecological benefits and conserve biological diversity as well as offer important compatible resource-based recreational opportunities.

· Ecological sites. Smaller sites, such as Wakulla Springs south of Tallahassee, or Devil's Millhopper State Geological Site outside Gainesville, conserve important or unique natural or geologic features.

· Cultural/Historic/Recreational Sites. Community parks or cultural/historical sites provide recreational opportunities, help protect and interpret Florida's cultural/historic heritage, and can often serve as an origin or destination for a recreational trail and/or protect important cultural/historic features.

· Trailheads. Selected ecological, recreational or cultural/historic sites with appropriate visitor services that serve as points of origin or destination linked by trail corridors. Trailheads can occur within rural natural areas and working landscapes or within urban areas ranging from large metropolitan areas like Miami or Tampa to small communities like Arcadia or Destin. Trailheads serve as the human hubs within greenways systems.

The Benefits of Greenways and Greenways Systems

In the book, Greenways: A Guide to Planning Design and Development, Loring LaB. Schwarz (1993) points out that "any one greenway can hold many and varied values to those who use it or live nearby. It can be a non-polluting commuter route, a horse or bicycle trail, a means to promote stream-water quality or to preserve wildlife habitat, a method of buffering land uses such as residential development or agricultural activity, or a way to safeguard a viewshed or the historic character of an area."

A statewide system of greenways would have significant ecological, economic and social benefits for Florida. By helping conserve linked native ecosystems and landscapes, greenways can be an important component of a statewide, regional or local conservation strategy. Water and land pathways along greenways can provide recreational opportunities for residents and visitors and provide opportunities to enjoy Florida's unique natural environment, which can expand tourism and associated businesses. Some of the key benefits are described below:

Conservation of Native Ecosystems and Landscapes

Many isolated natural areas can better survive and adapt to changing conditions if they are linked by greenway corridors, just as human communities become more livable and vital if they too are linked by greenway corridors.

Greenways have important ecological functions that help conserve native ecosystems and landscapes. These include:

· maintaining space to sustain the biodiversity of native plant and animal communities;

· maintaining connections to allow interchange between native plant and animal populations and communities; and

· maintaining the health of native ecosystems and landscapes by sustaining their physical, chemical, and biological processes.

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Interconnected native ecosystems provide a number of other important services. They filter pollutants from the air, water, and soil; aid in cooling streams and soils through shading; protect and enhance the water quality of rivers and lakes; recharge groundwater aquifers; and buffer developed areas from floodwaters, saving lives and property. Greenways have an especially significant role in protecting water resources (e.g. riparian corridors and aquifer recharge areas) and in connecting watersheds and coastal areas, which is highly significant because of the productivity of these natural resource features and their key role in maintaining Florida's green infrastructure.

Economic Prosperity

It is imperative to recognize that a sustainable, high quality environment is necessary to maintain a vibrant economy needed to assure environmental quality. As a dynamic and growing state, Florida continually faces the critical question of how divergent interests in a community will work together to balance demands for development with the protection of natural resources. Many areas of the country have found that a system of greenways offers opportunities to support economic growth without sacrificing environmental assets. Developing and protecting greenways throughout our state could not only save Florida's landscapes but also help disadvantaged areas and weaker economies regain much sought-after stability and sustainability.

Positive economic effects of greenways accrue in several ways. First, taxable properties that are adjacent to greenways often increase in value and generate greater overall revenue for a community. According to local surveys, homes located near greenways and trails commonly sell for more than similar homes in other areas.

Conventional wisdom also tells us that businesses locate where quality of life indicators are high. There is widespread recognition that greenways help communities develop these characteristics and portray this image. Boulder, Colorado, and Raleigh, North Carolina, are examples of communities that have successfully attracted new businesses and retained existing businesses based in part on the environmental, recreational and cultural/historic amenities some of which are associated with local greenway systems..

Greenways also are magnets for attracting environmentally sensitive development. The Tennessee Riverpark in Chattanooga has demonstrated how a greenway can be used to help a community attract new residential and commercial investment. This river park has helped stimulate more than a quarter-billion dollars worth of new development in downtown Chattanooga.

Finally, small service-oriented businesses gravitate to areas where perceived consumer needs exist. Greenway users often create a demand for services, which in turn stimulates the growth of tourism-based businesses. Overnight accommodations, including bed and breakfasts, rental facilities, restaurants, art galleries and other small enterprises, often spring up in the vicinity of greenway projects.

Long-distance, multiple-use trails, such as the Tallahassee-St. Marks Historic Railroad State Trail south of Tallahassee, attract tourists and residents from surrounding counties and states. Visitors are encouraged to extend their stay in an area with amenities including trails, craft shops and other local market and cultural interests. Extended visitor stays help increase the multiplier effect of tourism dollars in given communities.

Businesses and private citizens alike recognize the relationship between a healthy environment and a prosperous economy. Today environmental concerns are among the highest priorities of every business. Private sector success depends on business' ability to integrate economic and environmental goals and incorporate the values, systems and practices of sustainable development. Greenways offer our business and industrial sectors this opportunity.

Conservation of Historical and Cultural Resources

Archaeological and historical sites can be protected, preserved, interpreted, and connected through greenways. Archaeological and historical sites provide yet another dimension to link people with the landscape; they provide a sense of place as well as a sense of origin. These sites can help people understand, interpret, and appreciate how the connections between people and the environment have developed and changed over time. Archaeological and historical sites provide a direct and unique link between people and the environment.

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Public Recreation Close to Home

Because greenways lead somewhere and can connect with other greenways that go to still more places, they attract people from all walks of life. In Ecology of Greenways, Daniel S. Smith (1993) says, "Greenways can tie communities together by linking features such as parks, historic sites, residential areas, and shopping districts and by allowing people to travel from place to place without the noise and rush of automobiles."

A statewide system of greenways will provide many opportunities for public outdoor recreation and wellness activities. Trails can provide places for visitor and resident bicyclists, hikers, walkers, joggers, rollerbladers, horseback riders and physically challenged people to exercise and experience the many natural and cultural wonders of our state. Greenways along rivers, lakes and the coast can also provide access to canoers, kayakers, and sailors. Greenways can serve as sites for passive pursuits, such as picnicking, camping, and wildlife observation. They can even serve as community gathering sites for concerts, festivals, neighborhood cookouts and family reunions.

Outdoor Education

A statewide system of greenways will provide excellent outdoor classrooms where students can learn about native plant and animal species, ecosystems, ecological processes and conservation science. Greenways can serve as living laboratories for students and as sites for studying historic, archaeological and cultural resources. Florida is rich in history, containing sites and structures from Florida's Native American people to the early pioneer days of statehood to the boom years of the Roaring Twenties. Greenway connectors that overlap historical transportation corridors offer rich opportunities to interpret history and the relationship between people and the land.

Protecting Working Landscapes

Greenways can be used to protect working landscapes such as farms, groves, and private forest lands. Some of Florida's cherished landscapes - - Marion County's horse farms, the red hills of Tallahassee, South Florida's ranch lands - - are privately owned. Some of these lands provide important habitat for sensitive species and these lands may best be perpetually maintained through private ownership. Greenways along scenic byways can provide the traveling public with a glimpse into the historic past of these lands. Greenways using conservation easements across these lands can allow traditional land uses to continue, while providing corridors for the movement of wildlife (through less intensive land uses like tree plantations and ranch lands) and, where appropriate, people, as well as important habitat for some sensitive wildlife species. Since the primary purpose of these lands is not resource preservation but resources used for economic gain, it is often overlooked that these privately owned lands can provide valuable environmental benefits, especially if they are managed in an environmentally sensitive manner.

Influencing Urban Form

Greenways can provide important growth management benefits. Areas of protected lands around and through Florida's towns and cities can help shape urban form and mitigate urban sprawl. Greenways can help maintain delineations between urban and rural land uses. Also known as greenbelts, agricultural reserves or buffer lands, privately and publicly owned greenways are potentially valuable growth management tools.

Providing Alternative Transportation

Greenways and trails can serve as alternative transportation routes for commuting to work or school, bicycling or walking to local businesses or restaurants, visiting parks and recreation sites, or sightseeing. Trails often can be designed in conjunction with utility corridors and pipelines. These alternative forms of transportation, if made convenient by greenways, can help reduce air pollution and road congestion.

Commission's Vision

The Commission's vision statement represented the members shared hopes, dreams and desires for the Statewide Greenways System. The following design guidance is extracted from the Report's vision statement (Florida Greenways Commission 1994, p. 1).

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In the 21st century, Florida has a protected system of greenways that is planned and managed to conserve native landscapes, ecosystems and their species; and to connect people to the land and their archaeological, historic and cultural resources. From Key West to Pensacola, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, people in Florida are within a few minutes of a system of greenways that they can transverse via foot, bicycle, horse or canoe. Some greenways are public lands and others are private lands, and still others are combinations of the two. . . . Florida has a carefully planned greenways system that interconnects fragmented or isolated elements of green infrastructure, and that connects people with their natural, historic and cultural heritage. Parks and open spaces are linked, where appropriate, by multiuse corridors that provide opportunities for hiking, bicycling, horseback riding, canoeing, alternative transportation and use by persons with disabilities. Florida's history and geography come alive as users explore old trails, roads, canals, rivers and archaeological sites. Preserved historic homes, museums and monuments along the way provide a link to Florida's roots. Florida's diverse wildlife species are able to move between feeding and shelter areas within their ranges with less danger of being killed on roadways or becoming lost in towns or cities. Native landscapes and ecosystems are protected, managed, and restored through strong public and private partnerships. Sensitive riverine and coastal waterways are effectively protected by buffers of green, open space and working landscapes. . . . Florida's rich system of greenways helps sustain Florida's future by conserving its green infrastructure, by providing continuing economic benefits, by connecting people with their natural, historic and cultural heritage, and by improving the quality of life for people.

As stated by Lieutenant Governor and Commission Chair Buddy MacKay at the start of the Commission's Summary Report, "The Commission's vision for Florida represents a new way of looking at conservation, an approach that emphasizes the interconnections of both our natural systems and our common goals". "Just as we carefully plan the infrastructure our communities need to support the people who live there — the roads, water and electricity — so must we begin to plan and manage Florida's green infrastructure." Simply put, this "green infrastructure" is the system of native ecosystems and landscapes that supports Florida's plant and animal species, sustains clean air, water, fisheries and other natural resources, and maintains the scenic natural beauty that draws people to visit and settle in Florida.

Commission's Concept

The Commission's concept was that the Statewide System would be composed of two sub-systems or networks: an Ecological Network, consisting of ecological hubs, linkages and sites along rivers, coastlines and across watersheds; and a Recreational/Cultural Network, with trail corridors connecting parks, urban areas, working landscapes and cultural/historic sites. That doesn't mean the Commission recommended forging connections for connections' sake alone or shifting the focus of conservation land acquisition from protecting large, functioning ecological preserves to protecting greenways. It was the Commission's opinion that greenways is not a "connect-the-dots" concept applied without justifiable ecological or human need, but that connecting greenways and core reserves results in a system that is truly greater than the sum of its parts.

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The Commission recommended creating a Statewide System that integrates natural and human environments and includes natural areas, open spaces, trails, cultural and historical resources and corridors for wildlife and people. The primary goal of the Statewide Greenways System is to link existing hubs of natural and recreational resources, and historic, cultural and recreational sites (including the state's urban and rural communities) throughout Florida. In doing this, it was the Commission's opinion that the state has the opportunity to conserve native landscapes and ecosystems while reconnecting Floridians with their natural, historical and cultural heritage.

As proposed by the Commission, the Statewide Greenways System would be built upon the state's 7.5 million acres of conservation land, 3500 miles of existing trails and numerous and diverse historic and cultural sites. The system would be designed to encompass a diversity of landscapes and features, ranging from natural areas to urban environments, and incorporate, where appropriate, private as well as publicly owned lands. It was the Commission's opinion that Florida's Statewide Greenways System should be built utilizing the excellent programs and projects already in place. Further, it was the Commission's clear intent to develop a Statewide Greenways System that relies on the voluntary participation of landowners and recognizes the importance of protecting private property rights.

The Commission believed that the creation of the Statewide Greenways System was critical for Florida's environmentally and economically sustainable future. It was the Commission's opinion that the Statewide System would be essential to the protection of Florida's diverse natural and cultural resources while providing opportunities for outdoor recreation and enjoyment for the state's residents and visitors. In addition, the Commission believed that the greenways system would provide economic benefits and improve the quality of life for Florida's residents and visitors.

Commission Guidelines

After a year and a half of studying successful greenways both in Florida and around the country, the Commission identified 11 broad guidelines for creating and managing Florida's Statewide Greenways System. The following five guidelines relate directly to the design of the Statewide System (Florida Greenways Commission 1994, pp. 17-18):

Greenways generally are composed of natural vegetation or at least vegetation that is more natural than that of surrounding areas. Greenways formed from natural linear features usually contain functional native plant and animal communities. Greenways along human corridors can vary in their "green-ness" from communities of native vegetation to altered lands with

Figure 2.2 Florida Greenways Commission's Concept for a Statewide Greenways System

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a range of native species. Some greenways are actually "blue" when they follow waterways or even occasionally "gray" urban recreational areas.

Greenways provide connections and thereby foster movement. Many things can move through greenways, from wildlife, water, and soil nutrients through or along greenways based on natural communities, to people using a wide variety of trails in greenways based on natural or altered landscapes. While most greenways are meant for non-motorized transportation only, some (like the Suwannee River and the canopy roads of Tallahassee and Leon County) may also accommodate motorized uses.

Greenways may cross lands of different ownership. A greenway can cross property that is publicly or privately owned. In fact, greenways often consist of both public and private lands. Creation of greenways therefore depends upon establishing cooperative relationships between landowners and users. In many cases, privately-owned greenways are key components of greenways systems.

Greenways can provide a multitude of functions and benefits. Greenways and greenways systems can serve many functions and be used in many different ways, but all uses and functions are simply not possible at all locations. As an example, a river's wetland floodplain, acquired for unique native plant communities, fish and wildlife movement opportunities and protection of water quality and quantity, is not an appropriate site for intensive recreational use and the development of permanent recreational facilities. In the same way an intensively used, inner-city rail-trail may not be an appropriate site for restoring native ecosystems.

The components of a greenways system should not be connected simply for connection's sake but should be connected based on careful planning. Connections should be based on detailed assessments of potential sites and surrounding features as well as current resource conservation and/or recreational principles. The design and location of future landscape linkages and conservation greenways must be justified based on valid ecological assessments and the principles of conservation biology and landscape ecology. To that same end cultural/historic and recreational greenways must be planned based on a careful documentation of the cultural/historic features to be protected and the recreational needs to be met.

Integrated Landscape Approach

The University Team used an integrated landscape approach in the formulation of its design goals and objectives and in the subsequent development of the physical plan for the Statewide Greenways System. This approach, which incorporates environmental analysis, planning and design at the landscape/regional scale, ensured that a diversity of natural and cultural resource issues were taken into consideration during the design. Together, the following concepts and practices constitute the disciplinary foundation for the recommended plan.

Defining Characteristics, Guiding Concepts

Integrated landscape analysis, planning and design represents a new approach to addressing the interrelationships and interactions between humans and the natural world. As opposed to earlier approaches, an integrated landscape approach incorporates a number of defining characteristics including:

· System-Wide as opposed to Site -Specific - by definition, a landscape approach focuses broadly on the landscape as a whole and on the inter-relationships between all of its components (both biological and physical) and associated ecological processes. In contrast, traditional land use planning and environmental analysis concentrates on the characteristics of the particular site under study, with little or no consideration of surrounding features or impacts. It is felt by many that the failure over the past decades to adequately protect native ecosystems and landscapes was largely due to this site-specific approach to environmental review and permitting. To that end, many of today's environmental planning and design programs emphasize and incorporate a system-wide focus to ensure that all characteristics and potential ramifications are considered.

· Applied at Multiple Scales - an integrated landscape approach recognizes the importance of considering features and inter-relationships at many scales across the world's landscape, ranging from micro (a site) to meso (a region) to macro (a continent). The factor that distinguishes this multi-scale approach from older single site/single scale approaches is that in integrated landscape design, all scales are considered together and not separately.

· Crosses Political Boundaries - the world is characterized by many political boundaries, for example, boundaries

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delineating land ownership and boundaries delineating governing regions (county, state, country). Although such boundaries carry weight in our legal system, they are largely artificial when it comes to the range of native ecosystems and their characteristic flora and fauna. Although an integrated landscape approach may recognize politically established boundaries in the evaluation of results, natural ecological boundaries not political boundaries are used to set the parameters and focus of environmental analysis, planning and design activities.

· Integrates Ecological & Cultural Considerations - at its origin, the focus of the science of ecology was the natural world. Humans and their culture were not considered in ecology and by ecologists and were instead studied by professionals with different backgrounds and career paths. Although this distinction is not made today, natural and cultural features and relationships are still evaluated in many cases by different experts with little interaction. An understanding of both natural and cultural features and their relationships is critical to an integrated landscape approach. Under this approach, every effort is made to involve both natural and cultural resource experts and to develop procedures that incorporate natural and cultural features as part of the same broad spectrum.

· Multi-Disciplinary/Multi-Sector - Traditional methods of analysis are usually characterized by professionals from a single discipline or sector working separately and making recommendations based on his/her narrow focus of expertise and experience. In contrast, an integrated landscape approach strives to involve experts and methods from a diversity of professional disciplines and sectors (e.g. government vs. private nonprofit) and produce recommendations that integrate the combined expertise of all involved. To this end, an integrated landscape approach necessitates the creation of teams of experts from many fields as well as the training of future professionals with broader, multi-disciplinary backgrounds. .

In addition to these defining characteristics, there are a number of guiding concepts that are fundamental to an integrated landscape approach. These include:

· Sound Basis in Ecological and Environmental Sciences - Due to its focus on landscape features and processes, an integrated landscape approach relies on a thorough understanding and incorporation of principles and methodologies from diverse ecological and environmental sciences (e.g. plant and animal ecology, geology, geography). Without this sound basis in ecological and environmental sciences, the results of a landscape analysis would at best be incomplete.

· Consideration of Context as well as Content - A fundamental concept of landscape ecology is that the study of content alone (e.g. the study of flora, fauna and processes within a single site or managed area) is not sufficient to understand relationships or predict long-term outcomes of natural or man-made alterations. Rather, landscape ecologists emphasize that an analysis of the context (e.g. the surrounding biological and physical factors) is critical to understanding and predicting change in native ecosystems and landscapes. To this end, context as well as content must be incorporated into an integrated landscape approach.

· Link between Ecosystem/Land Use Components & Processes over Space & Time - Individual ecosystems and land use types represent the fundamental building blocks of the landscape. The science of ecology teaches us that ecosystems and their associated flora, fauna and processes change over space (e.g. moving from low to high elevation or from one to another latitude and longitude) and time (e.g. daily and/or annually). The pattern and rate of growth and other variations in land use likewise vary over space (the desert southwest vs. the metropolitan east coast) and time. Critical to an integrated landscape approach then is a realization that what exists on the landscape now is not static but instead is ever changing. For this reason analysis and an understanding of changes over space and time is critical to the success and predictions of an integrated landscape approach.

· Green Infrastructure as a Central Organizing Theme for Planning & Design Activities - The use of the term "green infrastructure" has increased dramatically over the last few years. Taken from the vocabulary of growth management, green infrastructure (or ecological infrastructure) is considered to be the protected natural and/or restored native ecosystems and green spaces that are needed to ensure the well-being and quality of life for our world's human inhabitants, flora and fauna. Inherent in the use of the term infrastructure is also the requirement that such natural lands and green spaces are a part of a functionally interconnected system and not isolated or functionally disjointed. Because connectivity and functionality are important theories common to an integrated landscape approach, the planning and implementation of green infrastructure

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throughout the landscape is an important theme for environmental analysis, planning and design activities.

Disciplinary and Programmatic Origin

The University Team consisted of professors, research scientists and graduate students from a number of University of Florida departments and programs including the Department of Landscape Architecture, the Department of Urban and Regional Planning and its GeoPlan Center and the Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation's Program in Landscape Ecology. To that end, the University Team's integrated landscape approach incorporated the theories and principles of a number of different professional disciplines, including:

· Conservation Biology & Landscape Ecology - Conservation biology is a relatively new, synthetic field that explores and applies biological and ecological principles to the conservation of biological diversity. Landscape ecology is the study of large heterogeneous areas, which includes landscape elements such as forests, wetlands, lakes, rivers, seashores, pastures, croplands, and suburban and urban lands. Landscape ecology emphasizes broad spatial scales and the interactions between spatial patterning and ecological processes (Turner 1989), and it is instrumental for understanding the impacts of human-dominated environments on natural areas, wildlife, and water. Such research indicates that spatial patterning of land uses is very important for determining ecosystem function, which has lead one of the most influential landscape ecologists to develop the ethics of isolation:

"Simply stated, in land use decisions and actions, it is unethical to evaluate an area in isolation from its surroundings or from its development over time. Ethics impel us to consider an area in its broadest spatial and temporal perspectives." (Forman 1987)

Conservation biology, landscape ecology, and the imperative of the ethics of isolation have greatly influenced the development of the science and policy of reserve design over the last few decades. Reserves are areas protected to conserve biological diversity as well as other natural resources which potentially includes national parks, wilderness areas, as well as lands such as national forests where multiple uses are allowed but still have some conservation function. Since the reports of Wright et al. (1933) and Wright and Thompson (1934) there has been a growing awareness that typical protected areas such as national parks would often not be sufficient to protect viable populations of sensitive species and biological diversity as a whole (Harris et al. 1996). In response, comprehensive, regional strategies for conservation are evolving to effectively integrate the protection of biological diversity and other natural resources with the development of sustainable economies. Regional landscape conservation is a strategy that recognizes the importance of interactions between the built environment, rural lands, and native ecosystems. It incorporates planning and management at appropriately large spatial and temporal scales so that land uses are effectively integrated to maximize compatibility. Integrated conservation efforts at the regional landscape scale will be most effective when they include the protection of ecological conservation networks, which are systems of reserves, conservation areas, buffer zones, landscape linkages and corridors that function as units to effectively conserve biological diversity over long time scales. The Ecological Network modeling as part of the Florida Greenways Project is an effort to identify such a network to conserve Florida's biological diversity in the midst of a burgeoning human population.

· Advanced Computer Technology & Analysis - The integration of computer driven technology and, in particular, computer spatial analysis is a powerful means for the merging of multi-disciplinary activities. The development of spatial models is improved by the integration of multi-disciplinary ideas, and the use of advanced computer systems such as geographic information systems (GIS). Spatial analysis is a methodology for looking at the interaction of processes within an overlay approach. Data layers such as soil, topography, geology, hydrography, cultural amenities, species occurrence, habitat, and many others can be integrated in a synergistic model that then allows professional to develop holistic plans. The "Florida Greenways Model" is the synergistic integration of spatial analysis in support of a multi-disciplinary planning/design activity.

· Environmental Planning & Design - This sub-discipline derived from the larger disciplines of landscape architecture and urban and regional planning strives to plan and design places based on the analysis of cultural features in concert with their natural setting (flora, fauna and processes). It strives to combine knowledge gained from art and science for sound decision making. Landmark works which have helped to lay a foundation for this area of focus included Ian McHarg's Design with Nature (1969) and the work of Frederick Law Olmsted, Philip H. Lewis, Jr., Patrick Geddes, Benton MacKaye, and John

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Tillman Lyle.

Goals and Objectives for Designing the Statewide Greenways System

The formulation of goals and objectives were fundamental to the University Team's efforts to develop a physical design for Florida's Statewide Greenways System. The initial step of the process was a review of the goals, strategies and recommended actions contained in the Florida Greenways Commission's December 1994 Report to the Governor. To accomplish this, all goals, strategies and recommended actions were sorted into eight categories. Those goals, strategies and recommended actions that were most relevant to the Statewide Greenways System Planning Project tasks fell into the "Process Suggestions" and "System Design Goals and Objectives" categories. Once all relevant goals, strategies and recommended actions were taken from the Commission's Report, the University Team added other statements and/or interpretations to clarify the direction the University Team intended to take. The Team then prepared a set of draft goals and objectives and presented them to the members of the Commission's System Design Committee for review and comment. After a number of iterations the goals and objectives were presented to DEP staff and the members of the Commission and the Council for their input. Following the receipt of all comments, the following final Goals and Objectives were adopted and subsequently utilized to guide all the steps within the system design process.

Goal 1: Use a regional landscape approach to design an ecologically functional Statewide Greenways System that: (1) conserves critical elements of Florida's green infrastructure of native ecosystems and landscapes; (2) restores and maintains essential connectivity among diverse native ecological systems and processes; (3) facilitates the ability of these ecosystems and landscapes to function as dynamic systems; and (4) maintains the evolutionary potential that will allow the biota of these ecosystems and landscapes to adapt to future environmental changes.

A) Include ecological elements that:

· protect ecosystems, landscapes and processes native to Florida across their natural range of distribution and variation, including coastal, riverine and upland landscapes, while giving special consideration to those inadequately protected by existing conservation programs;

· protect the full range of Florida's biodiversity including viable populations of native plant and animal species that are endangered, threatened, rare or otherwise imperiled;

· conserve Florida's surficial and ground water resources for the benefit of the state's native ecosystems, landscapes, residents and visitors;

· incorporate ecologically compatible working landscapes that minimize the impact of natural disturbances such as fire on the human-built environment and/or minimize the impacts of human-built environments on native ecosystems and landscapes;

· incorporate degraded lands that through restoration will enhance the ecological function of the Statewide Greenways System.

B) Incorporate functional ecological linkages, including river floodplains, ridgelines and other linear native landscape features that will enhance the ecological viability and manageability of presently isolated biological reserves.

C) Design the ecological elements to absorb and dissipate the effects of naturally occurring events, such as hurricanes, fire, and flood across the landscape when management so dictates.

D) Maintain ecological and evolutionary processes, such as disturbance regimes, nutrient cycles, biotic interactions and range shifts, by protecting functionally juxtaposed landscape gradients of aquatic, wetland and upland ecosystems.

Goal 2: Incorporate appropriate urban open spaces, working landscapes, historic sites and cultural resources into the Statewide Greenways System.

A) Include working landscapes that contribute to conservation in ways that respect private property rights and interests.

B) Incorporate historic landscapes and other historic and cultural resources to demonstrate the continually evolving relationship between land and people.

C) Design greenway alignments to access traditional locations for cultural events.

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D) Include native ecosystems and landscapes that contain physical and/or cultural components such as geological sites and archaeological sites where protection of these features is commensurate with protection of the native ecosystems.

Goal 3: Include trails in the Statewide Greenways System to provide public access to and promote appreciation, support and conservation of the System's natural, cultural and historic features, and to provide opportunities for alternative, non-motorized transportation.

A) Design, construct, use, manage and maintain trails in ways that are compatible with ecosystem conservation objectives and the stewardship goals of the landowner or manager.

B) Promote connectivity between recreation areas, archaeological and historic sites and scenic features.

C) Use appropriate existing and future linear facilities, such as transportation, utility, canal and other human-built corridors, as connecting links.

Goal 4: Design the Elements of the Statewide Greenways System to enhance users' greenways experience.

A) Include significant visual features to promote appreciation and enjoyment of Florida's unique landscapes and heritage.

B) Use design principles that give importance to the aesthetic value of landscapes.

C) Provide for the physical safety and security of users of all levels of ability.

Goal 5: Design the elements of the Statewide Greenways System to facilitate multiple uses and avoid conflicts in use.

A) Incorporate lands that represent a gradient of management objectives from full protection of native features to compatible working landscapes.

B) Design greenways that are planned to accommodate human access and functional ecological processes to meet both the needs of humans and the spatial and temporal needs of native plants and animals.

The completion of these goals and objectives was a critical first step in the physical design of Florida's Statewide Greenways System model because they laid a strong foundation for the subsequent design process. A detailed discussion of the University Team's system design process is found in the following section.

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Section 3

The Florida Greenways GIS Decision Support Model

This section describes the Florida Greenways Decision Support Model (hereafter referred to as the Model). It includes a section on GIS principles applied in the Model and the process used in the development and application of the Model, including technical review. A detailed description of the Model itself follows and the section concludes with a description of results.

The Model was named a Decision Support Model because it was intended to be the first step in delineating or deciding upon a physical plan for the Statewide Greenways System, the results of which were not to be accepted verbatim. As described in the Sections 4 and 5, the Decision Support Model Results were modified in subsequent steps to produce a recommended physical plan.

GIS Principles Applied in Modeling the Statewide Greenways System

The University used a geographic information system (GIS) model to define and identify the best locations for greenways within the state. The Model was developed based upon basic raster or cellular geographic information analysis. The principles of geographic analysis are well documented in many geographic information systems texts (Borrough, 1981: Tomlin, 1990: Worral, 1991: Huxhold, 1991: Davis, 1996: etc.), and will be briefly discussed here to provide a basic understanding of technology utilized for the Florida Greenways project.

GIS Basics

A GIS is defined as a collection of information technology, data, and procedures for collecting, storing, retrieving, manipulating, analyzing, and presenting maps and descriptive information about features that can be represented on maps (Huxhold, 1995: p 3). GIS data representing surface features are organized into individual data layers. Data layers within a GIS are normally organized to represent individual themes, such as topography, habitat or hydrology. Multiple thematic data layers can then be overlaid, one on top of the other, to produce a map or to perform some analysis, such as locating all the residential property adjacent to water and within a mile of a major roadway (Figure 3.1).

There are two types of geographic information systems, vector and raster. A vector geographic information system represents surface features using points, lines, or area objects. For example, property parcels could be represented by an area object, called a polygon, while streams would be represented by line objects (Figure 3.2). A point object would be used to represent wells. Each object type in a vector based system also contains attribute information about each surface feature, such as the name of the interstate highway, the type of surface pavement used for the highway, or the classification of the highway by average daily trip capacity.

Figure 3.1: Multiple data layers are used to represent the surface of the Earth (from Tomlin, 1990: p7).

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Figure 3.2: Vector GIS are constructed of points, lines, and polygon objects. These objects are often referred to as line drawing objects because the GIS is constructed of traditional mapping objects.

Raster or cellular GIS data are constructed by organizing surface features into uniform cells (see Figure 3.3). Each raster cell then represents a specific area on a surface, and contains attributes about the surface. For example, habitat data can be represented by raster cells that cover a specified area and contain the type of habitat found within each cell unit. In the Greenways Model, each cell used to represent spatial features was 180 x 180 meters and contained a specific attribute characteristic about the surface, such as habitat type, landuse category, or roadway location.

Figure 3.3: Raster based GIS uses cells to represent surface features (from Tomlin, 1990: p 9).

Cellular models have the ability to look at cells from many data layers (Figure 3.4) and to use the advantage of common cell location, between layers, to accomplish complex geographic or spatial analysis.

Figure 3.4: Raster models have the ability to access cells, having the same spatial location, within many layers of data. This is perhaps the most powerful advantage for raster models when compared with vector models (from Tomlin, 1990: p 39).

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Conversion of GIS Features into a Raster Data Structure for Modeling

Modern GIS software allows for the conversion of vector data, i.e., the point, line, and polygon objects, into raster data rapidly and with little difficulty. Figure 3.5 shows the conversion of line features, such as a river, into cells for use within a GIS raster model. Each layer in a raster data model has cells which correspond to cell locations in other raster data layers. Once data have been converted into a raster data structure, modeling activity is possible by utilizing cell attributes for the cells across many data layers. Computer programming can then be applied to the model to determine the suitability of specific cell locations for a particular use, such as the locations of all cells suitable for a backcountry hiking trail.

Figure 3.5: Conversion of vector GIS data to raster GIS data is rapidly accomplished with modern GIS software (from Davis, 1996: p 106).

Advantages of Cellular GIS Models

Cellular GIS data have many advantages for surface modeling. Database size can be greatly reduced when data are stored as cells, rather than as polygons, because of raster compression techniques. Modeling with "Map Algebra," the ability to write algebraic equations for cells between data layers, is more flexible and complete than overlay analysis techniques in vector GIS. Additionally, the ability to develop a suitability surface with cellular GIS data allows for the more efficient modeling of site locations, such as the location of trail corridors (Figure 3.6).

Figure 3.6: The development of suitability surfaces provides raster GIS models with a powerful tool for identifying locations based upon best suitability (from Tomlin 1990).

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Spatial Analysis Basics

Cellular based geographic information analysis is accomplished by the utilization of basic functions. These functions can be aggregated into three categories, local, focal, and zonal. Each of these function groups was employed in the Greenways Model.

Local functions are functions that act on only one cell per layer (Figure 3.7). Local functions are most commonly used to calculate mathematical equations between layers. The output from a local function is a new raster layer with the result of the query or mathematical analysis from the input layer(s). The simplest local functions reclassify data from one raster layer into a new layer with the data presented in a different classification. An example would be the reclassification of habitat data into a more simplified wetland/upland split. However, more complex reclassifications can be performed with local functions. A local function could be used to query many GIS raster layers in order to determine the best location for commercial activity (Figure 3.8). This type of reclassification is called "suitability analysis." The reclassification for suitability can be very complicated, requiring many queries between multiple raster GIS layers.

Figure 3.7: Local cellular analysis functions act one cell per layer and produce a new raster data layer with the results of the analysis from the input layers (from Tomlin, 1990).

Figure 3.8: The darkest regions indicate the areas which are most suitable for the location of new commercial establishments (from Tomlin, 1990: p 81).

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Focal functions allow the aggregation or identification of data within a specified area, called a neighborhood (Figure 3.9). The output from a focal function is a raster layer where the individual cells have summary information within the neighborhood of interest from the input layers. For example, the diversity of a selected neighborhood around a specific cell in a raster layer can be calculated by counting the types of habitat in the neighborhood and providing an output layer where each cell has the total number of different habitats inside the neighborhood.

Figure 3.9: Focal cellular analysis acts by summarizing data within a specified neighborhood and produces a new raster data layer with the results of the summarization (from Tomlin, 1990: p 97).

A zone in raster GIS are all cells in the data layer with the same attribute value. Raster regions are zones that have the same attribute data that are isolated in space (Figure 3.10). Zonal functions aggregate or summarize data from many raster layers by using specified zones from a separate raster layer containing the zone data. For example, by using zones from a city raster layer a zonal function could calculate the population density from a raster layer of census population. Additionally, zonal functions could be utilized to calculate the acreage of particular greenways hubs, which could then be utilized to remove hubs with less than a specified acreage minimum. Zones can be reduced to smaller regions by specifying that each zone be comprised of contiguous cells with the same zonal characteristics.

Figure 3.10: Two regions occurring within one zone are spatially distinct areas with the same attribute value (from Tomlin, 1990: p 155).

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Map Algebra

Map algebra is the methodology for modeling in a raster GIS environment. The ability to analyze data, cell by cell, between raster layers is critical to greenways identification and location. Data analysis between raster layers can be complex (Figure 3.11), producing new raster data layers which are often used to complete additional modeling or analysis.

Figure 3.11: Data analysis between raster layers can be complex, producing new raster data layers that are often used to complete additional analysis. Layers "A" and "E" are manipulated to produce a new raster layer "G." Layer "G" is then used with layers "C" and "F" to produce new raster layer "H" (from Tomlin, 1990: p 52).

The analysis between raster layers is accomplished by using map algebra. Additionally, map algebra provides GIS modelers with the ability to perform complex cell based mathematics that may be replicated by peers, given the same input data. Figure 3.12 shows the map algebra relationships developed for an example raster model.

Figure 3.12: Map algebra is used to create raster layer "G" by dividing the cell values in layer "E" by the cell values in layer "A." the new raster layer "G" is then added to layers "F" and "C" to produce another raster layer "H" (from Tomlin, 1990: p 53).

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The previous model, presented in abstract, could be used to determine the suitability for locations of new commercial establishments in a selected area, or to locate new recreational for Florida's greenways network. The concepts are similar for layer analysis, only the map algebra relationships change. In general modeling, and more specifically raster GIS modeling, is a method for simplifying real world data for analysis and understanding. The GIS modeler must clearly state the data requirements for all layer relationships, identifying which surface features are of importance to the model, how those feature relationships are to be developed, and what priorities exist within the layer relationships. Once these have been identified the model development can proceed. Once processed the model can then be modified based upon the interim results. Additionally, multiple applications of the model and new modifications to the model allow the analyst to develop a greater understanding of the system and to make better planning decisions. Each individual and /or successive applications of the model program provide greater insight into the complexity of the "real world" process described by the model.

Suitability Surface Development

Suitability surface development is an application of the raster modeling basics discussed in the previous sections. A suitability surface is constructed by utilizing map algebra relationships between appropriate raster layers. For example, the selection of suitable locations for a recreational trail might be accomplished by organizing a complex map algebra relationship to accomplish the following requirements (Figure 3.13). A recreational trail suitability surface will be utilized to locate a backcountry trail, by assigning suitability measures for the following criteria:

1. the trail will not be located within 1000 meters of dense urbanized areas,

2. the trail will be allowed to cross wetlands, conservation lands, and large

agricultural lands which are primarily used for forestry, and

3. the trail will not be allowed to cross open water without crossing at an existing bridge location, nor be allowed to cross hazardous areas (e.g., bombing ranges).

Figure 3.13: Suitability surface for recreational trail location. Using the suitability surface for the location of a recreational trail, the computer identifies the best location for the backcountry trail. The first identification is for the location of bridges and the distance from roads. The second identification is for wetlands and other land use categories. The darker cell areas have a higher suitability for trail location. The model selects the most suitable trail location.

Suitability is a Mathematical Problem

While the development of a suitability model in concept seems simple, in practice there exists a problem. The problem arises from the fact that you can not mathematically combine data that measure different things (i.e. physical characteristics within the environment). This can be commonly stated as "you can't combine apples and oranges". For example, suppose you know that landuse, proximity to scenic views, and moderate inclined slopes are highly desired for the development of backcountry biking trails. You can't add raster data classified by land use with raster data representing elevation or slope to define suitability, mathematically the addition of these data is meaningless. The solution to this problem is to re-organize

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these individual data layers into utility units of the same measure. Those utility units can then be mathematically manipulated to create a suitability surface for modeling backcountry biking trail locations or other opportunities. In other words, you must ask the same question of all the data layers.

Data Measures

There are four ways to measure data: nominal, ordinal, interval and ratio. Nominal measurements are not actually measurements. They are a name assignment to represent some characteristic for identification, for example landuse classifications like residential and agriculture. No math is legal for nominal data (e.g. it doesn't make sense to add landuse codes together). Ordinal measurement ranks entities relative to one another. For example the rankings for college football teams. As with nominal data no math is allowed for ordinal data, but testing for relative position is allowed (e.g., show values greater than 4). Therefore, ordinal measurements indicate that one entry in a list is better or more important than other entries in the same list. Interval measurements indicate the magnitude of difference between entities, but not between a value and zero. For example two portions of a travel route are 3 miles and 10 miles in length, respectively. The second route portion is 7 miles longer than the first, however without knowing how far the total route is the difference between route segments could be large or small. It is appropriate to add and subtract interval data, but not to multiply or divided this type of data. Ratio measurements have magnitude and that magnitude is the difference between the value and zero. Suppose the total route traveled from above was 50 miles, the difference between the second and first routes (10 _ 3) / 50 = 0.14 represents 14% of the total miles traveled. All mathematics is valid for ratio data.

Figure 3.14: Landuse classification as nominal measurement where identification is by name.

Given that some types of data measurements are mathematically limited, such as the landuse shown in Figure 3.14, the creation of a suitability surface can become complicated. Using GIS query and reclassification functions modelers can re-organize all four data measurement types to produce a surface that represents suitability.

Single Utility Assignment (SUA)

The assignment of utility provides a means of representing all data values with regard to the same goal, in this case, suitability for use as an backcountry biking trail. The process of transforming values of individual data layers, such as landuse or elevation, into a measure of utility is called a single utility assignment (SUA). Individual landuse categories are transformed by rank order (assigned a numerical value) to represent the single utility of landuse for backcountry biking trails. Elevation data are used to rank order slope and aspect areas with respect to the single utility for backcountry bikers. It is important to understand that the single rank order measures clearly represent utility on an interval scale. Therefore with respect to landuse reclassification for suitability assignment (Table 3.1 and Figure 3.15), a hardwood hammock's SUA of 8 is 7 SUA(s) better than a commercial services SUA of 1.

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Table 3.1: Reclassification of Landuse for Single Utility Assignment

Landuse Classification Trail Utility

Commercial Services 1 Lowest Utility

Cypress Dome 1

Residential 2

Regional Shopping Malls 2

Backwater Swamp 3

Hardwood Swamp 4

Forested Wetlands 5

Pasture 6

Pinelands 7

Hardwood Hammock 8

Hardwood Forest 9 Highest Utility

Figure 3.15: Landuse Suitability Assignments (SUA) as described

in Table 1.

The reclassification of slope for backcountry biking requires some intermediate processing of elevation data. Figure 3.16 shows the digital elevation model that presents elevation data using a ratio measurement scale. The elevation data are shown in feet above mean-sea-level and are transformed into percent slope (Figure 3.17) using GIS software.

Figure 3.16: Elevation represented by ratio

measurement scale in feet above mean-sea-level.

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Figure 3.17: The development of a slope surface from the elevation data in Figure 3.16. Slope is represented in percent slope that is a ratio

measurement.

To utilize slope data in the suitability surface the percent slope must be converted to interval measurement that reflects the biker's utility for use of slope when on a backcountry bike ride. Table 3.2, indicates the SUA(s) for slope as indicated by bikers using backcountry trails. By now it has probably become clear that utility assignments for individual layers are a subjective measure. Single utility assignments are supposed to reflect the users preference for riding on steep slopes and therefore are representative of true utility only if they reflect the user community desires. Therefore, utility assignments should be developed with public input. Figure 3.18, represents the backcountry biking community's preference for riding on inclines as described by percent slope.

Table 3.2: Reclassification of Slope Difficulty for Single Utility Assignment

Slope Incline Trail View Utility

1-5 percent low 1 Lowest Utility

6-10.1 percent low 2

11-15 percent low 3

16-20 percent low 4

21-25 percent moderate 5

26-30 percent moderate 6

31-35 percent moderate 7

36-40 percent moderate 8

41-45 percent moderate 9 Highest Utility

50+ percent high No Data (Not Allowed)

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Figure 3.18: Slope SUA(s)

for backcountry bikers.

Figure 3.19, shows the distance in meters from possible views created by topographic relief. The final reclassification in this example, for single utility assignment is for distance from slopes that provide scenic views. Table 3.3 shows the reclassification distances for the SUA(s) for distance from scenic views. Figure 3.20, shows the suitability surface for the SUA(s) that indicates biker preference for adjacency to scenic views.

Figure 3.19: The distance to scenic views in meters. Scenic views are clearly indicated by the areas of variable color.

Table 3.3: Reclassification of Proximity to Scenic Views for Single Utility Assignment

Distance Units Trail View Utility

0-75 meters 9 Highest Utility

76-125 meters 8

126-150 meters 7

151-200 meters 6

201-250 meters 5

251-300 meters 4

301-400 meters 3

401-425 meters 2

426+ meters 1 Lowest Utility

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Figure 3.20: The SUA(s) for scenic view range from 1-9, with 9 indicating the location of highly prized views.

Multiple Utility Assignment (MUA)

Multiple utility assignment (MUA) is used to compute the contribution made by the individual single utility assignments to the final suitability surface. Suppose, in our trail example, bikers believe view is three times more important than landuse. That is, bikers will select a view preference even if they are required (because of their selection for view) to ride across property with dense multi-family landuse that has low SUA for biking. The following equation can account for the MUA of the bike trail suitability surface by assigning importance ratios to the individual SUA(s):

Bike Trail Suitability (MUA) = (Landuse (SUA) x .25 + View (SUA) x .5 + Slope (SUA)x.25)

Figure 3.21: Multiple Utility Assignment for backcountry bike trail suitability surface. The darker the color the greater the suitability for backcountry biking.

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The final step in determining the best location for a backcountry bike trail is to use GIS software to determine the best route, using MUA(s), within the suitability surface. The suitability surface is converted to a cost surface by inverting. For example, a MUA of 9 equals a cost of 1 (Table 3.4). The computer calculates the total least cost path utilizing the cost surface values and distance from the start location to the end location. Figure 3.22 shows the best route for a backcountry bike trail using a cost surface based on the suitability surface shown in Figure 3.21.

Table 3.4: MUA value transformation to Cost Surface

Utility Ranking Cost Ranking

1 Lowest Utility 9 Highest Cost

2 8

3 7

4 6

5 5

6 4

7 3

8 2

9 Highest Utility 1 Lowest Cost

Figure 3.22: The trail passes through the areas of highest multiple utility assignment, created from the SUAs for slope, landuse and distance from potential views.

GIS Data Sources

A discussion and a description of data sources and outputs are significant enough to warrant their own section. Please see Section 6.

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GIS Model Development and Application

The Model was designed and evaluated in a four county Test Area and a fourteen county Pilot Project. It was then applied using Florida's five water management districts in a stepwise fashion. Maps of the results were plotted using Florida's six DEP districts and were reviewed by the public and private landowners as described in greater detail in sections 4 and 5 respectively.

Test Area and Pilot Project. The Model concepts were first developed and tested in 1995 in a four-county Test Area comprised of Orange, Seminole, Volusia and Lake counties. In 1996, the Test Area was expanded to a fourteen-county Pilot Project area comprised of Brevard, Flagler, Highlands, Indian River, Lake, Marion, Okeechobee, Orange, Osceola, Polk, Putnam, Seminole, Sumter and Volusia counties. This Pilot Project area, that represents seven counties within and seven counties contiguous to the East Central Florida Regional Planning Council, was selected because it contained a wide variety of greenways features (i.e. existing and proposed conservation areas and trails) in a broad range of settings (i.e. from intensely urban to dispersed rural land uses). These varying conditions provided an excellent opportunity to test the suitability and sensitivity of the Model. The Model continued to evolve over this two-year period, with useful input from experts during technical review sessions and numerous changes in data treatment and analytical steps that improved the Model's effectiveness.

Water Management District Model Application Areas. Following the completion of the Pilot Project in late 1996, the University Team applied the Model statewide to identify a preliminary design for the Statewide Greenways System. Florida's five water management districts were selected as the Model 's application areas because of their size and the fact that a number of important statewide and regional data layers (e.g. Florida Land Use/Land Cover databases) were already sub-divided by these districts. The Model was first applied to the St. Johns River Water Management District. It was then applied sequentially to the South Florida, Southwest Florida, Suwannee River and Northwest Florida water management districts.

Sub-state modeling units were used because at the time, equipment to support the Model for the entire state in one run, was prohibitively expensive. This approach, however, had the potential of creating inaccurate results, due to edge effects. For example, when focal functions were used (as described in the first part of this Section), if the neighborhood in which an analysis was conducted contained cells with no values because they fell on the other side of a water management district boundary, then the results of such an analysis would be inaccurate. This issue was addressed following the modeling of St. Johns River Water Management District in the winter of 1997 by adding a 15 km-wide strip within previously modeled water management districts to the current district's modeling area. In this way, the Model was run not only considering the ecological, recreational and cultural/historic features within the modeled water management district but also considering the features present in a 15 km-wide slice of the adjacent, water management district. Following the modeling of each water management district, the results were added to the previous results, thus assembling the results in a step-wise fashion.

Model Application. Final changes were made to the Model in early 1997 as it was applied to the St. Johns River Water Management District. Although most parts of the Model were essentially complete by the start of water management district applications, a few final improvements were made in the processing of data and the linkage and trail suitability surfaces.

Technical Review of Modeling Assumptions

Though the University Team combined with the staff of the Office of Greenways and Trails contained individuals with a broad range of experiences in many fields, it was important to seek the advice of others in the development of the GIS Model. The complexity of the modeling process and the far ranging goals and objectives built into it meant there were numerous decisions to be made on assumptions and specific aspects of the modeling parameters and sequence. To ensure the appropriateness of decisions and to seek input on the use and application of available statewide databases, the University Team sought and received technical input in diverse forums from a variety of experts in the public, private and nonprofit sectors.

In 1995, the Florida Greenways Commission and its partners provided most of the technical review. The Commission provided this leadership role through its System Design Committee. Five meetings of the Commission and or the Committee occurred, which strongly influenced the nature of the GIS Model. Details of these meetings can be found in Section 9, Appendix 4.

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The technical review of modeling assumptions and process continued in 1996 and spring 1997 through a number of different forums. Participants in the review process included representatives from agencies, nonprofits and others with an ongoing interest in the design of the Statewide Greenways System. The reviews centered on a discussion of modeling techniques and results tied first to the four-county Test Area, next to the Pilot Project and, in 1997, to the St. Johns River Water Management

District. Among the individuals important in the review during this phase were representatives from DEP offices and divisions including Ecosystem Management, Recreation and Parks, Environmental Resource Permitting, Mine Reclamation and others including Intergovernmental Programs, the CARL Program and Technical Services. Representatives of federal agencies participated including the USDA Forest Service, the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service. Members of the Florida Greenways Coordinating Council and staff from their respective agencies, organizations and institutions became active members in the model development process. And finally, several key individuals with distinguished research credentials in landscape ecology, biological conservation and reserve design reviewed the model. Dr. Larry Harris of the University of Florida, to whom this report is dedicated, is one of the key individuals who were especially important to the effort. Other key reviewers included Reed Noss, Michael Soule, Steve Christman, Rob Jongman, and Lennart Hansson. A detailed description of the technical reviews that occurred during this period can also be found in Appendix 4.

Steps in the Florida Greenways GIS Model¹

Introduction

The Model was developed by the University to initially identify areas, corridors and sites appropriate for inclusion in a statewide greenways system. The Model utilized an integrated landscape approach to: (1) select linked reserves and other appropriate lands to protect an ecologically functional system; and (2) identify trailheads, trail corridors and cultural-historic sites that provide public access to and promote the conservation of the system's natural, cultural and historic features. The Model was designed to be consistent with the goals and objectives described in the previous section.

The Model used a cellular-based GIS software program called GRID (a module in ESRI's "ARC/INFO" GIS software package) to compile and analyze existing ecological and geographic data in order to model ecological and trails elements. Following a review of projected processing times with different cell sizes, the University Team chose a 180m cell (approximately 8 acres) for all modeling activities. The Model first selected ecological hubs and landscape linkages for upland, riverine and coastal native landscape units that together form the Ecological Sub-system or Network. The Model then identified a Trails/Cultural-Historic Network consisting of trailheads, trail corridors for hiking, off-road biking, equestrian, paved multi-use urban - urban and urban-rural trails and supporting cultural-historic sites. The results are compiled in the final model step.

Figure 3.23. Steps in the GIS Decision Support Model.

¹ Please refer to Section 9, Appendix 5 for detailed tables supporting this narrative description of the GIS Decision Support Model

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Both the Ecological and Trails/Cultural-Historic Network modeling steps incorporated three fundamental sub-steps. First, ecological, recreational and cultural features were identified that could contribute to the Statewide Greenways System; next, specific criteria were applied to select features to serve as ecological hubs or recreational trailheads; and finally, the most suitable linkages between identified ecological hubs and recreational trailheads were selected.

Step 1 - Establish Modeling Parameters

Key to the development of the Decision Support Model was an understanding of the System's fundamental building blocks or elements. Type and significance classify these elements.

Types. The two basic types are Ecological and Trails/Cultural-Historic. Ecological elements consist of biological and physical features that occur within the Statewide System as an Ecological Sub-system or Network consisting of hubs or linkages. Working landscapes, such as pine plantations and ranchlands, were incorporated within the Ecological Network where they were complementary to the design objectives (for more discussion of working landscapes, please refer to the Florida Greenways Commission's 1994 Report). Trail/Cultural-Historic elements represent trails and cultural-historic sites that occur within the Trails/Cultural-Historic Network consisting of trailheads, trail corridors and key cultural-historic sites.

Scales of Significance. A premise upon which all of the University's work was based is described as follows. A Statewide Greenways System is comprised of elements of statewide, regional and local significance. All are equally important to the formation of the Statewide System, but there is a basic correlation between the management and development of the elements and the scope of responsibility of public and private entities. Elements of statewide significance are generally owned and/or managed by state and national entities, elements of regional significance are generally owned and/or managed by regional entities and local elements are generally owned and/or managed by local entities. The University Team's charge was the identification of the statewide elements that will serve as the spine or backbone of the complete system. For that reason, the University's modeling efforts focused on the System's statewide elements. Although some regional elements have been incorporated within the statewide design, most regional elements and all local elements will be designed and incorporated into the Statewide System by community and regional greenways planning initiatives in later phases. Regardless of their origin, ongoing coordination of the planning and implementation of local, regional and statewide elements will be essential to the ultimate success of the Statewide Greenways System.

The development of goals and objectives was also a critical step. These are fully described in Section 2, but are narrowed here to two particularly important goals:

· Ecological Network Goal. To design an ecologically functional Statewide Greenways System that: conserves Florida's native ecosystems and landscapes; restores connectivity among native ecological systems and processes; maintains the ability of native ecosystems and landscapes to function as dynamic systems; and allows the biota of native ecosystems and landscapes to adapt to future environmental changes.

· Trails/Cultural-Historic Network Goal. To include trails in the Statewide Greenways System to provide public access to and promote appreciation, support and conservation of the System's natural, cultural and historic features, and to provide opportunities for outdoor recreation and alternative, non-motorized transportation.

The selection of distinct modeling units reflective of different ecological characteristics and different trail user expectations provided a sound rationale for later modeling steps. For the ecological linkage process, the Model divided Florida's native ecosystems into three broad landscape units, each with distinct ecosystem types and associated ecological processes.

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Riverine/Large Lake and Wetland Landscapes. Native landscapes including rivers, associated floodplains and large

lakes and wetland systems, where the predominant ecological process is freshwater flow and related hydrological

processes.

Coastal Landscapes. Native landscapes including coastal islands and estuaries, where the predominant ecological

processes are the influence of saline water, coastal currents and storms.

Upland Landscapes. Native landscapes including pine and hardwood forests, dry prairies and small isolated wetlands,

where the predominant ecological process is fire.

Similarly, five distinct terrestrial trail types were identified for modeling purposes: Hiking Trails, Off-Road Biking Trails, Equestrian Trails and Paved Multi-Use Urban-Urban Trails and Paved/Unpaved Urban - Rural Trails. (Eventually the two multi-use trail categories were combined). Each of these trail types reflects different user expectations.

Hiking Trails. Unpaved, single-use trails that provide hikers with mostly a backcountry experience.

Off-Road Biking Trails. Unpaved single-use trails that provide off-road bikers with backcountry and rural experiences.

Equestrian Trails. Unpaved single-use trails that provide equestriennes with backcountry and rural experiences.

Multi-Use Urban to Urban and Urban to Rural Trails. Paved and unpaved multi-use trails that link urban areas and provide urban residents with access to popular natural or cultural/historic destinations.

Paddling trail types can likewise be classified by user expectation. Since their locations are confined to existing water courses, the University Team did not use the Model to identify paddling trail locations; rather, it incorporated existing state designated paddling trails as well as potential future trails identified through public participation (see Section 4).

Step 2 - Model Ecological Network

To provide a theoretical foundation for the design of the Ecological Network as a linked conservation system, the University Team researched and developed an ecological bibliography that identified most articles, book chapters and other scholarly works on this topic. This was submitted in the Final Report of Phase I. Once the basic modeling parameters were established, the next step in the process was to model the Ecological Network. In this step, automated computer modeling functions were combined with interactive analysis and design considerations to delineate an Ecological Network that addressed the goals and objectives for the conservation of native ecosystems and landscapes.

Ecological modeling was accomplished using four sub-steps.

Identify Ecological Features. In the first ecological modeling step, available statewide databases were used to identify ecological landscape features that could contribute to meeting the design goal for the ecological sub-system. Once the data were assembled, selection criteria were used to generally categorize both native and non-native landscape features in terms of their significance and compatibility with ecological conservation objectives as follows:

· Priority Ecological Areas consist of ecological features and conservation designations that reflect such national and statewide importance that they are given the highest priority for inclusion and physical linkage as primary building blocks for the Statewide Greenways System. Selection criteria for Priority Ecological Areas include existing conservation lands, the highest ranked natural areas and wildlife sites statewide as identified by the Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission and the Florida Natural Areas Inventory, and areas important to hydrological resources and processes.

· Significant Ecological Areas consist of other ecological features and conservation designations of statewide or regional significance considered for inclusion as other potential locations for linkages and hubs. Selection criteria for Significant Ecological Areas include large water bodies and moderately ranked Florida Natural Areas Inventory and Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission sites.

· Other Ecological Landscape Features include lower priority ecological features that may be used to fill-in or expand ecological elements within the Statewide Greenways System.

· Category I Lands are non-native lands with moderate ecological value such as tree plantations and rangelands.

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· Category II Lands are non-native lands with low ecological value including orange groves and row crops.

· Category III Lands, are non-native lands with no to negative ecological value and include urban, residential, commercial and industrial uses.

A review of the relative coverage of Priority Ecological Areas and Significant Ecological Areas demonstrates the inclusive nature of this first ecological modeling step. To ensure that nothing of potential statewide ecological importance was missed, features needed to meet just one of many selection criteria to be classified as Priority or Significant.

Identify Hubs. The hubs for the Ecological Network were selected in the second modeling step. Four sub-steps were

used to identify the subset of Priority Ecological Areas to serve as hubs:

· First, all unsuitable parcels were removed from consideration. Unsuitable lands included: areas of very high road density, that is areas with greater than or equal to 3 km of roads per square km; areas of inappropriate land use, including Category II and III land use cells; and areas of negative edge effects, which were considered to be areas within 180 meters of Category III land uses.

· Second, a 5,000 acre size filter was applied. (Results to this point can be viewed in the dataset GWPEAX. Please refer to List of Datasets on Accompanying CD-ROM [page vi] and Appendix 5 for more details).

· Third, internal gaps within the hubs were filled in and irregular edges were smoothed by adding contiguous native habitat or Category I Lands.

· Fourth, the resulting optimized hubs were partitioned as riverine, coastal or upland landscapes. (The results of the model through this step are found on the accompanying CD-ROM).

Identify Linkages. Five linkage types were identified in the next step of the Model: riverine to riverine, coastal to coastal, upland to upland and riverine to coastal hubs and cross basin connections between selected ecological hubs. Three sub-steps were applied to each of these linkage types:

· First, a suitability surface was created for each linkage type. Cell-based GIS was used to divide the entire surface of the study area into a grid with 180m cells. In creating a suitability surface, each cell within a grid is identified as either appropriate or inappropriate for a linkage to pass through. Appropriate or suitable cells are further sub-divided from most suitable, to least suitable using various criteria. Inappropriate cells are classed as "not suitable", that is, a linkage cannot past through them.

Using riverine linkages as an example, the riverine suitability surface is as follows:

· Riverine Ecosystem Types that are classified as Priority Ecological Areas are given the Highest Suitability.

· Riverine Ecosystem Types that are classified as Significant Ecological Areas are given a High Suitability.

· Riverine Ecosystem Types that are not classified as Priority or Significant Ecological Areas are given a Moderate Suitability.

· Riverine Ecosystem Types in Areas of High Road Density and/or Negative Edge Effect are given a Low Suitability.

· All Other Cells including Other Native Ecosystem Types, Category I, Category II and Category III Lands are classified as Not Suitable.

· Second, the suitability surface was used to identify an optimal path of suitable cells between selected ecological hubs.

· Third, the linkage was expanded and optimized by adding other appropriate contiguous native and non-native land covers.

· Create Ecological Network. The final ecological modeling step was the creation of a preliminary Ecological Network by adding together hubs for all native landscape types and the linkages for all ecological linkage types. In this last step, some manual editing was done to correct visible model errors and to reflect some overall design objectives. These

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results can be viewed in the dataset GWECO found on the accompanying CD-ROM see page vi and Section 9, Appendix 5 for more details.

Step 3 - Model Trails/Cultural-Historic Network

The next step in the Model was to design the Trails/Cultural-Historic Network. As noted in the introduction, the trails modeling steps reflected similar procedures as previously described for the modeling of the Ecological Network. The trails modeling objective was to design a recreational trails system, comprised of five trail types, with three defining features:

Trailheads, that provide access to the system and are located on publicly-owned land with parking and restrooms; Trail Corridors, with physical characteristics that meet the expectations of each user group; and appropriate Cultural-Historic Sites that support both.

· Identify Trail Features. The first trails modeling step was to identify features important for the design of the Trails Network. These features included:

· Existing and Proposed Trails - existing and proposed corridors that can reduce the need for new trail construction and minimize trail redundancy.

· Points of Interest - ecological, historic, cultural and recreational features or sites that may contribute to the quality of a trail-user's experience. People are more likely to use trails that lead them to places where they want to go. Identifying compatible Points of Interest for each modeled trail type will ensure that modeled statewide trails are located in areas where interesting side or spur destinations exist.

· Other Linear Features - Many other landscape features are needed for inclusion in a trail planning model to make sure that trails are not placed in unsuitable areas but instead placed in locations that maximize the recreational, aesthetic, and conservation objectives (by co-locating where appropriate) for each trail type. Other linear features that could influence the location of trail corridors include busy roads and bridges over open water as well as utility corridors and abandoned rail lines.

· Ecological Lands Classified for Trail Suitability - Since Florida's native ecosystems and landscapes provide the underlying "network of green" for the Statewide Greenways System, it is critical to ensure that Trail Elements do not negatively impact sensitive natural areas. To ensure trail corridors are not sited in environmentally sensitive locations all ecological features were divided into three trail suitability classes:

· Class I Lands - Native lands with the highest ecological value and sensitivity such as wading bird rookeries, and therefore not suitable for statewide trail use.

· Class II Lands - Native lands with high ecological value and sensitivity such as State Parks and National Seashores and therefore suitable for some restricted statewide trail use.

· Class III Lands - Native lands with moderate ecological value and lower sensitivity including all other conservation lands and therefore generally suitable for statewide trail use.

Select Trailheads. In the second trail's modeling step, user groups and existing trails plans were used to identify trailheads for each of the five terrestrial trail types. Where possible, the identified trailheads were located on publicly- owned lands with parking accessible from a paved road. In some cases, managed conservation areas and recreation sites were used for trailheads, in other cases, the trailheads were located at publicly accessible cultural or historic sites.

To assist with the modeling, the Florida Division of Historical Resources developed a recommended list of cultural and historic sites appropriate for use as trailheads and important for incorporation into the Greenways System. A spatial representation of these sites can be found on the GWCHF dataset on the accompanying CD-ROM. Please refer to the List on page vi and Section 9, Appendix 5 for more details.

Trailheads for each trail type are also represented on datasets contained on the accompanying CD-ROM. Please refer to the List on page vi and Section 9, Appendix 5 for more details.

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Identify Corridors. Corridors for the terrestrial trail types were identified in the third modeling step. The same three sub- steps used in the ecological portion of the Model were used to identify corridors for all trail types:

· First, a suitability surface was created for each trail type. For example, to identify hiking trail corridors, the trail suitability surface used the following criteria:

· Bridges and underpasses/overpasses, uplands proximal to open water and existing trail of the same trail type were classified as Highly Suitable.

· Areas inside the Ecological Network in Trail Suitability Classes II and III and proposed trail of the same trail type were classified as Moderately Suitable.

· Areas outside the Ecological Network in Trail Suitability Classes II & III and wetlands were classified as Low Suitability.

· Hazardous areas, open water, busy roads, Category III Lands excluding pipelines and utilities, and Trail Use Suitability Class I Lands inside and outside the Ecological Network were classified as Not Suitable.

· Second, optimal paths of suitable cells were selected between all identified trailheads.

· Third, all the trail corridors were created by adding 1 kilometer on each side of all selected optimal trail paths. Alignments for each trail type are also represented on datasets contained on the accompanying CD-ROM. Please refer to the List on page vi and Section 9, Appendix 5 for more details.

Create Trails/Cultural-Historic Network. In the last trails modeling step a preliminary Network was created by adding together the trailheads and trail corridors, plus cultural-historic sites for all terrestrial trail types. Paddling trails, identified with the help of the Florida Recreational Trails Council were added in at this point.

Step 4 - Identify Recommended Statewide Greenways System Planning Area

The final step in the Model was to combine the Ecological Network and the Trails/Cultural-Historic Network to represent an initial physical plan for the Statewide Greenways System.

Results

In July 1997, the UF Team completed the application of the model for the entire state. The Results were divided into ecological model results and trails/cultural-historic model results. Model Results as modified by Public Comment and Landowner Comment are described in Sections 4 and 5 respectively.

Summary of Ecological Model Results

The ecological greenways model results incorporate approximately 57% of the state including coastal waters (Table 3.5). Open freshwater, coastal waters, existing public conservation lands, and private preserves (e.g., Audubon Society and The Nature Conservancy Preserves) compose 53% of the model results (Table 3.6). Another 10% of the model result are composed of proposed public conservation lands (CARL or SOR). Other private lands comprise 37% of the results, with

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* Acreage of private ownership in wetlands, 100 yr. flood plain and uplands is calculated as if all proposed public acquisitions are/will be completed.

^ Floodplain data is not available for Bradford, Columbia, Dixie, Gilchrist, Hamilton, Jefferson, Lafayette, Madison, Okeechobee, Taylor, and Union Counties

Narrative Description of Ecological Model Results

The ecological model results contain the five largest conservation hubs in the state, which serve as the anchors of a statewide ecological greenways system and therefore are also the major "destinations" for the landscape linkages and corridors that tie the system together. These hubs are: the Everglades/Big Cypress complex, Ocala National Forest, Osceola National Forest-Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, Apalachicola National Forest, and Eglin Air Force Base-Blackwater River State Forest. Other important hubs include the Green Swamp, the Big Bend, and the upper St. Johns River and Kissimmee River basins.

Heading north from Everglades National Park, Big Cypress National Preserve, and the Water Conservation Areas, there are two connections to the large ecological hubs in the rest of the state. The first, and most significant of the two, runs north of Big Cypress National Preserve through the Okaloacoochee Slough and then across the Caloosahatchee River to the Fish Eating Creek watershed and Cecil Webb Wildlife Management Area. The second connection runs north from Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge to Corbett Wildlife Management Area and the Loxahatchee Regional Greenways Project and then through the ranchland of western Martin and St. Lucie Counties and eastern Okeechobee County to reach the upper St. Johns River basin. Big Cypress National Preserve is also connected to the regionally significant Corkscrew Regional Ecosystem Watershed CARL Project through the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge and Camp Keais Strand.

From the Cecil Webb Wildlife Management Area and Fisheating Creek, the model results contain a number of connections north: through ranchland to the Lower Kissimmee River; along the western side of the Lake Wales Ridge and across it in two different arms to the Avon Park Bombing Range; up the Peace River all the way to the Green Swamp; and up the Myakka River basin to connections with the Manatee, Little Manatee, and Alafia Rivers.

Avon Park Bombing Range, the Kissimmee River Water Management District (WMD) Project, Kissimmee Prairie State Preserve, Three Lakes, Triple N, and Bull Creek Wildlife Management Areas, and the Upper St. Johns River WMD Project are all part of the upper St. Johns River and Kissimmee River ecological hub. The most significant landscape linkage between the north and south halves of Florida heads north from the upper St. Johns-Kissimmee hub. The model output follows the Econlockhatchee and St. Johns River basin to Volusia County. While one connection continues to follow the St. Johns River, the more significant linkage runs through the swamps and pinelands of central Volusia County including Tiger Bay State Forest to the Ocala National Forest. Another linkage follows the Kissimmee River, runs through the Reedy Creek watershed, and then crosses the Lakes Wales Ridge to reach the Green Swamp.

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The Ocala National Forest (ONF) hub includes the Wekiva Greenway project, the Ocklawaha River Basin, the middle stretch of the St. Johns River, and pinelands around ONF that have been identified as important additional Florida black bear habitat. Various linkages radiate north and west from the Ocala National Forest hub. The most significant feature, and probably the most important landscape linkage in Florida, runs north from the Ocala National Forest to the Osceola National Forest-Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge hub through the Cross-Florida Greenway and Etoniah Creek CARL projects, Camp Blanding Military Site, the New River Swamp and Raiford Wildlife Management Area, and the Butler Wildlife Management Area (Type II). This landscape linkage would protect a connected and integrated conservation network running from the Wekiva River basin just north of Orlando to the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge in northern Florida and southern Georgia. North of Camp Blanding Military Site the model output also continues north through Jennings State Forest and pine plantations to the Nassau River and St. Mary's River watersheds.

To the east of the Ocala-Osceola landscape linkage, the model output also continues to follow the St. Johns River to its mouth while incorporating adjacent wetlands and intact uplands along the river wherever possible. East of the Ocala National Forest and the St. Johns river there is another linkage heading north that incorporates swamps and pineland from Tiger Bay State Forest to Durbin Swamp southeast of Jacksonville.

The Ocala National Forest is tenuously connected to the Withlacoochee River to the west through the Cross-Florida Greenway. Northwest of the Ocala National Forest, a regionally significant hub includes Payne's Prairie State Preserve, Lochloosa Wildlife Conservation Area, and the Newnan's Lake CARL project, which is connected to ONF through Orange Creek. The Payne's Prairie hub is also connected to the Ocala-Osceola landscape linkage to the east through the Ordway Preserve and Sante Fe Swamp.

The Green Swamp hub is connected to the regionally significant Hillsborough River Greenway project to the southwest. The most significant ecological linkage included in west-central Florida follows the Withlacoochee River basin north out of the Green Swamp with connections to the Withlacoochee State Forest, Annutteliga Hammock CARL Project, and Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge, Cross-Florida Greenway, Goethe State Forest, and the Gulf Hammock Wildlife Management Area.

The Goethe State Forest can be considered to be the beginning of the vast Big Bend ecological hub. The Big Bend includes coastal ecosystems and many coastal public conservation areas, large swamps and shrub wetlands such as Mallory Swamp and San Pedro Bay, and extensive pine plantations. The Payne's Prairie hub is connected to the Big Bend through the Flemington forest and Williston sandhills, the Watermelon Pond CARL Project, and the Sante Fe River. The Osceola-Okefenokee hub is connected to the Big Bend primarily by following the Suwannee River as well as tributaries in the Suwannee River watershed including the New River, Olustee Creek, and the Santa Fe River.

The Big Bend hub is connected to the Red Hills landscape north of Tallahassee through the Aucilla and St. Marks River watersheds. A more significant linkage connects the Big Bend hub to the Apalachicola National Forest hub through the St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge and the Wakulla Springs and River watershed.

From the Apalachicola hub, the model output follow the Ochlocknee River to the Red Hills and the Apalachicola River basin and the Chipola River to the Georgia and Alabama borders.

The last major landscape linkage in the model output connects the Apalachicola hub to the Eglin Air Force Base-Blackwater River State Forest hub in the western panhandle. This linkage starts west of the Apalachicola River at several points and incorporates creeks, forested wetlands, and pine plantations to reach the Ecofina Creek watershed and the Sand Mountain CARL Project. From there the linkage continues west and includes sandhills, pine plantations, and lower Holmes Creek to reach the Choctawhatchee River, and then passes through more pinelands and swamps to the Eglin Air Force Base-Blackwater River State Forest hub through the Shoal and Yellow River watershed and directly to Eglin Air Force Base. The model output also follows the Choctawhatchee River south and includes connections to Pine Log State Forest, Point Washington State Forest and CARL Project, and Topsail Hill State Park.

The Eglin-Blackwater hub is then connected to the Escambia River and Perdido River basins through various creek systems and pine plantations, and much of the floodplain of these two rivers are included in the model output.

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Throughout the state the ecological greenways model results also include significant coastal water bodies with adjacent wetlands and intact uplands with various degrees of connectivity. Starting in south Florida, the model result includes

the water (and keys) within the Key West, Great White Heron, and Key Deer National Wildlife Refuges. The next feature north includes Florida Bay in Everglades National Park, Biscayne Bay National Park, and the Ten Thousand Islands and Cape Romano Aquatic Preserves, and Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve and Aquatic Preserve.

On the east coast the model output incorporates much of the Indian River Lagoon System from the Loxahatchee River to Mosquito Lagoon and then through the Halifax River past Daytona. Some of the larger conservation features included in the Indian River lagoon system include the Indian River and Banana River Aquatic Preserves, Archie Carr Wildlife Refuge, Sebastian Inlet State Recreation Area, Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge, and the Canaveral National Seashore. Further north the model results include the Matanzas, Tolomato, and Guana Rivers with conservation features such as Washington Oaks State Gardens, Pellicer Creek Aquatic Preserve, Faver-Dykes State Park, Fort Matanzas National Monument, Anastasia State Recreation Area, Moses Creek Water Management Conservation Area, and Guana River State Park and National Research Reserve. The last coastal feature on the east coast includes the vast interconnected saltmarshes with some coastal islands associated with the mouths of the St. Johns, Nassau, and St. Marys Rivers. Significant conservation areas and projects include the Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve, Big and Little Talbot State Parks, Amelia Island State Recreation Area, and Fort Clinch State Park.

On the Gulf Coast north of Rookery Bay and Naples the first significant coastal feature includes Estero Bay Aquatic Preserve and Buffer, San Carlos Bay, Pine Island Sound Aquatic Preserve, Matlacha Pass Aquatic Preserve, and Charlotte Harbor. Other conservation features include Matlacha Pass, Ding Darling, and Pine Island National Wildlife Refuges, Cayo Costa State Park and Preserve, and Charlotte Harbor State Buffer Preserve. The next feature is Tampa Bay and waters to the south and north including parts of Sarasota Bay, Clearwater Harbor, and St. Joseph Sound with conservation features such as the Terra Ceia CARL project, Egmont Key State Park, Pinellas County Aquatic Preserve, Caladesi Island State Park, Honeymoon Island State Recreation Area, and Anclote Key State Preserve. The next coastal feature north includes the saltmarshes, creeks, river mouths, and coastal hammocks all the way from the Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge to the St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge and Apalachee Bay. Numerous other conservation designations are included, some of which are the Crystal River State Buffer Preserve, Cross Florida Greenway, Waccasassa Bay State Preserve, Cedar Key Scrub State Reserve, Lower Suwannee National Wildlife Refuge, Big Bend Seagrasses Aquatic Preserve, various Wildlife Management Areas, and Econfina River State Park. The next feature is St. George Sound and Apalachicola Bay including Dog Island Preserve, St. George Island State Park, Cape St. George State Reserve, St. Vincent Island National Wildlife Refuge, and the Apalachicola National Estuarine Research Reserve. Further west the model output includes St. Joseph Bay including St. Joseph Bay State Park and Buffer Preserve Project; St. Andrew Bay and Sound including Tyndall Air Force Base and St. Andrews State Recreation Area; Choctawhatchee Bay; Santa Rosa Sound including Gulf Islands National Seashore; Pensacola Bay including Gulf Islands National Seashore, Ft. Pickens State Park, Garcon Point WMD Project; and Perdido Bay and Big Lagoon including Big Lagoon State Recreation Area and the Perdido Pitcher Plant CARL Project.

Summary of Trails/Cultural-Historic Model Results

Routes for four terrestrial trail sub-networks were derived by the Model: hiking, off-road biking, equestrian and multi-use. As previously discussed, paddling trails were not modeled since the options for their location are highly restricted.

Separate rather than combined corridors were identified for hiking, off-road biking and equestrian trails, for several reasons. First, trailheads for each trail type are often different, especially for equestrian trails because of the infrastructure needed to support them. Second, while great progress is being made with developing shared use of trail corridors and even treads, there are still conflicts and dissatisfactions that arise from shared use. It is anticipated that through greenways implementation, many corridors if not treads may ultimately become shared, but since the Model was intended to identify the "best of all possible worlds", distinct corridors for hiking, off-road biking, and equestrian trails were modeled. These corridors were designed to identify backcountry and rural routes through native and agricultural landscapes.

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Table 3.7 presents a summary of the results of the trail's modeling. A modeled trail route can be comprised of 6 different types of segments:

· Existing single use trail of the same type

· Proposed single use trail of the same type

· Opportunity single use trail of the same type

· Existing multi-use trail (called a connector)

· Proposed multi-use connector

· Opportunity multi-use connector

To qualify as a proposed trail, a segment has to be identified in a governmental program, e.g. State Rails to Trails or as a local government project. The Corridors of Opportunity and Multi-use Connector Opportunities were segments newly identified through the modeling process.

Almost 2,000 miles of multi-use trail were identified by the model and approximately 1100 miles of off-road biking and equestrian trails. The model identified a little over 900 miles of hiking trail. More than half of the routes identified for all four

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trail types will have to be newly developed. This is less so for the hiking trail route, since it closely follows the corridor of the Florida National Scenic Trail, but gaps in the existing route, and an alternate route east around Orlando still require the addition of approximately 600 miles or more than 65% of new trail. Only off-road biking had any corridors coincident with multi-use trails (3%).

Narrative Describing Trails/Cultural-Historic Model Results

The hiking corridors identified by the Model are very similar to the existing (and proposed) alignment of the Florida National Scenic Trail (FNST). This is not surprising since the modeling approach encouraged use of existing trails wherever appropriate. The modeled corridor extends from the Gulf Islands National Seashore near Pensacola to the Pinecrest trailhead in Big Cypress National Preserve. It includes two options through the central Florida area, one to the east of Orlando and one to the west. The eastern leg does not follow the existing alignment of the FNST, rather it moves north along the St. Johns River Basin and turns west into the Ocala National Forest north of Deland. Trailheads identified for inclusion in the hiking corridors of opportunity are listed in Section 9, Appendix 5 and represented in the dataset called GWHTH on the accompanying CD-ROM. The hiking trail route identified by the Model is represented in the dataset called GWHTR on the CD-ROM.

Off-road bicycling corridors begin in the Panhandle with Blackwater River State Forest and end in Broward County at Markham County Park. Three additional off-road biking trailheads were selected for use in the Model south of Broward, John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park, Bahia Honda State Park and Fort Zachary Taylor State Historic Site; but because of the way in which the suitability surface for off-road biking was constructed the Model was unable to find a path to link these additional trailheads. As with the hiking corridors, the off-road bicycling corridors split around Orlando suggesting an eastern and a western leg. Trailheads identified for inclusion in the off-road bicycling corridors are listed in Section 9, Appendix 5, and are shown in the dataset called GWBTH on the accompanying CD-ROM. The off-road bicycling route identified by the Model is represented in the dataset called GWBTR on the CD-ROM.

The route for the equestrian trails also begins in Blackwater River State Forest but terminates in the Everglades at the Pinelands area. As with the hiking, and off-road bicycling corridors, the equestrian corridor splits in the central Florida area.

Trailheads identified for inclusion in the equestrian corridors are listed in Section 9, Appendix 5, and are found in the dataset called GWETH on the accompanying CD-ROM. The equestrian route identified by the Model is represented in the dataset called GWETR on the CD-ROM.

The purposes of the multi-use corridors are different than the three types of corridors previously described. They are intended to: 1) connect key urban areas, possibly supporting alternatives to vehicular transportation and 2) connect urban-urban multi-use corridors with key natural destinations. Multi-use trailheads in the urban areas include city parks, cultural-historic sites and museums. A number of interim trailheads that are also cultural-historic sites with the capability of handling visitors were also identified. The natural destinations that served as trailheads were:

· Gulf Islands National Seashore

· Pine Log State Forest

· St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge

· Stephen Foster State Park

· Three Lakes Wildlife Management Area

· Highlands Hammock State Park

· Pahokee Marina and Campground

· Big Cypress National Preserve - Oasis Ranger Station

· Everglades National Park - Pinelands

Please refer to Section 9, Appendix 5, for a complete listing of the multi-use trailheads. A spatial representation of these trailheads is called GWMTH and is found on the accompanying CD-ROM.

It is appropriate for the multi-use corridors to pass through native landscapes, agricultural landscapes as well as suburban and urban landscapes. Though, multi-use trails, even more so than other trail types, should not be placed within environmentally sensitive areas including strictly protected areas for biodiversity/ecological conservation. The multi-use corridors identified through the Model include an east west corridor through the Panhandle to Jacksonville, with a spur to Panama City, a north central Florida corridor from Lake City to Orlando and then two legs to the south, one following the west coast to Naples and the other following the east coast to Key West. A spatial representation of these corridors is called GWMTR and is found on the accompanying CD-ROM.

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Section 4

The Process and Results of Public Participation in the

Statewide Greenways System Planning Project

Public participation was known to be a critical factor from the inception of the Florida Statewide Greenways System Planning Project. It was clear to all involved, that any public policy initiative required the understanding and support of the public, and a way to garner that support was by taking time to have a dialogue with Florida's scientists, land managers, planners, elected and appointed officials and citizens. Through such a dialogue, Greenways' supporters could introduce fundamental theories and their potential applications and in turn participants could share their knowledge, experiences and concerns. The composition of the Florida Greenways Commission and then the Florida Greenways Coordinating Council by individuals representing diverse interests was meant to guarantee some degree of public knowledge and understanding of Greenways issues. Nevertheless, additional effort was appropriately expended to go beyond those individuals and the agencies/organizations they represented to inform and generate support from a broader constituency.

Public participation in the design of a physical plan for the Statewide Greenways System had two phases. Phase I included the review of goals and objectives on which the physical plan was to be based, and the assumptions and data to be incorporated into the GIS Model. This phase was described in Section 3 with additional details supplied in Appendix 4. Phase II of the public participation process involved review and comment on the results of the GIS Model and incorporation of those comments into the physical plan. This phase relied on input received predominantly through four forums: the Florida Greenways Workshop Series held in 1996; the work of the six Regional Greenways Task Forces, including public hearings, in 1997 and 1998; the work of the Florida Greenways Coordinating Council, including public hearings, in 1997 and 1998 and the work of the Florida Recreational Trails Council in 1997 and 1998. The details and results of these forums are described in this Section.

A third phase of public participation also took place, but its focus was the five year implementation plan, not just the development of a physical plan. The majority of the public commentary in this last phase was focused on issues like the future of the Florida Greenways Coordinating Council or a process for Greenways designation, but when relevant to the physical plan, comments from this phase are also described in this Section.

1996 Florida Greenways Workshop Series

The 1996 Florida Greenways Public Workshop Series was held to foster public participation in Florida's statewide greenways planning effort. Sponsored by DEP's Office of Greenways and Trails, the Council, the National Park Service's Rivers, Trails and Conservation Assistance Program, and the University of Florida, the workshops were held from February to October in ten locations across the state: Orlando, February 27 and March 12; Live Oak, May 29; Jacksonville, May 30; St. Petersburg, June 25; Ft. Myers, June 26; Tallahassee, September 17; Pensacola, September 25; Stuart, October 22; Hollywood, October 23; and Marathon, October 24. The workshops were repeated twice for each location with an afternoon session geared to attendance by agency and local government representatives and an evening session geared to attendance by the general public.

The workshop series, which was facilitated by staff of the NPS River, Trails and Conservation Assistance Program, was designed to inform the public about the activities of the Florida Greenways Program and its past history. In addition, a mapping exercise was conducted at all workshops¹. During the informational portion of each workshop, attendees first heard an overview of the Florida Greenways Program by staff from the DEP Office of Greenways and Trails. They were then briefed by a member of the University Team about the procedures and process being employed by the University to prepare a preliminary design for the Statewide Greenways System.

The purpose of the mapping exercise was to obtain input from workshop participants on ecological, recreational and cultural/

¹ The Orlando workshop was held on two different days. The first day focused on informing the public about the Florida Greenways Program while the second day focused on the mapping exercise. Due to budgetary reductions, these two parts were combined and presented on the same day for all subsequent workshops.

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historic features of statewide importance that should be incorporated into the design of the Statewide Greenways System.

To facilitate the participation of all attendees in the mapping exercise, each workshop session's participants were divided into three groups. Each group was asked to review a GIS map identifying Conservation Lands and Trails of statewide and regional significance within their region. They were then asked to provide their ideas and vision for the Statewide Greenways System within their region by identifying ecological, recreational and cultural/historic hubs and linkages of statewide significance on a base map overlay. Participants were further asked to provide a brief description of each feature they marked on the overlay.

Following each workshop session, the NPS facilitators combined all publicly drawn overlay maps into an overall workshop composite map reflecting identified elements of statewide significance and the participants' associated vision for the Statewide System. Members of the University Team then digitized the composite map for each workshop and created a database linking descriptive information that workshop participants provided to the points on the digitized map.

The 1996 Florida Greenways Workshop Series was an important starting point in the public input process for the design of the Statewide Greenways System. Participants were presented with an explanation of the vision and concepts of the Florida Greenways System, updated on the ongoing work of DEP's Office of Greenways and Trails and the Council to link greenways and trails throughout Florida, and given an opportunity to provide information ultimately used in the development of the physical plan for the Statewide Greenways System.

1997 _ 1998 Review by Regional Greenways Task Forces and in Associated Public Hearings

As envisioned when created by DEP and the Council, Florida's six Regional Greenways Task Forces provided the most widespread and comprehensive forum for public participation and for participation by local and regional interests in statewide greenways planning. The 1997 - 1998 process focused on review of the GIS Model results and development of a recommended physical plan for the Statewide Greenways System. For a list of Regional Greenways Task Force members, please see xvii _ xxii and for a more detailed description refer to Section 8, Appendix 3.

RGTF Meetings March - July 1997. The RGTF process began in March with an initial meeting of each Task Force and a general orientation about their roles and responsibilities. In April, representatives of the University attended each Task Force meeting to describe the process being employed in the physical design of the Statewide Greenways System, including the use of a GIS Decision Support Model. The public input process began in July when members of the University Team presented the preliminary physical plan for each RGTF district. Following a review of the process and the Model, University Team members described the region's preliminary Ecological Network and Trails Network in detail. In addition, the University Team left each Regional Greenways Task Force with a set of maps and instructions to assist the RGTF members in a more thorough review. Following the University presentation, Task Force chairs gave "marching orders" to the members and directed the start of the review process.

RGTF Meetings August 1997. The August meetings of all Regional Greenways Task Forces were run as working sessions where Task Force members could report on the results of their review activities since the July meeting. The outcomes of these meetings were a series of "trash paper" overlays depicting a diversity of proposed additions and deletions to the preliminary Ecological and Trails networks.

RGTF Meetings September - October 1997. The objective of the Task Forces' September and October meetings was to come up with the groups' final recommendations for presentation to the Council. During these meetings all proposed changes to the preliminary UF Plan were discussed and final consensus was reached on recommended additions and deletions for each Task Force region. The recommended additions and deletions were reflected on a final mylar overlay prepared by a "scribe" from the University Team.

Public Hearings - October, 1997. The Greenways Council and DEP held six public hearings in October in conjunction with that month's meeting of the Regional Task Forces: on October 7, 9, 14, 15, 21 and 23 for the northwest, northeast, south, southwest, southeast and central Florida Task Forces, respectively. The RGTF public hearings included presentations by staff of DEP and the University and the opportunity for attendees to present oral testimony as well as to suggest additions/corrections directly on the preliminary plans.

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RGTF Meetings in 1998. Only the Central Florida Regional Greenways Task Force met again in 1998 (May) to specifically review and comment about the details of the physical plan in their region. Other RGTFs commented about the plan, but in the context of the preparation of the Five Year Implementation Plan (see Section 8, Appendix 3). The implementation plan dominated the meetings of the RGTFs for the balance of 1998.

Public Hearings June - July 1998. Six public hearings were held around the state in June and July under the auspices of the RGTFs. These hearings were to provide the public opportunity to comment on the third draft of the implementation plan. Most comments focused on details of implementation, but there were still some comments provided on the physical plan for the Statewide Greenways System.

1997 - 1998 Review by Florida Greenways Coordinating Council and in

Associated Public Hearings

Review by Florida Greenways Coordinating Council and Planning Committee - September 17 and 18, 1997. The Council reviewed the preliminary UF Plan in September 1997. The Council's review started on September 17 when the Planning Committee met to hear a presentation on the University's preliminary results and reports by representatives of each Regional Greenways Task Forces. Following a discussion of Model results and suggested Task Force changes, the Planning Committee decided on their recommendations to the full Council.

The Council met on September 18 to hear presentations on the results of the University of Florida's modeling efforts and the revisions recommended by the Regional Greenways Task Forces. In addition, the Council heard testimony and discussed the relative merits of including or excluding private lands from the UF Plan. Following the RGTF presentations, the Council directed each Task Force to move forward with the Greenways System boundaries they recommended. The meeting concluded with a decision to keep private lands within the UF Plan. This decision was made in conjunction with agreement on a "letter of intent" to all private landowners clarifying the meaning of the Council's decision. (Please see Section 5 for further discussion of private landowner concerns).

FGCC/ DEP Public Hearing - September 25, 1997. On September 25, the Council and DEP held a public hearing in association with the 1997 Florida Trails and Greenways Conference. The public hearing was held to announce and take testimony on the activities of the Council in general and in relation to the development of the 5-Year Statewide Greenways System Implementation Plan. The public hearing started off with presentations on the Council and DEP's activities and the design of the Statewide Greenways System by representatives of the Council, the Office of Greenways and Trails and the University of Florida. These presentations were followed by the public input portion of the hearing where attendees at the conference and other members of the public reviewed maps displayed around the room that reflected, for each RGTF region, the preliminary UF Plan and the RGTF recommended revisions to the UF boundaries. In addition to submitting comments on map additions/corrections, interested individuals also had the option of presenting their comments orally to representatives of DEP and the Council.

FGCC/DEP Public Hearing - December 11, 1997 . The final FGCC/DEP public hearing for 1997 was held in Tallahassee in conjunction with the year-end meeting of the Council. The public was afforded the opportunity to address remarks and concerns to the Council as a whole. The public comment focused on the concern of large private landowners about the possible use of Greenways maps.

FGCC Meetings and Public Hearings in 1998. The Council held four meetings with associated public hearings in 1998, February 13, June 12, September 11 and December 11. In the February and June meetings, the attention was focused on the development of the Five Year Implementation Plan, on legislation being considered in the 1998 session and on issues being addressed by the Constitution Revision Commission.

At the September 11 meeting, the Five Year Implementation Plan was approved by the Council. The physical plan was consequently approved as a subset of the Implementation Plan. As discussed in greater detail in Section 5, the Council agreed to map Implementation Opportunities excluding lands of large private landowners who did not want to be included. Public comment was focused on the issue of mapping of private lands.

The December 11 meeting was brief since the Implementation Plan was completed and the physical plan to be presented in that document previously agreed to. There was discussion of legislation proposed for the 1999 Session and of the meeting

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schedule for the following year.

1996 _ 1998 Review by the Florida Recreational Trails Council

Representatives of the University and DEP met with the Florida Recreational Trails Council on four occasions to inform them of the progress in greenways planning and design and to take their comments and suggestions about the physical plan. Members of the Trails Council provided critical review and input to the physical plan through these four meetings, meetings of the RGTFs and also in public hearings.

The first special meeting with the Trails Council was held in June 1996 in Tallahassee. University Team members presented an overview of the definitions and objectives for each of the Model 's trail types and then described the trail modeling steps in detail. The discussion that followed included comments on the appropriateness and location of paved trails and the need to work directly with different trail interest groups to obtain recommendations on trailhead locations.

The second meeting with the Trails Council was held in Ocala in September 1997. The results of the GIS Model were presented to the Council. They were encouraged to work through the Regional Greenways Task Forces and to attend one of the scheduled public hearings to provide detailed input about the plan. Most of the members did this and provided important commentary shaping the final plan.

The third meeting with the Trails Council to especially discuss the physical plan was in Tallahassee in February 1998. At that meeting members of the council reviewed the plan and provided suggested changes to the Trails dataset being maintained by the University. A final meeting was held with the Trails Council in May 1998 also in Tallahassee. Again members had the opportunity to review and comment on the physical plan. They were particularly interested in the alignment of the trails being proposed and the trailheads being recommended.

Reconciliation of Model Results with Public Comment

The process of public participation in the evolution of a physical plan for Florida's Statewide Greenways System was complex and included a large number of individuals as described in the preceding sections. The result of this effort was minor modification to the ecological results originally derived by the GIS Model and significant modification to the trails/cultural-historic results.

Ecological Model Results as Modified by Public Comment

The changes made to the ecological model results through public comment included the following:

· Elimination of several areas that were no longer suitable because of their recent development,

· Addition of a few areas to widen and enhance the effectiveness of the corridors between the Dupuis/Loxahatchee/Jonathan Dickinson complex and the Three Lakes Wildlife Management Area,

· Addition of an ecological linkage between lands just north of East Lake Tohopekaliga and west to the Shingle Creek SOR project,

· Addition of an ecological linkage from the north-central part of the Green Swamp northwest to Lake Panasoffkee, and

· Deletion of four areas that were large enough to be hubs but were not physically connected to the rest of the Ecological Network including two areas in eastern Suwannee County, one area in western Marion County, and lands around Lake Dora, Lake Eustis, and Lake Yale in Lake County.

The net result of these modifications is contained in a digital representation on the accompanying CD-ROM (GWECOP). Using this dataset and the dataset representing the original Model Results (GWECO), one can view the areas of differentiation between the two. For more information about these two datasets, please refer to Section 11, Appendix 7. Tables 4.1 and 4.2 are summaries of the character and composition of the Results as modified by Public Comment. Comparing these tables with Tables 3.5 and 3.6 on page 3-23 and 3-24, it is evident that the modifications resulted in only a slight increase in the overall acreage in the ecological results and a slight shift from privately held lands to those that are publicly held or proposed for public acquisition.

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Ecological Network Composition by Percentage

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Trails/Cultural-Historic Model Results as Modified by Public Comment

As previously stated, the trails Model Results were significantly modified through the public comment process. In fact, the changes so significantly modified the trails results that the original GIS results were essentially thrown out and the suggested corridors and trailheads derived through the public comment process were substituted.

One of the disparities between the model results and public comment was in the identification of trailheads. Trailheads originally selected to support the GIS model were considered less appropriate by trail user groups than those suggested through the review and comment process. There appear to have been two reasons for this. First, fewer people participated in the selection of trailheads for the GIS model than in the period of public review and comment on results. And second, even though some of the same individuals participated in both phases, only after seeing the preliminary results generated by the GIS model were they fully able to grasp the purpose, extent and potential value of the trails/cultural-historic plan. This new understanding resulted, on occasion, in a change of mind about appropriate trailheads, but mostly in an increase in the number recommended for inclusion.

In a similar way, more trail corridors were recommended during the public comment process than were derived through the GIS modeling process. This seemed to be largely a product of individuals' and organizations' wanting to be sure their favorite trail project was included. Since there was no effective process or criteria for screening the recommended additions to include only those of statewide significance, essentially every trail recommended for inclusion, that could be reasonably linked to other trails of the same type, was added. The increase in the miles of trails resulting after the period of public comment is discernible by comparing Table 3.7, page 3-27 with Table 4.3 below. In the four categories of terrestrial trails the total number of miles recommended through the public comment phase almost doubles.

Another factor that altered the trails/cultural-historic recommendations in the public comment phase was the concerted effort to use multi-use connectors to complete trail sub-networks where appropriate. For example, a portion of the Palatka to Navarre Rail-Trail, a multi-use trail, is used to complete the hiking trail network between Gold Head Branch State Park and Lake Butler. This represents a significant improvement over the trails results derived from the GIS model, because the multi-use trails are coordinated with the single-use trails where appropriate. This difference is clearly portrayed through a comparison of the miles of multi-use connectors included in Table 4.3 below and in Table 3.7, page 3-27. (For a definition of proposed corridors and corridors of opportunity please see page 3-23).

One final difference in the Model Results and Model Results as Modified by Public Comment is important to note. The sequence of actions in the model and the suitability surfaces were constructed to be responsive to environmental sensitivity. In some cases, for example within a State Preserve, a trail corridor would not be allowed to cross it, due to the environmental sensitivity inherent in that classification, especially in the case of multi-use trails. Unfortunately, this sensitivity to environmental concerns was not always possible or was ignored in the selection and recommendation of a corridor in the public comment phase. As the trails are constructed, there is the opportunity to partially ameliorate this situation through selection of specific trail alignments, but some conflict might result from this omission in the public comment phase.

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When comparing Table 4.3 with Table 3.7 on page 3-27, it is also obvious that paddling trails have been added. As explained in Section 3, these were not modeled using GIS since the options for their location are restricted to streams and other waterways. The approximately 2,500 miles of paddling trails recommended for inclusion in the Greenways System are all existing paddling trails. They include a Florida circum-navigational trail and favorites like the Aucilla, Chipola, Juniper Springs, Wekiva, Peace River and Loxahatchee River.

Digital representations of the trails Model Results as modified by Public Comment are found on the accompanying CD-ROM. For a brief description of these datasets see page vi, or the metadata in Section 11, Appendix 7.

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Section 5

Private Landowner Participation

Private Landowner Participation in Greenways Design through the

Florida Greenways Commission

The participation of private landowners in Greenways design began with the appointment of four individuals who represented landowner interests to the Florida Greenways Commission in 1993. The Commission's 1994 Report to the Governor laid out many fundamental premises about the potential of greenways to serve Florida including those related to the use of private lands. A cornerstone of the Report was the assumption that private lands were critical to the implementation of a Statewide System, but that participation was to be voluntary. The Report included the following as a recommended strategy:

"Link regional landscapes through Florida's system of greenways, including lands ranging from native ecosystems that are publicly owned to highly managed forestry and agricultural properties that are privately owned" (p. 48).

Earlier in the Report, the groundwork for inclusion of private lands was laid in a discussion of Integrated Conservation Systems and the Role of Greenways:

"The goal is to protect and manage an overall landscape that effectively protects biological diversity while supporting other compatible and productive land uses in a sustainable manner. Although native ecological communities are the standard for protecting biological diversity, altered ecosystems can also contribute in special ways. For example, lands devoted to less intensive forms of agriculture and silviculture or rangelands provide habitat for wildlife that constitutes prey for species such as the Florida panther. Indeed, because such land uses often occur in large tracts and can be effectively managed, they can contribute habitat values that may not be achieved in any other manner. Similarly, agriculture land uses can buffer ecological preserves and other public conservation areas from the effects of more intensive urban land uses. Therefore, such integrated conservation systems could result in gradient patterns from full protection to intensive use. Ideally, connected reserve lands would be surrounded by compatible agricultural activities such as silviculture and ranching, which would then grade into more intensive agricultural land uses. In combination, preserve lands relieve pressure on the private sector to worry about each and every species while at the same time private lands allow the all-too-small preserves to function as refuges for species such as the panther" (p42).

The Report to the Governor went on to more specifically acknowledge the importance of working landscapes to a Statewide Greenways System.

"An important part of the character of Florida are the many kinds of rural landscapes that reflect human use of the environment, whether the use is recent, ongoing, or long past. It is important to protect these rural landscapes because they contribute to a sense of place and provide an alternative to the rapid change that is so characteristic of our urban areas" (p. 55 _ 56).

And the Report continued with the following recommended actions:

"The FGCC (Florida Greenways Coordinating Council) should work with agricultural interest groups and landowners using appropriate incentives to incorporate pastures, groves, fields, and other productive lands into greenways planning and to find ways that greenway users can contribute to the continuation of such land uses." And "The FGCC should work with forest interest groups and landowners using appropriate incentives to incorporate woodlots, pine plantations, and hardwood forests in greenways planning, and to find ways that greenway users can contribute to the continuation of such land uses" (p. 56).

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Private Landowner Participation in Greenways Design through the

Florida Greenways Coordinating Council

Participation of landowners and their representatives in the greenways planning process continued as required by legislation (Chapter 253, F.S.), with the naming of three members representing landowner interests to the 26 member Florida Greenways Coordinating Council. As with the Commission, these individuals served as important spokespersons for landowner interests and as information sources for members of their associations and industries.

Coordination with and requests for input from the private landowner community continued upon completion of the GIS Model. On June 19, 1997, the first group to review the GIS model results was comprised of representatives of Florida's private landowners, DEP, and a Greenways Council member. At this meeting, representatives of the Florida Farm Bureau, the Florida Forestry Association, Rayonier, and a Tallahassee-based environmental consulting firm that represents a number of large landowners, were briefed on the Model and its results, with a particular focus on the results for Northeast Florida. An ensuing discussion provided a number of suggestions on how to address private property owner concerns including the inclusion of "waiver" language on all printed maps stating that the maps are not intended for regulatory purposes or other means to restrict the rights of private property owners. Other forums for review and participation by landowners and their representatives included the Regional Greenways Task Force meetings in the latter half of 1997, through public hearings of the RGTFs and the FGCC and specially arranged meetings with individual landowners or their representatives.

Beyond questions about the appropriateness of inclusion of individual parcels in the physical plan for the Statewide Greenways System, the concerns expressed by landowners and their representatives included three issues. First, language in Chapter 260 F.S. appeared to suggest that DEP intended to use regulatory approaches to assist with greenways implementation. Regulation was opposed by private landowners because it was perceived as placing an undue burden on the individual landowner.

A second reason private landowners and there representatives were so vocal was their recent success with the North Central Florida Regional Planning Council (and the Apalachee and North Central Florida RPCs, too). The issue was whether the Council would represent lands included in a GIS analysis prepared by the Florida Game and Freshwater Fish Commission as having significant ecological value in their Strategic Regional Policy Plans. The final decision by the RPC Board was not to include those areas on the map, because of concerns raised by attorneys for various private landowners. With this political decision fresh in their minds, landowners and their representatives believed similar arguments could be leveled at the preliminary physical plan for the Statewide Greenways System. There was one major distinction between the two programs, however: local government comprehensive planning is clearly regulatory and the greenways program was intended to be voluntary. Yet, because of the wording of Chapter 260 F.S., it appeared regulation was one approach to be used for greenways implementation.

A final private landowner objection to a map of the physical plan for Statewide Greenways System was their claim that such a map immediately reduces land value. More specifically, the claim was that if lands were so mapped, bankers would assume the land to be of lesser value, i.e., with less market value, and consequently reduce the amount of money they would loan against any such parcel. A careful, independent evaluation of this claim would be very useful.

DEP and FGCC Response to Private Landowner Concerns

As early as the June 1997 meeting with private landowner representatives and DEP personnel held at the University of Florida, DEP realized changes to Chapter 260 F.S. would be necessary. Staff from DEP began working with a sub-group of landowner representatives to develop amendment language (please see Section 8, Appendix 3). The changes to Chapter 260 F.S. were supported by DEP and the FGCC. In fact, the Farm Bureau's representative on the FGCC was instrumental in the passage of the legislation. Among the most significant clauses were the following that explained limitations for the use of maps or other planning documents developed through the Greenways Program:

"Identification of lands in such information shall not:

(1) Require or empower any unit of local or regional government, or any state agency, to impose additional or more restrictive environmental, land-use, or zoning regulations;

(2) Be construed or cited as authority to adopt, enforce, or amend any environmental rule or regulation; comprehen

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sive plan goals, policies, or objectives; or zoning or land-use ordinance;

(3) Be used as the basis for permit denial; imposition of any permit condition; or application of any rule, regulation, or ordinance by any subdivision of local, regional, or state government; or

(4) Be construed or cited as authority by any governmental agency to reduce or restrict the rights of owners of lands so identified."

But in late 1997, when passage of the legislative amendments were not a certainty, landowners continued to press for some action on DEP's part to address their concerns. At that point, DEP agreed to remove lands of concerned private landowners from the greenways planning maps, providing the landowners could supply adequate boundary information.

Through the course of the FGCC meetings in 1998, the Council, though initially reluctant, agreed to the exclusion of private parcels (when requested by landowners) from greenways planning maps. As a consequence, the maps contained in the Five Year Implementation Plan are called "Implementation Opportunities" maps and exclude lands for which sufficient boundary information was received. The methodology employed to capture the boundary and ownership information and to exclude lands from the greenways results is described in the following two sections.

Private Landowner Property Data Description

Private landowners who wished to have their lands removed from greenways planning maps were encouraged to send in spatial information regarding their landholdings. This information could include hard copy maps or digital data, or written descriptions of property boundaries. Written legal descriptions were not accepted due to the time required to convert such descriptions into GIS spatial data. For properties to be included in the database they had to meet the following criteria:

1. Map information was readable and translatable to a digital spatial format in a relatively short time period, and

2. The property area was at least 50 acres (20.23 hectares). This minimum size was established because the intent of this project was to identify elements of statewide significance, and areas of 50 acres or less were essentially irrelevant to the statewide results. The minimum standard was further reinforced by the fact that the scale of hard copy maps to be produced was such that properties less than 50 acres could not be seen.

Property boundaries were digitized to as fine an accuracy as the supplied data would allow. Some information received was in the form of highly accurate AutoCAD files, while other boundaries were hand-drawn representations on maps of 1:24,000 scale or larger.

The Private landowner dataset includes attributes that describe information about the property such as a data source, owner name, parcel acreage, date of automation, and whether the property owner wishes to be included in the ecological or trail portion of the greenways initiative or not.

Due to landowner requests and agreement on the part of DEP, the Geoplan Center is not permitted to distribute this data set. However, landowner acreage information is listed in Section 10, Appendix 6. The University will continue to work with DEP, at least through June 1999, to maintain and update the Private Landowners dataset.

Results of Private Landowner Participation

To develop the maps used in the Five Year Implementation Plan, the UF began with the Model Results as modified by Public Comment, described in Section 5, and excluded the lands for which adequate boundary information was supplied. The results of the exclusion of these lands can be seen in the data on the accompanying CD-ROM (see List on page vi), in the datasets: Florida Greenways Model Equestrian Trails with Private Landowner Comment, Florida Greenways Model Multi-use Trails with Private Landowner Comment, Florida Greenways Model Hiking Trails with Private Landowner Comment, Florida Greenways Model Off-Road Bicycling Trails with Private Landowner Comment and Ecological Results of the Florida Greenways GIS Decision Support Model As Modified by Public and Landowner Comment.

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Ecological Model Results as modified by Public Comment and Landowner Comment

When compared with the Ecological Model Results as modified by Public Comment described in Table 4.1 (p. 4-5), one can see the total area of the state included in Table 5.1 is reduced by roughly five percent. Almost all of this difference is in land area, only a tenth of a percent is attributable to exclusion of areas of open water.

A similar comparison between Table 4.2 (p.4-5) and 5.2 below reveals differences in acreage of private lands. Acres in private wetlands drop from 1,733,815 to 1,406,260; acres in private 100 year flood plain drops from 1,622,720 to 1,226,693 and acres in private uplands drops most significantly from 5,193,065 to 4,250,239.

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Ecological Network with Landowner Input

Trails/Cultural-Historic Model Results as Modified by Public Comment and Landowner Comment

A comparison of Table 4.3 (p. 4-6) with Table 5.3 reveals the differences in trails results when private lands are excluded. There is no difference in paddling trails since they occur on sovereign lands.

The reduction into total miles of the four terrestrial trail types is minor. However, the gaps created by exclusion of trails on selected lands would mean a fragmented trail experience.

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Relationship of Model Results as Modified by Public and Landowner Comment to a Statewide Greenways Vision

The concerns of large private landowners about the greenways mapping and the results of exclusion of lands have been described above. It is the University's position, that the best vision of the potential for greenways to serve the state of Florida is represented by the Model Results as Modified by Public Comment, rather than those described by the Model Results as Modified by Public Comment and Landowner Comment. This position is consistent with the thinking of the Greenways Coordinating Council that agreed the following wording should be included on the "Implementation Opportunities" maps contained in the Five Year Implementation Plan.

"Establishment of the Greenways and Trails System is a dynamic process. The Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and the Florida Greenways Coordinating Council (FGCC) have made every effort to work with private landowners and public land managers to assure them the Statewide Greenways and Trails Program is voluntary. As a result, DEP and the FGCC agreed to remove features from this map if they occur within the ownership of those who do not wish to have their lands included. Therefore, the Opportunities included on this map do not represent a complete statewide vision. This map represents a vision as modified by requests from landowners to remove or include their lands in the system."

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Section 6

Greenways GIS Data Layers and Their Distribution

A geographic information system (GIS) was fully integrated into the physical design of the Statewide Greenways System. As described in Section 3, a GIS model was used to develop an initial representation of the physical design. Then, as described in Section 4, the public had many opportunities to suggest changes to that initial plan and in turn, these changes were digitized and the physical plan evolved into a final recommended plan. Then, as described in Section 5, the plan was further modified for the purposes of mapping, to remove large parcels whose owners did not want their lands represented on maps, which produced another iteration. Results of the design process and representations of key steps along the way have been included in this report on an accompanying CD-ROM. In summer 1999, this plan will be converted into a digital format and distributed, along with the data either through CD-ROMs or across the world wide web.

As a consequence of the integration of GIS into this project, it is important to include an explicit explanation of GIS data here. Five sub-sections are included: 1) a discussion of map and data accuracy, 2) a description of metadata (data about data) and its importance, 3) a description of GIS data inputs to the greenways design process, 4) a description of GIS data outputs from the greenways design process and 5) a description of the distribution of Greenways Project GIS data.

Map and Data Accuracy

The accuracy of mapped data has been important to the modeling team since the inception of the Greenway Project. However, map accuracy, the ground truth of spatial data, the timeliness of GIS datasets, and the use of primary vs. secondary GIS data are often confusing to the general public.

Map accuracy can take on many forms. The two most often used indicators of map accuracy are absolute and relative accuracy. Absolute accuracy refers to the accuracy of features on the map with respect to their actual location on the surface of the earth. Relative accuracy refers to the accuracy of the relationship between features as mapped. If we use roads and buildings along that road as an example, we can map the features, the roadway and adjacent buildings, with a high degree of absolute accuracy. It is possible however to have poor absolute accuracy and still produce mapped data with a high degree of relative accuracy. The roadway and the buildings may have a systematic error, e.g. all locations may be shifted 40 feet to the west of their true position, but the relationship between the features might be very accurately presented, perhaps within a foot of their actual distances from one another. The United States Geological Survey has developed national standards for mapping spatial data. These standards reflect the scales which the data are mapped and are the accepted guidelines by which the above GIS data accuracies are measured.

The following is taken from the USGS web site (see source information at the end of this subsection):

To find methods of ensuring the accuracy of both location (the latitude and longitude of a point) and elevation (the altitude above sea level), the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing - an organization actively involved in the science of making precise measurements from photographs (photogrammetry) and acquiring information from aerial photographs and satellite image data (remote sensing) - set up a committee in 1937 to draft accuracy specifications. Sparked by this work, agencies of the Federal Government, including the USGS, began their own inquiries and studies of map accuracy standards. In 1941, the U.S. Bureau of the Budget issued the "United States National Map Accuracy Standards," which applied to all Federal agencies that produce maps. The standards were revised several times, and the current version was issued in 1947.

United States National Map Accuracy Standards

With a view to the utmost economy and expedition in producing maps, which fulfill not only the broad needs for standard or principal maps but also the reasonable particular needs of individual agencies,

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standards of accuracy for published maps are defined as follows:

1. Horizontal accuracy. For maps on publication scales larger than 1:20,000, not more than 10 percent of the points tested shall be in error by more than 1/30 inch, measured on the publication scale; for maps on publication scales of 1:20,000 or smaller, 1/50 inch. These limits accuracy shall apply in all cases to positions of well-defined points only. Well-defined points are those that are easily visible or recoverable on the ground, such as the following: monuments or markers, such as bench marks, property boundary monuments; intersections of roads, railroads, etc.; corners of large buildings or structures (or center points of small buildings); etc. In general what is well-defined will also be determined by what is plottable on the scale of the map within 1/100 inch. Thus while the intersection of two road or property lines meeting at right angles, would come within a sensible interpretation, identification of the intersection of such lines meeting at an acute angle would obviously not be practicable within 1/100 inch. Similarly, features not identifiable upon the ground within close limits are not to be considered as test points within limits quoted, even though their positions may be scaled closely upon the map. In this class would come timberlines, soil bound, etc.

2. Vertical accuracy, as applied to contour maps on all publication scales, shall be such that not more than 10 percent of the elevations tested shall be in error more than one-half the contour interval. In checking elevations taken from the map, the apparent vertical error may be decreased by assuming a horizontal displacement within the permissible horizontal error for a map of that scale.

3. The accuracy of any map may be tested by comparing the positions of points whose locations or elevations are shown upon it with corresponding positions as determined by surveys of a higher accuracy. Tests shall be made by the producing agency, which shall also determine which of its maps are to be tested, and the extent of such testing.

4. Published maps meeting these accuracy requirements shall note this fact in their legends, as follows: "This map complies with National Map Accuracy Standards."

5. Published maps whose errors exceed those aforestated shall omit from their legends all mention of standard accuracy.

6. When a published map is a considerable enlargement of a map drawing (manuscript) or of a published map, that fact shall be stated in the legend. For example, "This map is an enlargement of a 1:20,000-scale map drawing," or "This map is an enlargement of a 1:24,000 scale published map."

7. To facilitate ready interchange and use of basic information for map construction among all Federal mapmaking agencies, manuscript maps and published maps, wherever economically feasible and consistent with the use to which the map is to be put, shall conform to latitude and longitude boundaries, being 15 minutes of latitude and longitude, or 7 1/2 minutes, or 3 3/4 minutes in size.

As applied to the USGS 1:24,000 7.5-minute quadrangle topographic map, the horizontal accuracy standard requires that the positions of 90 percent of all points tested must be accurate within 1/50th of an inch (0.05 centimeters or 0.02 inches) on the map. At 1:24,000 scale, 1/50th of an inch is 40 feet (12.2 meters). Applied to 1:100000 scale Maps the accuracy becomes 167 feet (51 meters), at 1:250000 the accuracy is 417 feet (126 meters).

Unavoidable Errors

There are certain kinds of errors in mapmaking that are unavoidable. Names and symbols of features and classification of roads or woodland are among the principal items that are subject to factual error. Mapmakers cannot apply a numerical value to this kind of [information]; they must rely on local sources for their information. Sometimes the information is wrong. Sometimes names change or new names and features are added in an area. Cartographers and editors check all maps thoroughly and, as a matter of professional pride, attempt to keep factual errors to a practical minimum.

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"Errors" resulting from selection, generalization, and displacement are necessary results of mapping complex features at reduced scales. In congested areas, large buildings may be plotted to scale and the smaller buildings may have to be omitted; in showing buildings of irregular shape, small wings, bays, and projections usually are [disregarded], and the outline is [shown] in general form. At map scale, it may not be possible to show each of several closely spaced linear features in its correct position. In such cases, one feature, such as a railroad, is positioned in its true location and others, such as parallel roads and rivers, are displaced the minimum amount necessary to make each symbol legible.

For more information regarding map and data accuracy please contact:

U.S. Department of the Interior

U.S. Geological Survey

509 National Center, Reston, VA 20192, USA

URL: http://mapping.usgs.gov/mac/isb/pubs/factsheets/fs07896.html

Page Maintainer: USGS Mapping Applications Center

Contact: macweb@usgs.gov

The ground truthing of GIS data for this project has been determined and documented by the agencies creating the original data. As with map accuracy the ground truthing of data can become a confusing issue. The ground truthing of GIS data is very important to the agencies charged with the development of such data and is reported in data documentation called "GIS Metadata". The Florida Game and Freshwater Fish Commission (FGC) Habitat/Landcover dataset is a good example of how data are verified by ground truthing and the use of ancillary data. As described in the Closing the Gaps in Florida's Wildlife Habitat Conservation System Report, the Habitat/Landcover dataset was created with the use of Landsat satellite imagery called Landsat Thematic Mapper ™ data. The Florida Department of Transportation processed the Landsat data using ATLAS Remote Sensing Software under contract with the FGC. Raw satellite data, using 17 Landsat scenes from 1985-1989, were obtained from the Florida Department of Natural Resources and processed over a 3.5-year period. A total of 454 sample areas containing 1.10 million acres of land, or 8% of Florida, was inspected using a helicopter equipped with a Loran-C unit. Inaccuracies identified in the field were corrected in the satellite classification of these data to produce the final product (Kautz, et al., 1993).

Primary data are data created by the primary user. Primary data becomes secondary data when used by others. One example is landuse/landcover data developed in Florida by the water management districts. Another example of secondary data for the Greenway Project is the FGC's Habitat/Landcover dataset. The Habitat/Landcover data are useful in determining the type of landcover at ground locations within Florida, and have been used to model landcover types that support rare and endangered species by the FGC. The development of a GIS model creates another form of secondary data which results from model assumptions and the ground truthing of the original primary GIS data upon which the model was developed. The use of data for modeling purposes, such as the greenways decision support model, requires that the users clearly understand the data. Since the greenways decision support model used many secondary GIS datasets, the greenways modeling team interviewed many primary data developers, reviewed GIS metadata available for all secondary datasets used in the model, and encouraged public review of secondary data, to assure data relevance in the modeling process.

All data used in the modeling process at the GeoPlan Center were derived from data at 1:250,000 scale or larger (the majority of data were generated at 1:100,000 or larger). The scale 1:250,000 has an accuracy of plus or minus 126 meters (417 feet), which is an acceptable error for modeling and presenting data via hardcopy map at the regional or state geographic extent. The scale of 1:100,000 has an accuracy of plus or minus 50 meters (166 feet). For more resolute modeling or site planning, larger scale datasets (1:24,000 or larger) would be required. For more information on the Florida Greenways model design please see Sections 4 and 5 of this report.

GIS Metadata - Data about Data

The term metadata refers to the descriptive narrative provided by data generators for their data. Metadata, in general, are designed to inform users of GIS data: 1) how the data were created, 2) what the spatial accuracy of the data is, 3) in what map projection the data are presented, 4) a contact person who is knowledgeable about the data and can answer question for data

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users, 5) when the data were created, and 6) what attribute data are attached and what each attribute represents. Data provided for use as secondary data without metadata should be regarded as meaningless unless the modeler can obtain a description from the primary data developer.

The following is taken from the Federal Geographic Data Committee Web site (see information at the end of this subsection):

The concept of metadata is familiar to most people who deal with spatial issues. A map legend is pure metadata. The legend contains information about the publisher of the map, the publication date, the type of map, a description of the map, spatial references, the map's scale and its accuracy, among many other things. Metadata are simply that type of descriptive information applied to a digital geospatial file. [They are] a common set of terms and definitions to use when documenting geospatial data. Most digital geospatial files now have some associated metadata.

The Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) recently adopted a content standard for metadata. According to an Executive order signed by President Clinton on April 11, 1994, all Federal agencies will begin to use this standard to document newly created geospatial data as of January, 1995. This standard provides a consistent approach and format for the description of data characteristics. The standard was developed over a two-year period, with extensive review by professionals at all levels of government. The standard provides a way for data users to know:

·what data are available

·whether the data meet their specific needs

·where to find the data

·how to access the data.

Because these standards are now in place, and large amounts of Federal data will be available in these standards, data managers from State and local governments and private industry will have an incentive to adopt these standards to document their own data.

Twenty-five years ago, humans landed on the Moon. Data from that era are still being used today, and it is reasonable to assume that today's geospatial data could still be used in the year 2020 and beyond to study climate change, ecosystems, and other natural processes. Metadata standards will increase the value of such data by facilitating data sharing through time and space.

For more information regarding FGDC metadata and data documentation please contact:

FGDC Secretariat

c/o U.S. Geological Survey

590 National Center

Reston, Virginia 22092

Telephone: (703) 648-5514

Facsimile: (703) 648-5755

Internet: gdc@usgs.gov

Anonymous ftp: fgdc.er.usgs.gov

The GeoPlan Center maintains metadata and documentation for all of the spatial and tabular datasets used in the modeling process. This information includes accuracy, dates, and a data lineage and user notes section to clarify the original intent and acceptable uses of the data. Data with documentation are distributed through the Florida Geographic Data Library (see below) in two formats: Florida Geographic Data Library End User Documentation (see Section 11, Appendix 7) and Federal Geographic Data Committee standards for documenting geographic data. When available, the data originator's source documentation is also distributed.

The GIS data utilized for this project were acquired from the Departments of Environmental Protection, Transportation, Community Affairs, local and regional governments, federal agencies, the water management districts and non-governmental organizations including The Nature Conservancy and Florida Natural Areas Inventory. The layers used in the development

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of the Decision Support Model are listed in Section 9, Appendix 5. Data layers unique to the Greenways Project are briefly described below.

GIS Data Inputs

The Conservation and Recreation Lands dataset was initially compiled and standardized from the existing digital GIS databases maintained by each Florida water management district. The compiled database was subsequently enhanced at the GeoPlan Center by the addition/standardization of attribute data (such as name, type, status, etc.). The GeoPlan Center also corrected all boundary and location inaccuracies identified by reviewers. In addition, every effort was made to incorporate boundary changes precipitated by acquisitions and proposals which occurred as late as December, 1998.

Digital/hard copy boundary and hard copy attribute data were contributed by the St. Johns River Water Management District, South Florida Water Management District, Southwest Florida Water Management District, Suwannee River Water Management District, Northwest Florida Water Management District, Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Florida Natural Areas Inventory, Florida Game and Freshwater Fish Commission, Florida Department of Transportation, Florida Division of Forestry, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Forest Service, several local government agencies, and 1000 Friends of Florida. At the time of this publication, the GeoPlan Center has a 1998 version of the Conservation and Recreation Lands dataset.

The Recreational Trails dataset was originally created by 1000 Friends of Florida. It has since been maintained at the University of Florida GeoPlan Center through the Greenways Project. The trails are mapped using 1:100,000 scale Tiger Roads as a base. Included in this spatial data are biking, hiking, equestrian, paddling (Canoe and Kayak), and multi-use trails. The dataset includes trail information such as rail-trail designation, on-road/off-road type, proposed or existing status, surface paving type, and others. At the time of this publication, the GeoPlan Center has "Recreational Trails" data for 1998.

The Points of Interest dataset contains points of interest for the entire state of Florida. It contains 25 different categories of sites including recreational areas, cultural areas, schools, and transportation stations (see Section 9, Appendix 5). The points were digitized from many sources including the Florida Gazetteer, American Automobile Association (AAA) maps, and other Atlases dating from 1996 - 1997.

Cultural and Historic Sites contains ecological, historic, cultural and recreational features or sites that may contribute to the quality of a trail-user's experience. It was originally created by the Florida Bureau of Archaeological Research, Division of Historical Resources, Department of State; then edited by the GeoPlan Center with public comment.

The Private Landowners dataset was started after many large landowners expressed concern regarding the mapping of their parcels inside the ecological network. The GeoPlan Center received many hardcopy maps, and digital data that were appended to a landowners spatial dataset. The property boundaries were used for removing landowner areas from ecological and trail results. Please see Section 5 and Section 10, Appendix 6 for more information.

Other Datasets Used in Modeling Process

Other datasets used in the modeling process include hydrology, land use, landcover, Florida Game and Freshwater Fish Commission data, Florida Natural Areas Inventory data, etc. More information about these datasets can be found on the Florida Geographic Data Library webpage:

http://www.geoplan.ufl.edu/projects/layers.html or in the list found in Appendix 5.

GIS Data Outputs

Decision Support Model Results

Eleven datasets are contained on the accompanying CD-ROM within the Decision Support Model Results. The process used to derive them is clearly described in Section 3 and related appendices. The datasets are:

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1. Ecological Results of the Florida Greenways GIS Decision Support Model

This dataset contains the Ecological Results of the Florida Greenways GIS Decision Support Model. The Model Results represent a recommended (or potential) ecological network that connects and integrates large publicly-owned areas, such as National Parks and Forests.

2. Priority Ecological Areas (after exclusion)

This dataset contains Priority Ecological Areas (PEAs) after the removal (exclusion) of incompatible areas. PEAs are ecological features and conservation designations that were given the highest priority for inclusion and physical linkage in the Ecological Network. (this data set has 2 values: 1 = PEAs greater than or equal to 5000 acres, 2 = PEAs less than 5000 acres)

3. Florida Greenways Cultural and Historic Features.

This dataset contains Cultural and Historic Features recommended by the Bureau of Archaeological Research, Division of Historical Resources, Florida Department of State, and edited by the UF, DEP Office of Greenways and Trails, and Public Comment.

4. Florida Greenways Model Off-Road Biking Trailheads.

This dataset contains off-road biking trailhead locations recommended by the Bureau of Archaeological Research, Division of Historical Resources, Florida Department of State, and edited by the UF.

5. Florida Greenways Model Off-Road Biking Trails.

This dataset contains off-road biking trails results from the Florida Greenways Model.

6. Florida Greenways Model Equestrian Trailheads.

This dataset contains equestrian trailhead locations recommended by the Bureau of Archaeological Research, Division of Historical Resources, Florida Department of State, and edited by the UF.

7. Florida Greenways Model Equestrian Trails.

This dataset contains equestrian trails results from Florida Greenways Model.

8. Florida Greenways Model Hiking Trailheads.

This dataset contains hiking trailhead locations recommended by the Bureau of Archaeological Research, Division of Historical Resources, Florida Department of State, and edited by the UF.

9. Florida Greenways Model Hiking Trails.

This dataset contains hiking trails results from the Florida Greenways Model.

10. Florida Greenways Model Multi-Use Trailheads.

This dataset contains multi-use trailhead locations recommended by the Bureau of Archaeological Research, Division of Historical Resources, Florida Department of State, and edited by the UF.

11. Florida Greenways Model Multi-Use Trails.

This data layer contains multi-use trails results from the Florida Greenways Model.

Model Results as Modified by Public Comment

Eleven datasets are contained on the accompanying CD-ROM within the Model Results as modified by Public Comment. The process used to derive them is clearly described in Section 4 and related appendices. The datasets are:

12. Ecological Results of the Florida Greenways GIS Decision Support Model As Modified by Public Comment

This dataset contains the Ecological Results of the Florida Greenways GIS Decision Support Model as modified by public comment.

13. Florida Greenways Model Multi-Use Trailheads modified by Public Comment.

This dataset contains multi-use trailhead locations recommended by the Bureau of Archaeological Research, Division of Historical Resources, Florida Department of State, and edited by the UF, DEP Office of Greenways and Trails, and Public

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Comment.

14. Florida Greenways Model Multi-Use Trails modified by Public Comment.

This data layer contains multi-use trails results from the Florida Greenways Model as modified by public comment.

15. Florida Greenways Model Equestrian Trailheads modified by Public Comment.

This dataset contains equestrian trailhead locations recommended by the Bureau of Archaeological Research, Division of Historical Resources, Florida Department of State, and edited by the UF, DEP Office of Greenways and Trails, and public comment.

16. Florida Greenways Model Equestrian Trails modified by Public Comment.

This dataset contains equestrian trails results from the Florida Greenways Model as modified by public comment.

17. Florida Greenways Model Hiking Trailheads modified by Public Comment.

This dataset contains hiking trailhead locations recommended by the Bureau of Archaeological Research, Division of Historical Resources, Florida Department of State, and edited by the UF, DEP Office of Greenways and Trails, and public comment.

18. Florida Greenways Model Hiking Trails modified by Public Comment.

This dataset contains hiking trails results from the Florida Greenways Model as modified by public comment.

19. Florida Greenways Model Off-Road Biking Trailheads modified by Public CommentThis dataset contains off-road biking trailhead locations recommended by the Bureau of Archaeological Research, Division of Historical Resources, Florida Department of State, and edited by the UF, DEP Office of Greenways and Trails, and public comment.

20. Florida Greenways Model Off-Road Biking Trails modified by Public Comment.

This dataset contains off-road biking trails results from the Florida Greenways Model as modified by public comment.

21. Florida Greenways Model Paddling Access Points (Trailheads).

This dataset contains paddling (canoe, kayak) locations recommended by the Florida Recreational Trails Council, and public comment.

22. Florida Greenways Model Paddling (Canoe, Kayak) Trails

GWPTR is a coverage of officially designated and opportunity or `paddleable' trails located in the State of Florida recommended by the Florida Recreational Trails Council and public comment.

Model Results as Modified by Public Comment and Landowner Comment

Five datasets are contained on the accompanying CD-ROM within the Model Results as modified by Public Comment and Landowner Comment. The process used to derive them is clearly described in Section 5 and related appendices. The datasets are:

23. Ecological Results of the Florida Greenways GIS Decision Support Model As Modified by Public and Landowner Comment

This dataset contains the Ecological Results of the Florida Greenways GIS Decision Support Model as modified by public and landowner comment as of 1-14-99.

24. Florida Greenways Model Multi-Use Trails with Private Landowner Comment.

This data layer contains multi-use trails results from the Florida Greenways Model as modified by public comment and amended by private landowner comment as of 1-14-99.

25. Florida Greenways Model Equestrian Trails with Private Landowner Comment.

This dataset contains equestrian trails results from the Florida Greenways Model as modified by public comment and amended by private landowner comment as of 1-14-99.

26. Florida Greenways Model Hiking Trails with Private Landowner Comment.

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This dataset contains hiking trails results from the Florida Greenways Model as modified by public comment and amended by private landowner comment as of 1-14-99.

27. Florida Greenways Model Off-Road Biking Trails with Private Landowner Comment.

This dataset contains off-road biking trails results from the Florida Greenways Model as modified by public comment and amended by private landowner comment as of 1-14-99.

Greenways Model Data Distribution

The data used in the model, the Model Results and the modified Model Results, will be available in June, 1999 through the Florida Geographic Data Library (FGDL). The FGDL is a mechanism for the distribution of GIS data and applications for technical and non-technical people alike. The data is distributed by county for $20.00 per CD-ROM or the entire state (67 CD-ROMs) for $1000.00. There are over 120 layers of data and imagery included in the FGDL.

The Greenways Model Results data will also be available as part of the Conservation Atlas, another product of the GeoPlan Center. The Atlas is a CD-ROM filled with information about Florida's environment, including historic, cultural, and educational information. Many statewide conservation and environmental GIS datasets are included on the CD-ROM. As of this report no price has been set for the Conservation Atlas or exact date of release determined.

The private landowner database is not available for distribution at the request of the landowners and in agreement with DEP.

For more information regarding the FGDL CD-ROMs or the Conservation Atlas, please use the following:

Web Address: http://www.geoplan.ufl.edu/projects/fgdl.htm

Email Address: fgdl@geoplan.ufl.edu

Voice Mail: 352-846-3125

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Section 7

Recommendations

Based on the knowledge gained by the Florida Statewide Greenways System Planning Project Team over the last four years of concerted effort in the promotion and definition of the Florida Greenways Program, we offer the following recommendations.

Creation of a Statewide Trails/Cultural-Historic Network

The Trails/Cultural-Historic Network identified through the Project is a master plan for including the largest and most significant features worthy of development and protection. If implemented it would afford Floridians and visitors the opportunity to move along trails systems from major city to major city and from those urban areas to sites of historic, cultural and ecological significance. Such a system would help fulfill the increasing demand for linear recreation and would support alternatives to vehicular transportation. When completed the Network would allow for north-south, east-west cross state trail use or for loop trail use at the regional scale. And of course individual segments of the Network could be used for day trips or for shorter outings.

The first step in implementation should be the development of an approach for prioritizing the projects to be undertaken. This will prove to be a highly complex task because not only will elements identified through this Project need to be included, but new projects promoted by local governments and/or user groups are certain to be proposed. Among the questions to be addressed through prioritization will be what projects should be first implemented and how available financial resources should be allocated. This includes allocation of funds for trail construction and for development/enhancement of trailheads, including significant cultural-historic sites.

While the determination of priorities should be carefully considered through the development of a process as described above, the UF considers the multi-use trails to have the greatest potential to serve a large segment of the population. Whether roller-bladers, bicyclists, hikers or equestrians all should be accommodated on the multi-use trails. And since many of the multi-use trails identified move into and out of large urban areas, many individuals will be available to take advantage of such resources. Placement of multi-use trails must be sensitively addressed. This is discussed in further detail in recommendations for Management of Conservation Areas and a Statewide Ecological Network below.

Given its national designation and its degree of completion, priority should also be given to completing the Hiking sub-Network, also known as the Florida National Scenic Trail.

Management of the Statewide Trails/Cultural-Historic Network

Every component of a Statewide Trails/Cultural-Historic Network will require maintenance and management. Determination of the parties responsible for these long-term obligations must be made early on. DEP should develop inter-governmental agreements with local and regional entities as they have in the case of the Cross Florida Greenway to address these issues. Sources of funding for maintenance and management must also be identified.

Conservation of a Statewide Ecological Network

The Ecological Network identified as part of the Florida Statewide Greenways process is another significant step towards protection of an integrated state reserve system that could effectively conserve Florida's biological diversity and other important natural resources. Previously, Larry Harris, Reed Noss and The Nature Conservancy had recommended linked reserve systems through knowledge of existing landscape and habitat conditions in Florida and expert mapping charrettes. Then, the Strategic Habitat Conservation Area analysis by the Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission provided a systematic identification of habitat areas needed to protect viable populations of vertebrate species and natural communities, and the natural areas identification by the Florida Natural Areas Inventory provided important baseline information for identifying priority areas for conservation. The progress represented by the design and execution of the Ecological Network delineation process is the integration of the above analyses and other pertinent data sets into a systematic landscape analysis of ecological significance and the identification of critical landscape linkages in a way that can be

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replicated, enhanced with new and updated data and applied at different scales. The identified Ecological Network connects and integrates existing conservation areas and unprotected areas of high ecological significance, and this information can be used in concert with other information on conservation priorities to develop a more integrated landscape protection strategy.

It is essential for the Ecological Network to be incorporated into the planning process for identifying areas to be added to acquisition/easement lists in future conservation land protection programs. We recommend the Florida Greenways and Trails Council and the Department of Environmental Protection prioritize potential landscape linkage and conservation corridor projects and develop recommendations for additions to the CARL list for the Land Acquisition and Management Advisory Council. To facilitate these efforts, we recommend the formation of an Ecological Network committee including representatives from the Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission, Florida Natural Areas Inventory, Department of Environmental Protection, the Water Management Districts, The Nature Conservancy, and other appropriate organizations with expertise in ecological lands evaluation to work with the FGTC to review and rank potential projects and to develop CARL proposals important for protecting a statewide Ecological Network.

After delineating the Ecological Network and working on a prioritization process, we feel confident that there are a set of landscape linkages and corridor projects that stand out as highest priorities. Subject to the willingness of key landowners, these include:

1) Ocala National forest to the Osceola National Forest-Pinhook Swamp-Okefenokee Wildlife Refuge Reserve complex

2) Big Cypress National Preserve to Avon Park Bombing Range via the Okaloacoochee Slough, Caloosahatchee Ecoscape CARL Project, and the Fisheating Creek and Charlie Creek watersheds

3) Steinhatchee River to Hickory Mound Wildlife Management Area

4) Eglin Air Force Base-Blackwater River State Forest

5) Tosahatchee State Reserve-Middle St. Johns River-Tiger Bay State Forest-Lake George SOR Project to the Ocala National Forest

6) Osceola National Forest-Suwannee River-Mallory Swamp-Steinhatchee River-San Pedro Bay-Econfina River

7) Cecil Webb Wildlife Management Area, Bighthour Ranch, Myakka State Park, and Peace River basin to the Green Swamp supported through a network of creek corridors including Shell, Prairie, Horse, Joshua, and Charlie Creeks.

8) Three Lakes Wildlife Management Area to the St. Johns River via the Osceola Pine Savannas and Ranch reserve CARL Projects.

9) Corbett Wildlife Management Area-Upper St. Johns River-Kissimmee Prairie State Preserve via ranchlands, swamps, and flatwoods in western St. Lucie and eastern Okeechobee Counties, and around Fort Drum and Yeehaw Junction.

10) Avon Park-Kissimmee River-Reedy Creek/Marion Creek-Davenport Creek-Green Swamp

11) Green Swamp-Withlacoochee River and State Forest-Chassahowitzka reserve complex

12) Chassahowitzka reserve complex-Crystal River-Gulf Hammock Wildlife Management Area-Goethe State Forest

13) Apalachicola National Forest-Juniper Creek-Sand Mountain/Econfina Creek

14) Sand Mountain-Choctawhatchee River-Eglin Air Force Base

15) Eglin Air Force Base-Escambia River-Perdido River

16) Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge-Corbett Wildlife Management Area

Although special opportunities for acquisition/protection could arise anywhere within the Ecological Network results, protection efforts should concentrate primarily on areas within the high priority results that are also in areas most threatened by development. To facilitate this comparison, a statewide analysis of development pressure is needed.

The identification, prioritization, and protection of a statewide Ecological Network must also be an iterative process that accounts for the availability of new data. It is important that the prioritization results be assessed within the context of future land use changes. Development patterns and other land use changes could cause areas currently within the high priority results to become less significant or unsuitable and other alternatives to become more significant. Also, new data, such as the additional work on Strategic Habitat Conservation Areas by the Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission, the results of the Federal Gap Analysis of Florida's biological diversity, and assessments by the Florida Natural Areas Inventory may indicate other areas of high ecological significance that should be considered in future iterations of the Ecological Network and prioritization. It is important that the work of the Office of Environmental Services of the Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission and Florida Natural Areas Inventory continues to be funded. Their biodiversity/wildlife inventory and analysis work is essential for making informed conservation decisions. These data were also the foundation for identifying the first iteration of a statewide Ecological Network and will continue to be important for modifying the results in the future.

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Finally, although we are confident the model results incorporate at least most of the elements of global and statewide significance that can contribute to protecting a statewide Ecological Network, we encourage the Florida Greenways and Trails and the Department of Environmental Protection to also promote the identification of regional and local areas of ecological significance that could be incorporated in regional and local ecological greenways. Regional and local ecological greenways could enhance the statewide Ecological Network or serve as important green infrastructure at finer scales.

Management of Conservation Areas and a Statewide Ecological Network

Two primary management issues will have to be addressed to ensure that conservation objectives are met as part of a statewide greenways program:

First, the issue of the compatibility of trails, especially large, multi-use trails, with conserving biological diversity and other natural resources has not been satisfactorily addressed. Certainly the issue of compatibility of trails with conservation objectives is a difficult one to deal with especially when it is important to have both conservation/environmental groups and recreation groups as supporters of the greenways program. However, controversy surrounding such projects as the Gainesville-Hawthorne Trail, the Hogtown Creek Greenway, and the multi-use trail traversing Wekiwa Springs State Park should serve as resounding indications that these issues should be dealt with aggressively to avoid and minimize future conflicts between interest groups and potentially disparate greenways system objectives. Trails and other recreation features must be planned carefully to avoid and minimize impacts whenever possible. The fact that all trails have at least some negative impacts (Colorado Trails and Wildlife Task Force 1998) should guide the trail planning and design process. Some conservation areas should not contain any type of recreational development because of the sensitivity of the resources found in some areas or important conservation objectives including the maintenance of undisturbed conditions within critical wildlife corridors. Multi-use trails should not be located within strictly managed conservation areas and should be limited to less sensitive areas in all other situations. We strongly recommend three resources that can be used to guide efforts to achieve compatibility:

Colorado Trails and Wildlife Task Force. 1998. Planning trails with wildlife in mind: a handbook for trail planners. Trails and Wildlife Task Force, Colorado State Parks, and Hellmund and Associates, 1998.

(which can be obtained from http://www.dnr.state.co.us/parks/ )

Cole, D. N. 1993. Minimizing conflict between recreation and nature conservation. Pages 105-122 in Smith, D. S., and P. C. Hellmund. Ecology of greenways: design and function of linear conservation areas. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.

Harris, L. D., and T. Hoctor. 1992. Report on biological issues. Volume IV in Cross Florida Greenbelt State Recreation and Conservation Area Management Plan, Florida Department of Natural Resources, Tallahassee, Florida.

Pages 153-157 contain recommendations for minimizing the impacts of recreational development.

Second, the management of conservation areas for compatibility with the ecological conservation functions associated with landscape linkages and conservation corridors is also an important issue that will have to be steadily addressed over long periods of time. In the ecological greenways modeling process, all existing conservation areas were assumed to be of equal significance. However, there are a vast number of conservation designations managed by federal, state, regional, local, and private entities with a wide range of management objectives and uses, and some are obviously more compatible with ecological conservation objectives such as the protection of a statewide Ecological Network. Potential problems in some conservation areas include high road densities, extractive uses, and intensive recreational uses. Though these conditions do not necessarily make such areas unsuitable to be a part of a statewide Ecological Network, the protection of core zones managed primarily for the conservation of biological diversity including core areas within landscape linkages and corridors protected from intensive uses is optimal. Though it may conflict with management objectives on some conservation areas and will often be difficult to implement, core areas should be protected as part of a statewide Ecological Network whenever possible (see Figure 7.1). In general, protection of a statewide Ecological Network will require significant cooperation between the multitude of agencies and organizations responsible for managing land within the greenways system, and all efforts should be made to develop effective methods for facilitating such cooperation. (The Arbuckle Working Group, organized to address issues of management across jurisdictional boundaries in the vicinity of Arbuckle State Forest might serve as a good model). This could include developing information on greenways design and protection plans; possibilities for funding and partnerships between federal, state, regional, and local entities; and the distribution of successful models of local greenways development and integration with other greenways and conservation plans.

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Figure 7.1: A model regional reserve network (Noss and Cooperrider, 1994).

Another management issue of the utmost significance is the relationship between the state's system of highways and other primary roads and a statewide Ecological Network. Florida contains many major highways and other high traffic primary roads that frequently intersect the Ecological Network. Significant progress towards mitigating the impacts of roads has been made, including the construction of wildlife underpasses along key roadkill hotspots for the Florida panther and Florida black bear and a comprehensive assessment of all potential interfaces between major roads and priority ecological conservation areas for future mitigation efforts. However, there is still a need to avoid major new road projects that would significantly impact important elements of the Ecological Network, and much more mitigation work needs to be done to make the road system more compatible with protection of a statewide Ecological Network. We recommend that the Florida Greenways and Trails Council and the Department of Environmental Protection continue to work closely with the Florida Department of Transportation to identify potential conflicts to avoid future impacts where possible and effectively mitigate impacts in all other situations.

State Conservation Plan

We cannot overstate the fact that the ecological greenways model results, or Ecological Network, does not represent a state conservation plan. Although the statewide Ecological Network would be an integral component of such a plan and contains the vast majority of lands that might be included, there are other areas that would need to be protected to meet conservation objectives. Specifically in regards to conserving biological diversity, important sites not included within the Ecological Network include pine rocklands in southeast Florida, scrub along the Lake Wales Ridge and coastal ridges, and various high quality sandhill and flatwoods tracts throughout the state. The Ecological Network modeling process emphasized the identification of large intact areas of high ecological significance that could be functionally connected. Therefore sites like those mentioned above were identified as having high ecological significance (PEAs) in the Ecological Network modeling

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process, but were not included in the final results because they were either small or isolated by intensive land uses. However, these sites are also necessary to effectively conserve Florida's biological diversity. Therefore, it should not be perceived that areas are not potentially important for conservation just because they were not included within the Ecological Network model results.

The identified Ecological Network connects and integrates existing conservation areas and unprotected areas of high ecological significance, and this information can be used in concert with other information on conservation priorities to develop a more integrated landscape protection strategy. We recommend that the Ecological Network model results be used in concert with Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission Strategic Habitat Conservation Areas; Florida Natural Areas Inventory data on element occurrences, Areas of Conservation Interest, and Potential Natural Areas; data from the Water Management Districts and CARL program; and any other pertinent information about significant ecological and natural resources to guide protection decisions and to develop an integrated statewide conservation plan. Such a conservation plan would identify all essential and desirable areas needed to protect the state's biological diversity and other critical natural resources. Though such a plan may cause concern among some groups, it can also provide much more certainty about what resources need to be protected, which would greatly enhance the compatibility of conservation objectives and development interests. Such benefits have been discussed in other conservation planning efforts, especially in the NCCP (Natural Communities Conservation Planning) process in southern California.

Data Maintenance

It is recommended that the Department of Environmental Protection continue to maintain the following datasets. Each of these datasets is of direct use to the Greenways and Trails program, but also has usefulness for other programs within the Department, for other state agencies and for local and regional agencies, as well. They may also be very useful to the general public.

Conservation Lands _ This dataset includes boundaries, "ownership", status (existing, proposed), type (National Parks, State Preserves, etc.) and other attributes useful for conservation planning. The UF, under contract to DEP, is currently maintaining this dataset. Florida Natural Areas Inventory is also maintaining a similar dataset. We recommend a state conservation lands dataset be maintained by FNAI with funding from DEP, providing biannual updates are supplied to the UF for greenways planning efforts and for inclusion in the Florida Geographic Data Library.

Trails _ This dataset contains alignments of trails, primarily of statewide significance, but with some of the more minor trails also included. Attribute information includes type and status. The UF is currently maintaining the dataset under contract with DEP. We recommend the dataset be maintained by a single entity (UF or some other group) with funding from DEP. We further recommend the dataset be distributed through the Florida Geographic Data Library.

Points of Interest _ This dataset contains locations of points of interest identified by type. The points are classified into 23 categories including transportation hubs, public parks, schools, museums and tourist attractions. These data are useful for recreation planning and all sorts of tourism. We recommend the dataset be maintained by a single entity (UF or some other group) with funding from DEP. A partnership for maintenance with Florida USA or some other tourism organization should be considered. We further recommend the dataset be distributed through the Florida Geographic Data Library.

Private Lands _ This dataset contains the boundaries of landholdings (greater than 50 acres) who have requested removal from greenways maps. The UF has created and maintained this dataset under contract with DEP. DEP has agreed with the private landowners, the boundaries will not be publicly distributed. We recommend the dataset be maintained by a single entity (UF or some other group) with funding from DEP. We further recommend the dataset be distributed among agencies (when requested for conservation planning purposes) by the same entity and a backup copy of the dataset be maintained at the UF's Geoplan Center.

Physical Plan for Statewide Greenways System _ As part of the UF's greenways planning work, three sets of results were produced: GIS Model Results, Model Results as Modified by Public Comment and Model Results as Modified by Public Comment and Landowner Comment. The UF is currently receiving funding from DEP to update the later two of these sets of results based on changes in existing and proposed public ownership ( new and proposed acquisitions through CARL, SOR, etc.). We recommend these two sets of results continue to be maintained by the UF Geoplan Center, who if funded, will continue to periodically run modeling updates. We further recommend the resulting datasets be distributed through the Florida Geographic Data Library.

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Designated Greenways _ A process for greenways designation is outlined in the Five Year Greenways Implementation Plan developed by DEP and the Florida Greenways Coordinating Council. Once the designation process is set in motion, it will be necessary to maintain a record of the lands designated as greenways. We recommend the dataset be maintained by a single entity (UF or some other group) with funding from DEP. We further recommend the dataset be distributed through the Florida Geographic Data Library.

Data Distribution

Distribution of data assembled and/or created as part of this project is essential for two reasons: 1) the public paid for the development of these data and they should have access to it, and 2) dissemination of accurate information should improve the quality of decisions made at every level of government. Two types of data distribution should be considered. First, there is distribution of GIS data layers. This includes the distribution of spatial data and the metadata to support them. The second type of data distribution is a graphic representation by popular themes. This form of distribution would be particularly useful for tourists and other recreational users. This might include points of interest, trails and conservation lands. Additional detail about these two types of data distribution follows.

Distribution of Data through the Florida Geographic Data Library _ Distribution of GIS data is already well underway through the Florida Geographic Data Library. Funding for FGDL has been provided by DEP and the Department of Transportation. We recommend DEP continue to assist in the funding of FGDL for organization and distribution of ancillary datasets useful for greenways planning.

Distribution of GIS Data by Popular Themes - The trails, conservation and points of interest datasets developed as part of the Greenways Project have great potential to support tourism. These data could be made available for viewing by the general public as part of an interactive web page. We recommend DEP explore a partnership with tourism entities to allow for on-line access of this information. This information could augment the work of other DEP divisions like Recreation and Parks.

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Section 8, Appendix 1 - The American Greenways Movement¹

Origins

"If there is a `father' of the modern greenways movement it is Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr. The designer of New York's Central Park and Brooklyn's Prospect Park as well as Boston's `Emerald Necklace', Olmsted originated the `park and parkway' idea. No single park, Olmsted believed, could provide people with all the beneficial influences of nature. Instead, parks should be linked to one another and to surrounding residential neighborhoods. Today's greenways movement evolved from that simple concept first stated over 130 years ago" (Florida Greenways Commission 1994, p. 8).

"Not all early greenways were urban. Benton MacKaye, a professional forester and planner, advocated greenways as a means of controlling metropolitan sprawl along the east coast of the United States. MacKaye is best known for promoting the idea of the Appalachian Trail. `MacKaye's prescription to stem what we now call urban sprawl was a `common public ground'' to serve as green boundaries designed to limit `metropolitanism' (Little, 1990, 18) . . . MacKaye was among others espousing regional planning and the use of greenways to connect and link urban dwellers with hinterland and rural heritage" (Starnes et al. 1997, pp. 306-307).

"Along with MacKaye and Olmsted, Ebenezer Howard, Raymond Unwin, Clarence Stein, Rex Tugwell, and other regional planners and new town proponents of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries made many contributions to the greenway idea. New towns, greenbelt towns, garden cities, and Henry Ford's concept of rural factories seemed to blend the affection for rural and agricultural life with an early interest in greenways" (Starnes et al. 1997, p. 307).

"Early planning and support for greenways were not limited to actions benefiting only human populations. More than 60 years ago the South African Wildlife Society recognized the importance of such connections to maintaining the continent's wildlife. By the 1960s, ecologists in the United States were also looking to wildlife corridors to help preserve biological diversity. Larry Harris (1995) maintains that decades of land development and increasing isolation of wildlife exacerbated the dilemma of species extinctions. Protection of wildlife corridors and linking them to large hubs of biodiversity are ways to counter the impact of habitat fragmentation. The environmental corridor concept, proposed by Philip Lewis, offers further support for an environmentally based greenways vision: `It is stream valleys, the bluffs and ridges, the roaring and quiet waters, mellow wetlands and sandy soils that combine in elongated designs, tying the land together in regional and statewide corridors of outstanding landscape quality' (Little 1990, 22)" (Starnes et al. 1997, p. 307).

The American Greenways Movement took off in 1987 with the enthusiastic recommendations of the President's Commission on Americans Outdoors, chaired by then Governor of Tennessee, Lamar Alexander:

"Our communities can create a network of greenways across the U.S.A.. . .along the rivers, wetlands, shorelines, and wildlife migration routes. . .along landscapes, trails, paths and parks. . . along old rail lines and utility corridors. . we can tie this country together with threads of green . . ."

"We have a vision for allowing every American access to the natural world: Greenways are fingers of green that reach out from and around and through communities all across America. . They will connect parks and forests and scenic countrysides, public and private, recreation corridors for hiking, jogging, wildlife movement, horse and bicycle riding. . . greenways will link our communities coast to coast, from sea to shining sea."

Patrick Noonan, the founder of The Conservation Fund and a member of the President's Commission on Americans Outdoors, created The Fund's American Greenways Program shortly thereafter. Its purpose was to promote greenways and greenways systems and to assist public and private entities at the state, regional and local level in greenways planning and implementation.

"Whether it is for urban design, recreation, economic development, environmental protection, or a combination of these, linkage is the common principle of the greenway idea" (Starnes et al. 1997, p. 307) - "linking natural areas and recreational corridors, conservationists and recreationists with urban dwellers, and neighborhoods and towns with cities and people of all colors and stations - not just in the use of greenways but in the making of them" (Florida Greenways Commission 1994, 8).

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The Greenways Movement Today

Numerous and diverse greenways initiatives are currently underway in the United States. Programs, involving both ecological and recreational greenways created as stand-alone greenways or as parts of larger systems, include:

· Statewide greenways programs now in place or in the planning stage in Florida, Maryland, Delaware, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Texas.

· Sub-state regional greenways programs occurring all over the country, including in the Hudson River Valley of New York, the Willamette River Valley of Oregon, northeast Illinois, south Georgia and many locations in Florida.

· City and community-based greenways programs found in communities throughout the U.S. including Chattanooga, Tennessee, Flagstaff, Arizona, Boulder, Colorado, Portland, Oregon, Seattle, Washington, Raleigh, North Carolina and in over 100 different municipalities in Florida.

· International greenways programs currently being planned and implemented including the Paseo Pantera project, a continuous biological corridor linking national parks and conservation areas in Central America; and the Pan European Ecological Network ("Econet"), currently being planned by the European Center for Nature Conservation to encompass all 18 countries within the European Union.

These and many other programs occurring across the United States and the world show that the greenways movement is growing daily in popularity and successes. Further information may be found in the Bibliography developed as part of this Project and submitted in the Phase I Final Report.

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Section 8, Appendix 2 - History of Florida Statewide Greenways Initiative

Precursors - Players and Programs

Although the Florida Greenways Program was not formally created until 1991, critical foundations for the statewide greenways initiative were already in place by that time. The rapid development and the successes of the statewide program to date would not have been possible without a number of key resource conservation and outdoor recreation programs and participants that together represent the precursors of Florida' statewide greenways movement.

Florida's Conservation and Recreation Land Acquisition Programs. With nearly 8 million acres of conservation land in public ownership and an additional 2.5 million acres proposed for purchase by federal, state, water management district and local programs, Florida is an acknowledged national leader in conservation land acquisition. These valuable resource areas, which are forming the cornerstones for the development of Florida's Statewide Greenways System, have been protected through a number of innovative land acquisition programs that started over two and a half decades ago including:

· Land Acquisition Trust Fund (LATF) - established by the Legislature in 1963, the LATF program was funded by a 5% tax on outdoor recreation clothing and generated an average of about $1.5 million per year (Pritchard and Kale 1994, p. 27).

· Land Acquisition Trust Fund (LATF) - modified by the Legislature in 1968, the LATF program received annual income averaging $1 million from documentary stamps and $20 million from a one-time bond issue (Pritchard and Kale 1994, p. 27).

· Environmentally Endangered Lands (EEL) Program - created in 1972 with the passage of the Land Conservation Act, $200 million worth of bonds were sold to finance the acquisition of environmentally endangered lands (EEL bonds) and $40 million worth of bonds were sold to purchase outdoor recreation lands (Pritchard and Kale 1994, p. 27).

· Conservation and Recreation Lands (CARL) Program - replacing the EEL program in 1979 with the passage of the Conservation and Recreation Lands Act, the CARL program provided $15 to $40 million annually through a severance tax on mineral deposits (Pritchard and Kale 1994, p. 27).

· Save Our Coast (SOC) Program - created in 1981, the SOC program was financed by $275 million worth of bonds with the debt service funded by a percentage of the LATF (Pritchard and Kale 1994, p. 27).

· Save Our Rivers (SOR) Program - also created by the Legislature in 1981, the SOR program was funded with $30 to $40 million annually from the sale of documentary stamps (Pritchard and Kale 1994, p. 27).

· Conservation and Recreation Lands (CARL) Program - authorizing CARL bonds in 1987, the Legislature switched base funding for the CARL program to an average of $40 million per year from documentary stamps, about $10 million per year from the phosphate severance tax and up to $200 million per year from CARL bonding authority (Pritchard and Kale 1994, p. 27).

· Preservation 2000 (P2000) Program - created in 1990 with the passage of the Preservation 2000 Act, the Legislature also authorized $300 million funding for the first year of the program. P2000 is a ten year $3 billion program with funding authorized on an annual basis (Pritchard and Kale 1994, p. 27). The annual authorization of $300 million is split between the CARL program (50%), the Save Our Rivers Program (30%), the Florida Communities Trust (10%) and Inholdings and Additions of Parks, Forests and Wildlife Areas, Greenways and Trails (10%).

This high level of funding for conservation land acquisition over the past two decades has made a significant contribution to the protection of Florida's native ecosystems and landscapes. Add to those funds nearly $700 million from 21 community-based environmental land acquisition programs, conservation and recreation lands already in public ownership (including important large federal land holdings such as Everglades National Park, Big Cypress National Preserve, the three National Forests and several large military sites), the Florida Department of Transportation's ISTEA funding, and numerous public and private efforts to provide trails and other human use opportunities, and Florida stands out in the United States as realistically having the ability to create an integrated, statewide system of protected natural areas and greenways (Florida Greenways Commission 1994, p. 71).

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The Florida Trail. The Florida Trail represents a first step in statewide trails planning for Florida. The planning and construction of the Florida Trail, which serves as the backbone of the statewide trails system, grew out of the efforts of James Kern who, in 1966, founded the Florida Trail Association (FTA) to create hiking and backpacking opportunities in Florida. The FTA grew rapidly since it was formed and today has over 6000 members with an active Board of Directors and staff working out of Gainesville, Florida. One of FTA's main objectives has been to build a continuous hiking trail that will one day run 1300 miles from Gulf Islands National Seashore in West Florida to the Big Cypress National Preserve in South Florida. To advance the building of the statewide trail, the FTA, in the mid 1970s, initiated the creation of the Florida National Scenic Trail (FNST) through the Florida Congressional Delegation. The FNST was officially designated by Public Law 98-11 on March 28, 1983. The U.S. Forest Service completed a comprehensive plan for the trail in 1985. As described in the designation legislation, the FNST will ultimately provide a permanent extended non-motorized outdoor recreation opportunity for hiking and other compatible activities. The Trail will emphasize nationally significant scenic, historic, natural and cultural features. (U.S.D.A. Forest Service, 1985)

The Florida Recreational Trails System. The Florida Recreational Trails System, which was initially created by the Legislature in 1979, provides an essential legal and organizational framework for the recreational elements of today's Statewide Greenways System. The Florida Recreational Trails Act and its Florida Administrative Code rules, both of which have been amended a number of times since first written, set forth the goals of the statewide trails system and established procedures for its administration and management. Two aspects of the statewide system that are particularly relevant to the design and implementation of Florida's Statewide Greenways System are described in the system's rules. The rules specify the procedures to be used for the review and approval of trail acquisition projects as well as the selection and designation of trails as part of the statewide trails system. In addition, the rules provide the administrative structure for the Florida Recreational Trails Council and establishes their duties and responsibilities which are "advising the Department [of Environmental Protection] in the development of policies for the state trails system, reviewing plans for the administration and management of the state trails system, and assisting with the development of information materials and programs about the state trails system".

Statewide Habitat Conservation System. Today's concept of creating an integrated habitat conservation system for Florida grew out of work initiated in the 1980s to comprehensively plan for the protection of the state's irreplaceable habitat for native wildlife. Dr. Larry Harris of the University of Florida has played an ongoing and instrumental role in describing the ecological basis for the statewide system and highlighting specific project sites across the state where protected ecological linkages would compound the benefit and long-term viability of existing conservation lands. Dr. Harris' lead scientific role in promoting landscape linkages and integrated habitat systems in Florida and worldwide can be traced back to his pioneering book, The Fragmented Forest: Island Biogeography Theory and the Preservation of Biotic Diversity, which was published in 1984. Dr. Harris presented his thoughts on a statewide strategy for wildlife conservation in the November 1985 issue of ENFO, a periodic publication of the Florida Conservation Foundation. In his article, "Conservation Corridors - A Highway System for Wildlife", Dr. Harris not only provided the scientific rationale for conservation corridors as parts of an integrated habitat system, but he also presented specific steps he considered essential to a statewide wildlife conservation strategy. Since that time, Dr. Harris and his students have continued to provide scientific support for and technical assistance in the planning of integrated conservation systems in Florida and elsewhere. Most recently, Dr. Harris' knowledge and participation on the Florida Greenways Commission provided the ecological foundation for Florida's Statewide Greenways System.

Statewide Conservation Planning. Numerous other individuals, including scientists, resource management professionals and environmental advocates, have played a critical role since the mid-1980s, in programs and projects that have contributed to the current statewide conservation planning effort. In two conferences, sponsored by the Florida Conservation Foundation in December 1985 and April 1986, a diversity of participants gathered to discuss the many aspects associated with the creation of a statewide wildlife habitat system. Conference discussion topics included the biological basis for corridors; the need for buffers; legal, political and financial mechanisms; choosing preserves and connecting links; and landowners role in a state habitat system. By identifying key issues and presenting a conceptual framework for a statewide ecological network, these conferences played an important role in the origin of the Florida's greenways initiative.

Critical statewide natural areas and native wildlife research has continued to the present day. At the forefront of these efforts is the work of the Florida Natural Areas Inventory and the Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission. The Florida Natural Areas Inventory (FNAI) was created in 1981 as a cooperative effort of The Nature Conservancy and the Florida Department of Natural Resources. Serving as a part of The Conservancy's nationwide natural heritage network, FNAI has spent the last 16 years amassing an impressive amount of data on Florida's native plants and animals. Detailed map files, manual files and computerized databases contain a large amount of information on the status and distribution of

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Florida's natural communities, rare and endangered plants and animals, bird rookeries, geological sites and other natural features. With funding from the CARL Trust Fund and based on airphoto analysis, field surveys and facilitated workshops, FNAI has, in recent years compiled information on sites of biological conservation importance remaining outside of today's protected natural areas. These "Areas of Conservation Interest and Potential Natural Areas", which continue to be verified and updated by FNAI staff, represent crucial information on additional lands that should be protected by some means to ensure the viability of Florida's native plants, animals and communities.

Since the mid-1980s, the Florida Game and Freshwater Fish Commission has been providing statewide and site-specific data to support the management and long-term protection of the State's native fish and wildlife resources. With funding through the Non-Game Wildlife Program, which was legislatively mandated in 1984, Commission staff from the Office of Environmental Services have collected information critical to the long-term viability of Florida's biological diversity. Detailed species surveys and geographic analysis that started in 1989 culminated in 1994 with the release of Closing the Gaps in Florida's Wildlife Habitat Conservation System. Not only did this important report contain recommended actions to meet minimum conservation goals for declining wildlife species and rare plant and animal communities, but it also contained extensive information on Florida's native habitats; regional biodiversity hot spots and Strategic Habitat Conservation Areas that met minimum conservation goals for 30 targeted wildlife species; and a wide array of other important natural features.

At the urging of the state's river conservationists and the Florida Chapter of American Rivers, the Florida Department of Natural Resources initiated an assessment of Florida's rivers in the late 1980s. Their objective was to conduct a systematic inventory of the natural, cultural and recreational values of Florida's rivers and identify river management needs, problems and issues. With funding from the state and the National Park Service Rivers, Trails and Conservation Assistance Program, the river assessment was undertaken by the Florida Resources and Environmental Analysis Center of Florida State University working closely with a multi-sector citizen advisory committee. Published in 1989, the Florida Rivers Assessment provides a summary of the analysis with conclusions as well as citizen recommendations for river management. In addition, the report contains a detailed assessment for 50 of Florida's major rivers including a section on each river's resources and management needs. This report provided the first comprehensive assessment and analysis of Florida's major rivers and has proven to be a valuable source of information for the planning of greenways system elements incorporating Florida's invaluable river resources.

Another statewide program that has contributed to the resource planning and management base for Florida's Statewide Greenways System is the Florida Coastal Management Program. The Program was initiated in 1978 with the passage of the Florida Coastal Management Act by the Legislature. Approved by the U.S. Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in 1981, the Florida Coastal Management Program provides for the coordinated management of coastal resources planning and development activities through existing state statutes. Under the Program, the state's coastal management agency (now the Florida Department of Community Affairs) also reviews and distributes federally funded coastal implementation grants and acts as a clearinghouse for coastal resource information. In addition, the lead agency works closely with the Governor's Coastal Resources Citizens Advisory Committee to provide a forum for public participation by citizens and coastal user groups. Florida's Coastal Management Program has great potential for a continued presence and contribution to the System, particularly in the planning and long-term management of system elements involving coastal zone resources and associated public use activities.

Statewide Conservation and Recreational Mapping Charrettes. The preparation of maps identifying existing and potential conservation and recreation lands is a useful tool to build consensus between diverse groups and to develop shared visions for the future. Mapping charrettes have been used in Florida since the early 1970s as a tool for statewide and regional conservation and recreation planning. (These included the Red Flag Charrette, sponsored in the early 1970s by Florida Defenders of the Environment and the University of Florida.) The concept is simple: invite individuals, with conservation and/or recreation expertise or hands-on experience in different areas of the state, to a central location where they and their colleagues are asked to record their knowledge on a common base map and accompanying data sheets. The result, after one or two days of intensive work, is a map depicting a shared "blueprint" for potential action. An additional result of mapping charrettes is the creation of new professional relationships that can lead to better coordination of ongoing state, regional and local conservation and/or recreational entities that together could make the action blueprint a reality.

The Preservation 2000 Map Charrette, held on January 23 and 24, 1991, played a key role in setting the stage for Florida's statewide greenways initiative. Hosted by the Florida Chapter of The Nature Conservancy, the Florida Audubon Society and the Florida Department of Natural Resources, a group of 40 experts in ecology, botany, zoology, geology, hydrology and land planning and management were invited to Tallahassee to identify their priority ecological resource conservation areas for Florida. The results of the two-day workshop was the preparation of the Preservation 2000 Charrette Map. In addition to

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depicting existing Federal, state, regional, local and private conservation lands, the map identified priority lands recommended for acquisition under P2000 as well as broad areas of conservation interest, not proposed for direct acquisition but considered important for the movement of species and the maintenance of biological diversity and important ecological processes. Taken together, the results of the P2000 Map Charrette, defined, for the first time, important ecological parameters for a statewide conservation system consisting of large ecological hubs and broad landscape linkages following the state's rivers and coastlines and crossing the state's interior uplands. The 1991 charrette was followed, during the next few years, by a number of regional land acquisition planning workshops hosted by the CARL Program with assistance provided by the Florida Natural Areas Inventory, the Game Commission's Office of Environmental Services and Florida's water management districts and regional planning councils. These regional workshops provided much additional useful information for updating the statewide concept and coordinating ongoing conservation land acquisition activities.

While Florida conservationists have advocated the assembly of a statewide wildlife habitat system since the early 1980s, Florida's recreational groups have for the most part worked independently on their own agendas with only minimal coordination with other recreational groups or conservation organizations. In March 1992, 1000 Friends and The Fund, in cooperation with the Florida Recreational Trails Council, the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, the Trust for Public Land, American Rivers, the Nature Conservancy and the Florida Department of Natural Resources' Division of Recreation and Parks, hosted a Recreational Users of Greenways Roundtable at the University of Florida. The purpose of the roundtable was to promote better coordination between conservation and recreation organizations and to explore the concept of creating a statewide network of green that would incorporate both conservation and recreation elements. To complement the P2000 Charrette mapping effort, the 61 participants at the Recreational Users Roundtable recommended that a statewide recreational greenways map be prepared to serve as an overlay to the Preservation 2000 Charrette Map.

1000 Friends and The Fund held two recreational mapping workshops in the summer of 1992 to prepare a statewide recreational greenways map. The first recreational greenways mapping workshop was held in May 1992 at Withlacoochee State Forest. The workshop, which focused on mapping trail and greenways opportunities statewide on a 1:150,000 USGS map of Florida, was held during a meeting of the Florida Recreational Trails Council. Participants included representatives from government agencies involved in trail activities and from Florida's major trail user groups. The second workshop was held in June 1992 at Wekiva Springs State Park. The workshop, which focused on compiling more detailed region-by-region site-specific information, was attended by 35 individuals representing statewide, regional and local biking, hiking, canoeing/kayaking and horseback riding trail groups. Following introductory remarks, attendees broke out into nine geographic regions to transfer trails and greenways information onto 1:150,000 scale base maps from the DeLorme Florida Atlas and Gazetteer (1989). As was the case with the results from the P2000 Mapping Charrette, the results of both 1992 recreational greenways workshops were compiled to create a Statewide Recreational Greenways Map that was hand-drawn over a 1:150,000 USGS map. Both the statewide conservation and recreational greenways maps were ultimately digitized and incorporated into the University of Florida's statewide conservation lands and trails GIS database.

Regional Conservation and Recreational Planning Projects. . In addition to statewide efforts, numerous regional conservation and recreation planning projects in the late 1980s and early 1990s contributed to the form and approach of the statewide initiative including:

· Cross Florida Greenway - The Cross Florida Greenway was originally envisioned in Federal legislation, passed in 1990, that set out the process for de-authorizing the old Cross Florida Barge Canal and transferring previously acquired lands back to the state. The legislation specifically required the state to prepare a management plan that would open the 110 mile long, 77,000 acre corridor to the public for conservation and compatible recreational activities. In 1991 the state created a 20-member Canal Lands Advisory Committee (CLAC) to advise the Governor and Cabinet on the preparation of a management plan for the Cross Florida Greenway. The management plan, which was prepared over a 2-year period by the University of Florida working in conjunction with the Department of Natural Resources and CLAC, was reviewed by the Governor and Cabinet in fall, 1992 and the Legislature in spring, 1993. Although this planning effort focused on a cross section of north Central Florida from Palatka on the St. Johns River to Inglis on the Gulf of Mexico, the conservation and recreation issues and solutions identified during the planning process were directly applicable to greenways planning efforts across the state. In addition, the Cross Florida Greenways will also be a critical component and linkage within Florida's Statewide Greenways System.

· Integrated Habitat Network - Initiated by the Department of Natural Resources Bureau of Mine Reclamation and the Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission in the early 1990s, the Integrated Habitat Network (IHN) is a comprehensive landscape plan for the five-county phosphate mining district of west central Florida. Designed to protect regional water resources, balance intensive and non-intensive land uses and restore or protect critical native plant and animal

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communities, the IHN is an excellent example of a conservation planning approach, that when completed, could result in the creation of an integrated conservation system for one region of Florida. This project continues to provide a good case study for public and private entities working together to accomplish effective, integrated landscape planning that will benefit both future residents, visitors and native wildlife species.

Community-based Greenways Initiatives. Although focused on smaller geographic areas, local greenways initiatives occurring in the late 1980s and the early 1990s identified issues that helped shape the statewide program and emphasized the need to provide support for community-based implementation. Three early community-based efforts stand out:

· Gainesville Greenways System - Gainesville was one of the first communities in Florida to develop a vision and plan for a city-wide greenways system. The concept for a Gainesville Greenways System, formalized in the early 1990s during the preparation of the City's new comprehensive plan, identifies conservation and recreation hubs connected by stream-based conservation corridors, recreational trails built on abandoned rail lines and tree-lined byways. The Gainesville Hawthorne Rail-Trail and the Hogtown Creek Greenway, which represent two important elements in the city-wide system, also identified the differences of opinions, active debates and high levels of emotions that can accompany local greenways planning and implementation efforts.

· Hillsborough County and Palm Beach County - Active in greenways planning and implementation since the late 1980s, Hillsborough and Palm Beach counties remain leaders in county-wide greenways initiatives. In Hillsborough County, one of the first local governments to pass a referendum setting up a fund to purchase important local conservation lands, local greenways efforts focused initially on the protection of the Hillsborough River corridor. In addition to ongoing efforts to protect a river-based conservation system centered on the Hillsborough, Alafia and Little Manatee Rivers, the county has now embarked on a comprehensive greenways plan linking conservation and recreation elements into an integrated greenways system that will benefit the county's wildlife, residents and visitors. Although their conservation land acquisition program started more recently, Palm Beach County rivals Hillsborough County in the level and success of their conservation and recreation planning activities. Following the identification of critical environmental lands through a survey conducted in the late 80s, Palm Beach County embarked on an aggressive land buying program focused on the protection of core conservation sites and wildlife corridors that connect them. In addition, the development of a county-wide Linked Open Space Plan, as one part of the local comprehensive planning effort, went a long way toward integrating both conservation linkages and recreation corridors into a unified greenways system.

Florida Greenways Program

Eight years ago, Florida embarked on a new initiative to create a statewide system of greenways for the benefit of the state's people, native wildlife and natural environments. Under this initiative, countless numbers of individuals have been working together to link-up:

· the on - the - ground ecological, trails, and cultural / historic components of a Statewide Greenways System;

· the diverse tools and techniques available to implement a Statewide System; and, perhaps most important,

· the people and organizations critical to the ultimate success of the System and the statewide Program.

To date, Florida has made great progress toward the goal of creating a Statewide Greenways System, a green infrastructure which, in the words of Lt. Governor Buddy MacKay, should be well planned and as well funded as our state's built infrastructure.

Origin - - 1000 Friends of Florida and The Conservation Fund. The Florida Greenways Program began in early 1991 as the Florida Greenways Project, a cooperative effort of 1000 Friends of Florida, a statewide growth management advocacy group, and The Conservation Fund, a national nonprofit focused on finding innovative solutions to land and water conservation issues. The Program goal was to create a vision and framework for a Statewide Greenways System that would be built upon Florida's impressive conservation lands acquisition and outdoor recreation programs as well as the ongoing work of community-based and statewide citizen groups, the private sector, and local, regional and state agencies. The planning target for the four-year Program was 1995, the year of Florida's Sesquicentennial Celebration. By that time, 1000 Friends and The Fund planned to bring the greenways movement in Florida to a point of broad-based statewide understanding and acceptance with the initiation of widespread local, regional and state action to undertake greenways and greenways system projects across Florida and the formulation of a state program framework to support diverse public and private greenways initiatives.

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The statewide Program was run out of the Florida Greenways Office located at 1000 Friends in Tallahassee. The role of the office was: (1) to advocate the creation of integrated greenways systems at the state, regional and local levels; (2) to help coordinate and provide a focus for both public and private greenways efforts, bringing together people with common interests; (3) to consult with and advise public agencies, nonprofits, and private entities on their efforts to plan for and implement specific greenways projects; (4) to serve as a clearinghouse for greenways information and techniques; and (5) to advance statewide greenways awareness, provide educational materials and catalyze citizen involvement. During its four years of existence at 1000 Friends, the Program 's primary planning and implementation mechanism was the setting up and facilitating of statewide, regional and local forums designed to bring together the diverse players critical to making greenways and greenways systems a reality. During this time, the Program also served as an umbrella organization coordinating a uniform statewide vision for greenways while working to link organizations and individuals involved in greenways planning statewide.

The first activity of the Program was to conduct a scoping study that: (1) investigated existing resources that could contribute to state greenways planning and identified gaps in available planning data; (2) evaluated potential cooperators in state and local government, the private sector, and the conservation and recreation communities; (3) produced educational materials to convey the importance of greenways protection to Florida's citizens; and (4) produced a tactical plan for statewide and community greenways efforts. The program's four-year tactical plan outlined specific goals, objectives, tasks and timelines embedded in four program areas:

· Program Area 1 - Program Planning and Implementation. The primary goal for this program area was to formulate statewide principles and develop public policies to guide the creation of Florida's Statewide Greenways System.. Its objectives included compiling and computerizing Program data; identifying Program issues and formulating statewide greenways principles; creating a broad-based constituency for greenways in Florida; developing shared greenways system visions and priorities on a statewide and regional level; preparing a strategic program for Florida's greenways system; formulating a greenways program implementation agenda; and initiating legislative and administrative actions to implement the Program .

· Program Area 2 - Program Case Studies and Prototypes. The goal of this program area was to undertake prototype and other research projects at the regional and local levels in order to demonstrate how to plan and implement greenways and greenways systems. Its objectives included identifying and documenting Florida Greenways case studies; participating in planning and implementing the Cross Florida Greenway; and undertaking greenways network prototype projects.

· Program Area 3 - Program Education and Involvement. The goal of this program area was, through education activities, to heighten awareness and increase the involvement of citizens and professionals in planning for and implementing greenways initiatives. Its objectives included developing Florida Greenways communication tools; planning and undertaking Florida Greenways events and other activities and preparing Florida Greenways education/action materials.

· Program Area 4 - Program Management and Financing. This program area's goal was to obtain the human and fiscal capital necessary to run Florida Greenways in an efficient and effective manner. Its objectives included setting up and managing a Florida Greenways Office at 1000 Friends in Tallahassee; creating and administering Florida Greenways advisory committees and working groups; and formulating and pursuing an active Program funding strategy.

Over its four years of existence, the Program made substantial progress in meeting the goals and objectives for each of its four program areas, through both the direct actions of its staff and the work of the Commission that it helped to create and manage. During this period, the Program contributed significantly to the statewide greenways initiative in many ways.

The Fund and 1000 Friends raised substantial monies to support program activities from private foundations and other sources including the Surdna Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Elizabeth Ordway Dunn Foundation, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and the American Express Foundation. This effort sustained the statewide initiative predominantly through private funding from 1991 through 1993. In 1994 and 1995, 1000 Friends secured public funding for the Commission and its activities through the Florida Department of Transportation's ISTEA Enhancement Program. With money from these diverse funding sources, the Program was able to provide professional staffing and other means of support for a diversity of greenways activities between 1991 and 1995.

The Program also succeeded in getting the word out about greenways. It designed and distributed a series of factsheets about greenways issues and projects and kept Program participants informed through the preparation of a quarterly news

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letter. It sponsored a number of workshops and roundtables relating to greenways and trails planning and participated in the design and hosting of community greenways recognition events in association with "150 Greenways Across Florida", which was the Commission's public awareness events for the state's sesquicentennial celebration.

To explore community greenways and greenways system planning and implementation techniques and issues, the Program also sought and received funding to facilitate the following four prototype projects:

· the Loxahatchee Greenways Project in north Palm Beach and South Martin counties focused on creating a regional greenways system by connecting large natural areas including Jonathan Dickinson State Park, Corbett Wildlife Management Area, DuPuis Reserve, the Loxahatchee River and Slough and the West Palm Beach Water Catchment Area. This prototype project was funded by a contract between the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and The Conservation Fund.

· the Suncoast Greenways Project in Hillsborough and Polk counties focused on creating a river-based conservation and trails system incorporating the floodplains and tributaries of the Hillsborough, Alafia, Little Manatee and Peace rivers. The project was funded by a challenge grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and matching funds from Hillsborough County, DEP, CF Industries, Cargill Fertilizer, Inc., and the West Coast Regional Water Supply Authority.

· the Apalachee Greenways Project, in the six-county region surrounding Tallahassee, focused on creating a greenways system centered on the Ochlockonee, Sopchoppy, Wakulla, St. Marks, Wacissa and Aucilla Rivers and linking major regional green areas including the Apalachicola National Forest, the St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge and the Red Hills Region. The project involved numerous partners including the Red Hills Conservation Association and the Apalachee Land Conservancy and was funded by the Elizabeth Ordway Dunn Foundation, Waste Management Inc. - Florida Group, the Northwest Florida Water Management District and the Florida Coastal Management Program.

· The Broward Blueways Project focused on resource restoration and citizen involvement and education in the intensely developed area of Ft. Lauderdale. The project, which centered on the New River, the Intercoastal Waterway and the South Florida Water Management District's canal system, was funded by Broward County, the South Florida Water Management District and a number of local private foundations.

The most significant accomplishment directly resulting from the work of the Florida Greenways Program was the creation of the Florida Greenways Commission by Governor Lawton Chiles in 1993. Not only did the Program advocate and help prepare the initial framework for the Commission, but its staff provided lead professional and administrative support for all Commission activities and products from its creation until its replacement, in late 1995, by the Legislatively-created Florida Greenways Coordinating Council.

Florida Greenways Commission

Origin. The Florida Greenways Commission was a direct outgrowth of the Florida Greenways Program. In July 1992, 1000 Friends and The Fund proposed the creation of the Commission during a meeting with Lt. Governor Buddy MacKay. The Lt. Governor responded enthusiastically and asked the groups to return with a draft Executive Order and a potential list of Commission membership categories with suggested Commission appointees for each. The details of the Commission, its responsibilities and its time frame were worked out in subsequent meetings with the Lt. Governor and his staff during the fall of 1992. During these meetings it was also agreed that 1000 Friends and The Fund would take the lead in raising funds for the Commission's work and in providing technical and administrative support for the Commission's activities. The end result of this effort was the Lt. Governor's recommendation to Governor Chiles that the Commission be formally created.

The Commission was created by an Executive Order signed by Governor Lawton Chiles in early 1993. The Executive Order created the Commission for a three year period (1993-1995) with the goal "to promote the creation of a linked network of greenways and greenspaces across Florida that will benefit the state's citizens, native wildlife and environment".

Membership. The 40 member Commission was set up to serve as a statewide forum bringing together the diverse interests necessary to plan and advocate a statewide greenways vision. In creating the Commission, Governor Chiles named Lt. Governor Buddy MacKay its chair and Nathaniel Reed, its vice chair. In the fall of 1994 Lt. Governor MacKay added Virginia Wetherell, Secretary of DEP, as a second vice chair. Commission members represented a wide variety of interests from across the state, including conservation and the environment, recreation, business and development, forestry and agriculture, education and the general public. In addition it contained representatives from state agencies, each of Florida's

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five water management districts, a regional planning council and a local government. The Commission's appointed Executive Director was Dr. Mark Benedict who also served as the Director of the Florida Greenways Program.

Charge. The Governor charged the Commission with:

· assessing the current status of greenways activities within federal, state, regional and local government agencies and private organizations;

· developing a state agency framework to support community greenways initiatives and promote interagency greenways activities;

· identifying statewide greenways issues and goals, and drafting recommended actions for meeting them; and

· holding workshops to get input from citizens and elected officials.

Mission and Work Plan. The mission adopted by the Commission was to "plan and support a statewide system of greenways linking natural areas and open spaces to benefit Floridians today and in generations to come". The Commission's work plan included a diversity of activities between its first meeting in the spring of 1993 and its last meeting in fall of 1995. The work plan was divided into four phases.

Phase I, May to September 1993, focused on the organization and education of Commission members. During this phase Commission members learned about greenways functions and benefits through a series of presentations on national and in-state case studies and identified greenways issues and the roles and functions of greenways partners. A highlight of this phase was the National Greenways Roundtable held in June 1993 in Dowling Park. Hosted by 1000 Friends, The Fund and the National Park Service Rivers Trails and Conservation Assistance Program, the Roundtable brought together 30 greenways leaders from around the country to identify common elements of successful greenways and generate guidelines for a range of greenways issues. Roundtable attendees shared their results and recommendations with the Commission at its June 1993 meeting.

Phase II, September 1993 to July 1994, focused on the assessment and analysis of priority issues associated with the planning and implementation of greenways and greenways systems. Four working committees were created at the start of this phase: Program Integration, Community Action, Greenways Mapping and Identification and Partners Awareness and Involvement. Each committee met during the Commission's September 1993 meeting to draft the committee's charge, identify key issues and associated work products and establish an administrative structure and time table for committee activities. Following the endorsement of each committee's work plan by the full Commission, each committee met through fall 93 and spring 94 to research their priority issues and discuss recommended courses of action.

Committee activities in Phase III, July to December 1994, focused on drafting recommendations and explanatory text for review by the full Commission. During August and September 1994, Commission staff combined background sections and each committee's work products into a first draft of the Commission's report. Commission recommendations were reviewed during five public hearings held around the state in late September and early October. Following a review of public comment and the building of final consensus on the best ways to plan and promote a Statewide Greenways System for Florida, the Commission unanimously adopted their Report and delivered it to the Governor on December 15.

The Commission's December 1994 Report to the Governor. The result of the Commission's work in 1993 and 1994 was the preparation of a Report entitled Creating a Statewide Greenways System: for People. . . for Wildlife. . . for Florida. The report presented the Commission's vision and a concept diagram for the Florida Greenways System. It also contained over 200 specific recommendations on the creation of the Florida Greenways System and the form and function of a statewide Florida Greenways Program. The recommendations were organized under 30 strategies within the following seven goals: Creating an Institutional Framework; Creating and Managing Community Greenways; Conserving Native Ecosystems and Landscapes; Conserving Urban Open Spaces, Working Landscapes, Historic Sites, and Cultural Resources; Providing Access to Florida's System of Greenways; Educating and Involving the Public; and Funding Florida's Statewide Greenways System. In addition, the Report contained data tables and maps describing the current status of Florida's conservation lands and trails and discussed future opportunities for linking these resources through the Statewide Greenways System. Other associated Commission products for 1994 included an educational video that was produced with the assistance of AV Productions of Walt Disney World, Inc. and a stand-alone GIS digital database and map series. Additional details on the Commission's 1994 Report to the Governor can be found in Section 4 of this document.

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Florida Greenways Commission Activities in 1995. In 1995, the Commission undertook a number of activities to start implementation of recommendations contained within their Report to the Governor. In the spring the Commission proposed legislation, that was subsequently passed, to carry Florida's statewide greenways initiative forward. Other activities undertaken during Phase IV of the Commission's work plan included:

· cooperating with the Governor and the Florida Sesquicentennial Commission to recognize 167 official "Florida Greenways" as a part of the Commission's five-month "150 Greenways Across Florida" Sesquicentennial celebration.

· working with 1000 Friends to award 32 Florida Greenways Grants to stimulate private and public sector involvement in regional and community-based greenways projects.

· working with the National Park Service Rivers, Trails and Conservation Assistance Program to design and produce a poster for widespread distribution to educate and excite Floridians about greenways and the Florida Greenways System.

· with funding from the Florida Department of Transportation's ISTEA Enhancement Program, working with DEP, the University of Florida, 1000 Friends and the National Park Service started the development of the Statewide Greenways System plan.

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Section 8, Appendix 3 - Florida's Statewide Greenways Program

1995 - 1999

1995 was a year of transition for the Florida Greenways Program. During this 12 month period, Florida's statewide greenways initiative changed from a NGO-based Program and a Governor appointed Commission to a government-based Program and a legislatively appointed Council. This transition year culminated in November 1995 when leadership of the Florida Greenways Program was formally passed from the Commission, 1000 Friends and The Conservation Fund to DEP and the new Florida Greenways Coordinating Council.

1995 Florida Greenways Legislation.

The direction and scope of the Florida Greenways Program and the focus of its activities was shaped by Florida Greenways Legislation passed in the spring of 1995. This legislation did three things critical to the long-term success of the Florida Greenways Program:

· It created the Florida Greenways Coordinating Council

· It designated DEP as the lead state agency for the Florida Greenways Program and gave it two specific charges:

· to create a Statewide System of Greenways on public lands

· to assist the council in coordinating with other governmental agencies and private entities involved in the Statewide Greenways System

· It directed the Council to assist DEP in the preparation of a 5-year Florida Greenways System Implementation Plan.

Additional details on the Council's membership, its charge and activities follow in another section.

1996 Legislation Related to Florida Greenways.

In 1996, the Florida Legislature passed broad-based legislation relating to public land acquisition in Florida. Through amendments to Florida Statutes Chapter 259, Chapter 260 and Chapter 380, the Florida Legislature provided further direction relating to greenways and the Statewide Greenways System with a particular emphasis on the recreational aspects of greenways and the opportunities for urban greenways and other forms of recreational urban open space.

Chapter 259 - Land Acquisition for Conservation and Recreation. A number of additions relating to greenways were made to this chapter including:

· In Section 3, which describes the public purpose for which CARL program acquisition monies can be spent, the Legislature added a provision for "outdoor recreation on any part of any site compatible with conservation purposes" and a new purpose "to conserve urban open spaces suitable for greenways or other outdoor recreation which are compatible with conservation purposes".

· In Section 4, which describes the powers and duties of the Land Acquisition Advisory Council (LAAC), the Legislature directed the LAAC, "in scoring potential projects for inclusion on the acquisition list" to "give greater consideration to projects that can serve as corridors between lands already in public ownership or under management for conservation and recreation purposes".

· In Section 5, which covers the acquisition of state-owned lands for preservation, conservation and recreation purposes, the Legislature changed the name of the "Florida Rails to Trails Program" to the "Florida Greenways and Trails Program".

· In Section 6, which constitutes the Preservation 2000 Act, under sub-section 3 (Land Acquisition Programs Supplemented), the Legislature broadened the spending of monies allocated under the Florida Greenways and Trails Program, to acquire "greenways and trails or greenways and trails systems pursuant to Chapter 260, including but not limited to"

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abandoned rights-of-ways and the Florida National Scenic Trail (the later two being the previous limitations for the use of this program's acquisitions monies).

Chapter 260 - Florida Greenways and Trails System. The Legislature made the following amendments to Chapter 260, changing the 1979 Recreation Trails Act to the Florida Greenways and Trails Act:

· In Section 8, which is the declaration of policy and legislative intent, the Legislature expanded the definition of the system to be a "statewide system of greenways and trails for recreational and conservation purposes" and it stated the legislative intent that the system be established to "provide open space benefiting environmentally sensitive lands and wildlife and providing people with access to healthful outdoor activities".

· In Section 9, the Legislature provided the following statutory definition stating that " `greenway' means a linear open space established along either a natural corridor, such as a riverfront, stream valley, or ridgeline, or over land along a railroad right-of-way converted to recreational use, a canal, a scenic road, or other route; any natural or landscaped course for pedestrian or bicycle passage; an open space connector linking parks, nature reserves, cultural features or historic sites with each other and populated areas; or a local strip or linear park designated as a parkway or greenbelt".

· The Legislature amended Section 10 to read "Florida Greenways and Trails System - The Florida Greenways and Trails System shall be a statewide system of greenways and trails which shall consist of individual greenways and trails and networks of greenways and trails which may be designated as a part of the statewide system by the department".

· In Section 11, the Legislature amended the purpose of the Florida Greenways and Trails Program to "facilitate the establishment of a statewide system of greenways and trails" and to state that "such greenways and trails will be acquired pursuant to this act".

· In Section 13, which describes the general powers of DEP, the Legislature allows DEP to "enter into sublease agreements or other use agreements, with local governmental agencies for the management of greenways and trails for recreation and conservation purposes".

· In Section 15, which covers agency recognition, the Legislature added designated greenways to previous recognition language for designated trails, specifically, "All agencies of the state, regional planning councils and their comprehensive plans, and local governments through their local comprehensive planning process pursuant to chapter 163 shall recognize the special character of the lands and waters designated by the state as greenways and trails and shall not take any action which will impair their use as designated".

Chapter 380 - Florida Communities Trust. The Legislature amended Chapter 380 to give special recognition to urban greenways and open space projects. Specifically:

· In Section 19, the Legislature added the following to the legislative findings and intent for the Florida Communities Trust - "Finally, the Legislature finds that the quality of life, environmental quality, as well as the viability and vitality of the urban areas of this state is directly linked to urban open space and greenways. The creation of greenways, expansion of green spaces, enhancements of recreational areas, and protection and restoration of urban lakes, rivers and watersheds in the urban areas of this state is necessary to link populated areas with natural areas, preserve unique cultural and heritage sites, provide for recreational opportunities to enhance the health and well-being of the urban residents of this state, improve water quality, reduce the level of urban crime and violence, and build confidence and self-esteem among the youth of this state".

· In Section 20, the Legislature added the following definition - " ` Urban greenways and open space project' means action taken pursuant to this part to acquire lands or interest in lands to create linear open space protected and managed as part of linked conservation lands or recreational opportunities in an urban area, or to preserve open space or historic sites to enhance recreational and cultural opportunities in a urban area."

1998 Legislation Related to Florida Greenways.

In response to concerns expressed by large private landowners (see Section 5 of this report), the legislature modified Chapter 260, F.S. in the 1998 Session.

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260.014 was modified to clarify that no lands could be designated as part of the statewide system of greenways and trails without specific written consent of the landowner.

260.016 was modified to make it clear the Greenways and Trails program would function in the same way as CARL and SOR, i.e., lands may be removed from consideration for acquisition by the state or other unit of government at the option of the landowner.

260.0141 was modified to clarify the purpose of "planning materials, maps, data and other information" developed during the program. They "shall not be construed as designation of lands as part of the statewide system of greenways and trails. Identification of lands in such information shall not:

(1) Require or empower any unit of local or regional government, or any state agency, to impose additional or more restrictive environmental, land-use, or zoning regulations;

(2) Be construed or cited as authority to adopt, enforce, or amend any environmental rule or regulation; comprehensive plan goals, policies, or objectives; or zoning or land-use ordinance; `

(3) Be used as the basis for permit denial; imposition of any permit condition; or application of any rule, regulation, or ordinance by any subdivision of local, regional, or state government; or

(4) Be construed or cited as authority by any governmental agency to reduce or restrict the rights of owners of lands so identified. "

1999 Legislation Related to Florida Greenways

Legislation is to be introduced in the 1999 Legislative Session. If it follows the recommendations contained in the Five Year Implementation Plan developed by DEP and the Greenways Council, it will do the following things:

· Merge the Florida Greenways Coordinating Council and the Florida Recreational Trails Council and define the responsibilities of the new Council.

· Begin the process of greenways desgination.

· Maintain the Greenway and Trails Initiative in DEP.

Florida Greenways Coordinating Council

Origin. The Council was created by legislation passed in the spring of 1995 because the Florida Legislature discerned "a need for the coordination and promotion of greenways throughout the state".

Membership. The Council consists of 26 members. Sixteen members were appointed by the Governor, the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House, each appointing one member representative of business interests, the interests of landowners, conservation interests and recreation interests. Six members were appointed by the Governor with the concurrence of the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House, one of whom represents the government of an urban county, one of whom represents the government of a rural county, two of whom represent a municipal government, one of whom represents the state's water management districts, and one of whom represents a federal land management entity active in the state. In addition, the Council includes eight ex officio members, consisting of the head or designee of the following state agencies: DEP, the Department of Transportation, the Department of Community Affairs, the Division of Forestry of the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, the Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission, the Department of Commerce, the Department of Education and the Division of Historical Resources of the Department of State. In making his appointments, the Governor named Clay Henderson, President of the Florida Audubon Society, the Council's chair.

Council Duties, Tasks and Administration. The Legislature gave the Council the following duties and tasks:

· To promote greenways initiatives throughout the state with technical support, leadership, education, advocacy, and

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other service-oriented efforts

· To serve as a facilitator for the formation of partnerships involving public agencies, private businesses, environmental organizations, community-based organizations and citizen volunteers

· To hold at least 4 meetings each year

· To hold at least 2 public hearings each year to announce and take public testimony on its activities

· To assist DEP in the preparation of a 5-year Florida Greenways System Implementation Plan

· To develop benchmarks to measure progress in implementing the Statewide System of Greenways

· To assist state and regional agencies involved in greenways to develop and execute memoranda of understanding that define the roles and responsibilities that each entity will assume in working with the council to develop and implement the Statewide System of Greenways

· To evaluate the need for establishing a non-governmental organization to provide advocacy, education, and technical assistance for the Statewide Greenways System

· To develop an outreach to business and industries including but not limited to forestry, mining, and agriculture to create an industry/state partnership in the development of the Florida Greenways System

· To seek, identify, and develop incentives to encourage private participation

· To submit to the Governor, the President of the Senate, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives by July 1, 1999, a report making specific recommendations for action necessary to manage the Florida Greenways System

The Legislation also provided the following direction regarding the administration of the Council:

· The Council is created within DEP

· The Council is assigned for administrative purposes to DEP

· The Council is authorized to employ its own separate staff and consultants funded through DEP's budget

· The Council can contract for and accept gifts, grants, loans, or other aid from the United States Government or any person or corporation

Council Activities in 1995. The members of the Council were appointed for four-year terms by the Governor, President of the Senate and Speaker of the House in the fall of 1995. The Council's first meeting was held in November 1995 concurrently with the last meeting of the Commission. Following a presentation on the history of the Florida Greenways initiative and reports with recommendations from each of the Commission's three working committees, new Council members discussed funding, administrative issues and the development of a work plan and budget. The meeting ended with the election of Patti McKay, Executive Director of 1000 Friends, as the Council's vice chair and the establishment of seven Council committees.

Council Activities in 1996. The Council held four meetings in 1996. Their January 9 meeting in Tallahassee focused on the development of a work plan. Working through the committees that had been established in late 1995, Council members reviewed recommendations contained in the Commission's 1994 Report to the Governor and decided upon committee objectives and actions for the coming year. Council members were briefed on the Florida Greenways Decision Support Model and preliminary Test Area results at their February 15 meeting in Gainesville. Following the briefing, the committees met to continue discussions on their 1996 work plan activities. Selected Council members and other individuals, including some members of the former Commission, met for a brainstorming session at Wakulla Springs State Park on July 9. Convened to plan and prepare for a "retreat/workshop" at the Council's October meeting, this facilitated session identified and formulated recommendations relating to a number of programmatic and administrative issues considered key to the future success of the Council. The Council's fall meeting was held in St. Augustine on October 2 and 3. At this facilitated retreat, Council members

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delved into a number of fundamental issues including the group's charge and the actions needed to meet them, how to best organize to accomplish Council objectives, how to facilitate a good working relationship between the Council and staff at DEP's Office of Greenways and Trails, and how to communicate effectively with the Council's constituents. In addition, the Council took action at its October meeting to re-organize its committee structure into an Executive Committee and four ad-hoc committees. The final Council meeting in 1996 was held in Tallahassee on December 20. Following committee reports, the Council heard an update of the University of Florida's Statewide Greenways System planning effort and reviewed preliminary results for the Pilot Project. In addition, Council members discussed the objective and creation of six Regional Greenways Task Forces and their relationship to the Council's efforts to develop implementation strategies for the Statewide System. Other notable accomplishments for 1996 included: (1) the development of boiler plate language for memoranda of understanding to be used when drafting memoranda between the Council and all participating agencies; (2) regional meetings of Federal agencies in Florida to discuss the greenways initiative and create a coordinating body; (3) initial development of a greenways home page and other public outreach methodologies; and (4) a meeting between staff from DEP's Office of Greenways and Trails and representatives of linear facilities to discuss greenways, the Statewide Greenways System, the work of the Council and issues raised by private sector participants.

Council Activities in 1997. The Council met four times in 1997. At their February 26 meeting in Tallahassee Council members were briefed on the activities of DEP as lead state agency for greenways as well as on the work of the Council's five committees. Following a detailed discussion of the work plan, meeting schedule and nominated members of the six proposed Regional Greenways Task Forces, the Council voted to accept the proposed Task Force membership and directed staff to proceed with their creation and the holding of meetings as scheduled. The June 5 meeting of the Council in Tallahassee focused on a number of presentations on the activities of the Council's committees and the six Regional Greenways Task Forces. Highlights of the meeting included: adoption of seven signed memoranda of understanding between the Council and its participating agencies; a status report by the University of Florida; a preview of the draft Community Resource Guide for Greenways and Trails; and an overview of a cost-benefit decision support model being developed for the Florida Greenways and Trails System. The Council's September 18 meeting in Tampa focused on the preliminary UF Plan for the Statewide Greenways System. Following an overview of the preliminary system by the University Team and progress reports by the six Regional Greenways Task Forces, the Council discussed a number of issues including: the direction and pace of Task Force activities following consensus on modifications to the Preliminary UF Plan; the dates and logistics for the Council's fall 1997 public workshops; and the development of a letter of intent as a tool to address the concerns of private property owners. The last Council meeting for 1997 was held in Tallahassee on December 11. Topics included the legislation proposed for 1998 designed to address the concerns of large private landowners, and adoption of a process for the development of the five year implementation plan, as mandated by 1995 legislation.

Council Activities in 1998. The Council met four times in 1998. At the February 13 meeting in Tallahassee, Chairman Clay Henderson reported the Constitution Revision Commission is considering two amendments dealing with land conservation, and Pam McVety of DEP described the Forever Florida legislative proposal what would carry forward state land acquisition following the end of Preservation 2000. The Coordinating Council discussed a proposed selection process and application form for the Florida Greenways and Trails Seed Grants Program. At the Council's June 12 meeting in Tampa, the discussion centered on passage of greenways legislation developed in partnership with private property interests and public outreach activities. Also on June 12, the Greenways Council agreed to work more closely with the Florida Recreational Trails Council to more effectively address trails issues in the implementation plan. Subcommittees of the Coordinating Council and the Trails Council met on July 27 and August 22 to refine the proposal for creating the Florida Greenways and Trails Council and discuss other issues surrounding the plan. DEP and the Council sponsored six public hearings on the third draft of the Implementation Plan: June 24 in Lakeland, June 25 in Ft. Myers, July 8 in Jacksonville, July 9 in Chipley, July 15 in West Palm Beach and July 25 in Orlando. The plan was adopted on September 11 at the Greenways Council meeting in Ft. Lauderdale, and reflects the Council's position that a separate non-governmental organization does note need to be created. Instead, the proposed Florida Greenways and Trails Council is expected to include representatives of existing non-governmental organizations. At the December 11 meeting in Tallahassee, proposed legislation for the 1999 session was discussed. This included greenways legislation and post Preservation 2000 legislation. The Council agreed it was unlikely they would meet again, as their legislative recommendations included merging of the Florida Greenways Coordinating Council with the Florida Recreational Trails Council.

Regional Greenways Task Forces

Origin and Funding. Early in the work of the Commission, its members and staff realized that to be successful in its vision of a statewide green infrastructure, statewide interests and activities needed to be blended and integrated with the dreams and actions of individuals working at the community level. The Commission's 1994 Report to the Governor reflected the need

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for this dual approach, with strategies and recommended actions aimed at promoting both a unified statewide effort as well as diverse and widespread community-based initiatives. The challenge to the success of this approach was how to link the work of a statewide coordinating body with broad statewide vision and more removed implementation methods with the focused vision, specific local knowledge, and hands-on actions of local greenways proponents.

In the spring of 1996, a number of participants in the Florida Greenways Program started talking about the feasibility of establishing mini-Florida Greenways Coordinating Council's at the regional level that could promote closer ties to community activities and activists while providing local knowledge and "in the trenches" insight to the day-to-day activities of the members of the Council and the staff of their associated agencies. The need to support regional initiatives and to create "citizen-driven regional coordinating mechanisms" was discussed at the Council's July 1996 brainstorming session. In response to earlier discussions and the expressed interest of Council representatives, DEP's Office of Greenways and Trails proposed and received a grant from the Department of Community Affairs to "fund the establishment of the local, regional, state and federal mechanisms to develop an implementation plan for greenways and trails in Florida". It was the intent of DEP to use this money to help lay the groundwork for regional greenways councils and provide Office of Greenways and Trails staff to guide and assist the councils in their work.

Review and Input from Council Members. The concept of creating six Regional Greenways Task Forces, one for each of DEP's six districts, was presented to and approved by DEP's Policy Coordinating Committee in September, 1996. DEP's Office of Greenways and Trails presented a proposal to create the six Regional Task Forces to the Council at its October, 1996 retreat. At the retreat the members of the Council endorsed the concept of creating the Regional Greenways Task Forces despite some questions about the relative merits of Task Forces based on DEP districts versus water management districts and the relationship between the Council and the Task Forces. In their endorsement, Council members suggested that the primary duties of the Task Forces should be: (1) to provide quality control of modelled greenways and trails through local and expert knowledge; (2) to develop a regional component/vision of the statewide greenways plan through coordination with local and regional greenways efforts; and (3) to promote the greenways concept and regional greenways opportunities to gain support of private landowners and to further community greenways activities. Staff from DEP's Office of Greenways and Trails updated the members of the Council on the creation of the six Regional Greenways Task Forces at their December, 1996 meeting. The Office of Greenways and Trails introduced two staff members hired with Department of Community Affairs funds to support the Task Forces and generally described their creation and work plan. Staff also requested six nominations for Task Force membership from each Council member (one for each district's Task Force) and committed to providing more details on Task Force responsibilities and activities to assist Council members in the appointment process. The Council reviewed the proposed work plan for the Regional Task Forces and the nominated members at the February, 1997 meeting. Council members endorsed the work plan and nominations following further discussion on the Task Forces and their activities.

Regional Greenways Task Force Coverage, District Staff Support. The six Regional Greenways Task Forces were created in the winter of 1997 and delineated according to DEP's six districts:

· Northwest District Task Force, based at the DEP District Office in Pensacola and covering the Panhandle of Florida west of Jefferson County

· Northeast District Task Force, based at the DEP District Office in Jacksonville and covering northeast and north central Florida above a line generally running east to west from Flagler to Levy counties

· Southwest District Task Force, based at the DEP District Office in Tampa and covering central Florida west of a dividing line on the Lake Wales Ridge and north from Sarasota to Citrus and Marion counties

· Central District Task Force, based at the DEP District Office in Orlando and covering central Florid east of a dividing line on the Lake Wales Ridge and north from Indian River to Volusia counties

· South District Task Force, based at the DEP District Office in Ft. Myers and covering southwest Florida north from Monroe to Charlotte and Highlands counties

· Southeast District Task Force, based at the DEP District Office in West Palm Beach and covering southeast Florida north from Dade to Okeechobee and St. Lucie counties.

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The meetings and associated activities of each Task Force are being supported by DEP District ecosystem management staff who are working in closed coordination with the two staff members from the Office of Greenways and Trails.

Membership. The diverse membership of the Regional Task Forces appointed by the Council ran the gamut of expertise from scientists to citizen activists and contained individuals from the public, private and nonprofit sectors. A list of appointed Regional Greenways Task Force members is found in the section on Project Partners in the front of this report.

Synopsis of 1997 Meetings. The six Regional Greenways Task Forces met monthly in 1997, from March through November. Topics covered at these meetings included:

· March - organization and orientation; role and objectives of the Task Forces and their relationship with DEP, the Council and the Ecosystem Management coordinators and staff at DEP District offices; orientation to The Florida Greenways Program, its history, activities to date and mission of creating a Statewide System of Greenways; introduction to the University of Florida's role and its development of a Decision Support Model to assist DEP and the Council in the planning and implementation process; review of proposed timetable for Task Force activities in 1997 and beyond.

· April - detailed presentation by the University Team orienting Task Force members and District Ecosystem Management coordinators and staff to the rationale and methodology of the Decision Support Model and its relationship to the overall Statewide Greenways System Planning Process; distribution of draft University of Florida 1:250,000 scale maps reflecting existing and proposed conservation lands and trails within and bordering the six DEP Districts.

· May - began review of conservation lands and trails maps for the District; invited locally active greenways planning and implementation groups to provide input and participate in process.

· June - Continued work with local greenways planning and implementation groups; transmitted results of District conservation lands and trail review exercise.

· July - University Team presentation, reviewing Decision Support Model and providing an overview of the preliminary UF Model Results for each District; distribution of University results maps and discussion of procedures for Task Force review and input.; orientation and distribution of draft economic impact document by Office of Greenways and Trails staff.

· August - Task Force members and other interested participants commenced review of the preliminary UF Model Results, providing suggestions on deletions, additions and other recommended modifications.

· September - Task Force members continued the review of the preliminary UF Model Results.

· October - Task Force members were presented with the ecological network results and trails/cultural-historic network results of the UF Model as modified by changes suggested throughout the public hearing process. Final suggestions were made by attendees at those meetings and were recorded by a "Scribe" from the UF, for translation into a digital format.

At this point, most of the Task Forces shifted their attention and efforts to the development of the five year implementation plan.

Drafting of the Five Year Implementation Plan¹

As mandated by the legislation passed in 1995, DEP with assistance from the Florida Greenways Coordinating Council, developed a Five Year Implementation Plan. The plan was adopted by the Council in September 1998 and forwarded to the legislature in February 1999. The following section contains a description of the process employed in its development.

The first step in drafting the plan was to hold meetings with representatives of the Florida Greenways Coordinating Council, the six Regional Greenways Task Forces, and DEP staff. After two such meetings in October 1997, there was agreement on the following:

· a schedule for writing/reviewing and revising the draft implementation plan

· a general outline of topics to be included in the document, and

· a process which would create an Implementation Team composed of Florida Greenways Coordinating Council members, the chairs, vice chairs and co-chairs of the six regional greenways task forces, and DEP staff to receive input on various

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drafts and to determine what changes should be incorporated into the next draft.

The outline agreed upon in October was "fleshed out" by DEP staff and disseminated for public review during November 1997 as the "initial draft of the implementation plan for the statewide greenways and trails system". Each RGTF was asked to select one or more sections of the plan to study in depth and re-write if necessary. Some regional task forces decided instead to review and comment on the entire draft Implementation Plan. All comments or re-writes were due to DEP from the RGTFs by February 27, 1998.

On December 11, 1997 the initial draft document and proposed schedule for adoption were discussed during the FGCC meeting. There was also some discussion on the initial draft during the FGCC meeting of February 13, 1998. After the February 13 FCCC meeting was concluded, the first meeting of the Implementation Team occurred. DEP staff again reviewed the outline and schedule for adoption. Dates for future Implementation Team meetings were selected. Substantive discussion centered on the definition of greenways and a greenways system and how those definitions related to the section on designation. There was also general discussion about how the Plan related to the 1994 Report by the Florida Greenways Commission.

During the week of March 2-6, comments on the initial draft were copied and disseminated to the Implementation Team in preparation for a March 13 meeting. During that meeting, three major topics were discussed:

· definitions of terms

· prioritization

· the designation process

At the next Implementation Team meeting on April 3, the team decided to clarify the purpose for which the Plan is being drafted, the intended use of the Plan, who the audience or users of the Plan will be, and what the contents of the Plan should be. The group agreed on the following criteria:

1. It will satisfy the statutory mandates for required reports and recommendations.

2. The focus is on providing a clear Plan, not a technical assistance document or how-to manual.

3. It will not unnecessarily replicate materials available elsewhere (such as the 1994 Report of the Florida Greenways Commission, or the Community Resource Guide).

4. The product is of a size and level of detail appropriate to the user (perhaps there needs to be a full report and a separate summary document).

5. It should make clear what is adopted policy and what are suggested options or guidance.

6. The Plan should provide a comprehensive understanding of the greenways philosophy and all types of greenways activities at all levels (but should not be an inventory).

7. The focus is on statewide coordination and how to support local activities, not on day-today operations of local greenways.

8. It will identify needed links to other plans and programs.

Based on the discussion and these criteria, the outline was changed somewhat after the April 3 meeting. Draft #2 was completed and disseminated to the FGCC, RGTF members, and other interested parties on April 10. Review comments were requested by May 1, 1998.

All comments received on draft #2 were reviewed by the Implementation Team at a meeting on May 15, 1998. On May 21 the Executive Committee of the Florida Greenways Coordinating Council met and discussed several major policy issues forwarded from the Implementation Team. On May 29 and 30 the plan was reviewed by the Florida Recreational Trails Council. Based on the discussions in these meetings, a third draft was developed. Draft #3 was presented to the FGCC on June 12, 1998. After much discussion, the FGCC approved the draft with recommended changes on several topics and, in some instances, with various options outlined for public review.

The public provided input on draft #3 during six hearings in June and July. On July 30 and August 11 the Implementation Team met to review the comments received at the public hearings and to determine what changes should be incorporated into the next draft. The plan was modified extensively as to format and style during July and August. Recommendations, strategies, and action steps were more clearly identified. Repetitive material was eliminated and technical information was moved to the appendices. This draft was presented to the Florida Recreational Trails Council on August 21-22. After incorporating changes based on FRTC comments, the final draft was completed and distributed to FGCC members and the public.

On September 11, 1998 the FGCC adopted the Plan, subject to the staff of OGT incorporating changes which were approved by the members during the meeting.

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¹ This text is mostly taken from Connecting Florida's Communities with Greenways and Trails, The Five Year Implementation Plan for the Florida Greenways and Trails System, 1998.

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Section 9, Appendix 4 _ Technical Review of GIS Model

1995 Technical Review and Input by the Florida Greenways Commission and its Partners

The Florida Greenways Commission provided the foundation for the design of Florida's Statewide Greenways System during discussions at their numerous meetings in 1993 and 1994 and in their December 1994 Report to the Governor. The Commission maintained this leadership role in 1995 through the members and participants of its System Design Committee. This committee was set up to carry forward the work and recommendations of the Commission through participation in the Statewide Greenways System Planning Project. Specifically, the charge of the System Design Committee was "to provide advice to the Governor, DEP and their subcontractors on ISTEA funded design tasks (e.g. the collection and classification of new data, the development of system goals, objectives and management guidelines, the selection of a test area, the physical design of the Statewide Greenways System) and guidance on implementing other Commission recommendations related to the design and management of Florida's Statewide Greenways System".

In 1995, the Commission and its System Design Committee provided technical assistance to the University Team as follows:

· February 16-17, 1995 Meeting of the Commission and its System Design Committee: Following a DEP briefing to the full Commission on the Statewide Greenways System Planning Project, the System Design Committee met in a break-out session to discuss and finalize its 1995 work plan. After a presentation by a member of the University Team the Committee: (1) discussed the format and objectives of the Test Area Project; and (2) discussed and decided that the committee's role in the modeling process would be "to review and advise DEP and the University on all aspects of the process, to review and advise the University on design goals and objectives, to consider all modeling assumptions and approaches and to help identify modeling criteria and data/information sources". Following the committee's meeting, the full Commission reviewed and approved the Committee's proposed work plan.

· March 31, 1995 Meeting of the Commission's System Design Committee: The committee heard presentations and discussed numerous aspects of the Statewide Greenways System Planning Project and the system modeling tasks. Specifically the University Team: (1) provided an overview of GIS modeling procedures; (2) held a discussion on different modeling techniques (e.g. Least Cost Path analysis) being tested for the project; (3) described currently available as well as still needed statewide databases for GIS modeling; and (4) discussed the process and mechanism for developing system design goals and objectives. The committee provided input on all these matters and also agreed on meeting dates in June to discuss design goals and objectives and reclassification of data, in September to discuss model refinements and in November to review preliminary results.

· June 29, 1995 Meeting of the System Design Committee: During this meeting, which was held in conjunction with the June 29-30 meeting of the full Commission, the Committee were briefed by the University Team and continued to discuss diverse aspects of the Statewide Greenways System Planning Project. Specifically, the University Team presentation included: (1) an overview of the University's role in the Statewide Greenways System Planning Project; and (2) a detailed description of issues and process pertaining to the University's work, particularly new data acquisition and classification, development of goals and objectives and refinement of GIS modeling techniques. The University's presentation included detailed discussion and feedback on: (1) the modeling steps and specific sequence to be used in identifying the Statewide Greenways System; (2) the procedures used and results of an analysis of the Commission's December 1994 Report; and (3) the first draft goals and objectives for defining the Statewide System.

· September 8, 1995 Meeting of the System Design Committee: At this meeting committee members, as well as representatives from a number of other public and private partner organizations, had, for the first time, a hands-on computer demonstration of the initial twelve-step Model sequence and the resulting preliminary system design results for the four-county "Test Area". Comments and questions from Committee members and other meeting participants both during and after the demonstration provided detailed insight and suggestions for model refinement. In addition to the hands-on demonstration, Committee members heard presentations and discussed a number of other items including the second draft of the Design Goals and Objectives prepared by the University Team.

· November 14, 1995 Meeting of the System Design Committee: This final meeting of the System Design Committee was held in conjunction with the last meeting of the Commission and the first meeting of the new Council. At this meeting, committee members were first given an update on the University's modeling efforts. The members then summarized

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committee accomplishments and results for a final status report on committee activities and developed a list of on-going challenges/issues, lessons learned, and other specific guidance that the committee's chairs subsequently presented to the members of the new Council.

1996/1997 Technical Review and Input

The technical review of modeling assumptions and process continued in 1996 and spring 1997 through a number of different forums. Participants in the review process included representatives from agencies, non-profits and others with an ongoing interest in the design of the Statewide Greenways System. The reviews centered on a discussion of modeling techniques and results tied first to the four-county Test Area, next to the Pilot Project and, in 1997, to the St. Johns River Water Management District.

Review of Test Area Procedures and Results. The review of modeling procedures and results associated with the four-county Test Area occurred during a number of sessions through mid-1996, including:

· February 12, 1996 Meeting of the DEP Technical Working Group - The Model steps, criteria, sequence and Test Area results was presented to an internal Technical Working Group convened by DEP. Members of the Group included representatives from a number of DEP offices and divisions including Ecosystem Management, Greenways and Trails, Recreation and Parks, Environmental Resource Permitting, Mine Reclamation and others including Intergovernmental Programs, the CARL Program and Technical Services. This team of experts heard a detailed presentation, reviewed all components of the Model and the Test Area results and provided useful input on further refinements.

· February 15, 1996 Meeting of the Florida Greenways Coordinating Council - The members of the Council were introduced to the Model and the Test Area results at a hands-on computer presentation at the University of Florida's GeoPlan Center. During the presentation a number of issues were discussed including the appropriate sub-state mapping regions, the classification of conservation lands, the mapping of planned roads and the identification of private lands. Following the hands-on presentation, the Council's System Design Committee met to discuss its charge and to further address modeling issues brought up by the full Council during the hands-on computer presentation.

· May 15, 1996 Federal Agencies Meeting - The last review of Test Area procedures and results occurred at the University of Florida at a meeting of representatives from a number of Federal agencies active in Florida, including the USDA Forest Service, National Park Service and U.S Fish and Wildlife Service. This meeting was organized and facilitated by Karl Siderits, Chief Forester for the National Forests in Florida and a member of the Council. Discussion items following a demonstration of the Model and the Test Area results included suggestions to gather more information on the guidelines for special management areas on Federal lands (e.g. Wilderness Areas, Research Protection Areas) and offers from various land management agencies to help update boundary and acreage information for federal properties in Florida.

Review of Pilot Project Procedures and Results. The University Team began work on the 14-county Pilot Project in the Spring of 1996. Modeling procedures and criteria were upgraded and expanded to address shortcomings identified in the Test Area results and to incorporate new issues not earlier addressed. Pilot Project procedures and results were reviewed in a number of different sessions that lasted through the end of 1996 including:

· June 4, 1996 Review Session with Staff from the Florida Region of The Nature Conservancy - The University Team made a detailed presentation to natural areas inventory, land acquisition, conservation planning and natural resource management professionals from the Florida Region of The Nature Conservancy. This meeting was also attended by representatives of DEP's Office of Greenways and Trails. Because of the ecological expertise of the meeting's participants, the presentation provided detailed information an all aspects of the ecological modeling steps as well as an opportunity for participants to view the results of all steps for the Pilot Project using the GIS work stations at the GeoPlan Center. A number of topics were discussed during the presentation including: (1) the criteria for identifying Priority Areas, Significant Areas and Other Ecological Landscape Features; (2) the treatment of exotic plant communities and their relationship to the classification of Category I, Category II and Category III lands; and (3) the size and "connectivity" requirements for inclusion of important natural areas within the Statewide Greenways System. The meeting closed with a detailed discussion of the relationship between the Statewide Greenways Plan and a Statewide Conservation Plan. As a result of this discussion it was decided to portray important isolated natural areas, too small for inclusion in the Statewide Greenways System, on the final results maps.

· June 8, 19 and 20, 1996 Review Sessions on the Model's Trails, Ecological and Cultural/Historic Elements - The most

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detailed and intensive review of the Model and its results to date occurred in June, 1996, mid-way through the work on the Pilot Project. This review consisted of three separate presentations targeted toward statewide stakeholders interested in the System's three key elements.

· The first presentation occurred in Tallahassee on June 8 during a meeting of the Florida Recreational Trails Council. At this meeting University Team members presented an overview of the definitions and objectives for each of the Model 's trail types and then described the trail modeling steps in detail. The discussion that followed included comments on the appropriateness and location of paved trails and the need to work directly with different trail interest groups to obtain recommendations on trailhead locations.

· The second presentation occurred in Gainesville on June 19 and focused on the Model's ecological components. Participants in the day-long meeting included representatives from most state resource agencies, water management districts and local governments as well as many non-governmental natural resource professionals. Following an introduction to modeling assumptions and procedures, the University Team described all ecological modeling steps in detail while presenting results on the GeoPlan Center's GIS work stations. Numerous comments ensued including a discussion of the classification of public lands in terms of management objectives, the appropriateness of using proposed conservation lands to indicate ecological value and the overall validity of forging connections between important conservation lands.

· The third and final presentation occurred in Gainesville on June 20 and focused on the Model's recreational trails and cultural/historic elements. Meeting participants included the diversity of agencies and organizations represented on June 19 as well as additional individuals with a particular interest or expertise in recreational trails and historic/cultural features. The presentation and discussion during this day-long session focused on the modeling assumptions and procedures associated with the incorporation of significant sites within the preliminary Trails Network.

· June 14, 1996 Review Session with Clay Henderson, Chair of the Florida Greenways Coordinating Council - A special presentation and results review session was held for Council Chair Clay Henderson in Gainesville on June 14. During this daylong, one-on-one presentation, Chair Henderson received a hands-on introduction to the Model, with a particular focus on results in the vicinity of Volusia County. Using his personal knowledge of Volusia County, Chair Henderson asked a number of questions and pointed out concerns about the accuracy of land use data and the need for closer contact with representatives of local government. As a result of this meeting, additional modeling procedures were incorporated using newer satellite imagery to update older available land use data.

· September 30, 1996 Meeting of the DEP Policy Coordinating Committee - A presentation was made in Tallahassee during a meeting of the DEP Policy Coordinating Committee. Detailed materials on all aspects of the Model as well as specific questions on policy direction were distributed to committee members (including DEP's upper level administration, division heads, and district directors). Following an overview of the Model and a short update on the Florida Geographic Data Library, the Committee endorsed all modeling procedures and assumptions.

· December 11-12, 1996 Meetings of the Florida Greenways Coordinating Council and its Planning Committee - Final presentations on the Model and its Pilot Project results were made to the Council and its Planning Committee on December 12 and 11 respectively. The December 11 Planning Committee meeting focused on a detailed final review of all modeling assumptions and steps and a discussion of any necessary final changes. A summary presentation including an overview of modeling procedures and Pilot Project results was made to the full Council on December 12. The Council endorsed the Model following some discussion regarding the need and methods for incorporating historic/cultural sites in the Statewide Greenways System.

· December 18, 1996 Review Session with the Staff of the Florida Natural Areas Inventory - A final presentation on the Model and its results for the Pilot Project was made in Gainesville on December 18 to the staff of the Florida Natural Areas Inventory (FNAI). The main purpose of this meeting was to brief FNAI staff on modeling procedures and associated data needs. This meeting proved very useful because it engendered a better understanding of what data FNAI had and which data the University needed . The meeting also resulted in an agreement for UF to receive up-to-date data from FNAI in 1997 in a sequence coordinated with the application of the Model to Florida's five water management districts.

Other 1996/1997 Technical Review Sessions. A number of other technical review sessions were held in 1996 and 1997 with experts in landscape ecology and the design of reserve networks. These sessions including:

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· January, 1996 - Review by Dr. Reed Noss, an expert in reserve design and regional conservation strategies and the editor of the Journal of Conservation Biology.

· March, 1996 - Review by Dr. Richard T.T. Forman, a landscape ecologist from Harvard University who has published a number of books and articles on the subject.

· March, 1997 - Review by Dr. Lennart Hansson, a landscape ecologist from the Department of Wildlife Ecology at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala, Sweden.

· March, 1997 - Review by Dr. Rob Jongman, a landscape ecologist from the Department of Physical Planning and Rural Development at Wageningen Agricultural University in the Netherlands and who is actively involved in the development of an ecological network for the entire European Community.

· 1997 _ Review by Dr. Steve Christman, an expert on Florida's native ecosystems.

· 1997 _ Review by Dr. Michael Soule, founder of the discipline of Conservation Biology and expert in reserve design considerations and issues.

In addition, the modeling process and results were periodically reviewed throughout the project's duration by Dr. Larry Harris, a professor in the University of Florida's Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation who is an expert in biodiversity issues and landscape conservation strategies as well as the author of the book, The Fragmented Forest.

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Entities/Participants in the Technical Review of Modeling Assumptions

Florida Recreational Trails Council Members

Florida Greenways Commission Members

Florida Greenways Coordinating Council Members

Fred Ayer - DEP, Greenways and Trails

Brian Barnett, Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission, Tallahassee

Bob Bendick, The Nature Conservancy

Ken Berk, St. Johns River Water Management District, Palatka

Anne Birch, Brevard County EEL Program, Melbourne

Laura Brandt, Dept. Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, University of Florida, Gainesville

Greg Brock - DEP, CARL Program

Eric Brockwell, Department of Environmental Protection, Tallahassee

Mark Brown, Department of Environmental Engineering, UF, Gainesville

Jim Buckner, Division of Forestry, Brooksville

Mike Bullock - DEP, Recreation and Parks

Debbie Caffin, U.S. Forest Service, Tallahassee

Bud Cates - DEP, Mine Reclamation

Steve Christman, Ecological Consultant, Tallahassee

Sandra Clinger, Brevard County Office of Natural Resources Mgmt, Melbourne

Jim Cox, Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission, Tallahassee

Fred Davis, South Florida Water Management District, West Palm Beach

Paul Darst, Department of Community Affairs, Tallahassee

Linda Duever, Conway Conservation, Inc., Micanopy

Mike Duever, The Nature Conservancy

Susan Fellers, The Nature Conservancy

John Fitch, Florida Gulf Coast University

Richard T.T. Forman, Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, Boston

Danna Gavie, CF Industries, Inc., Bartow

Mark Glisson, DEP, Greenways and Trails

Doria Gordon, The Nature Conservancy

Kirby Green, DEP, Tallahassee

Al Gregory - DEP, Recreation and Parks

Phil Hall, Environmental Services, Department of Military Affairs-Camp Blanding, Starke

Lennart Hansson, Dept. of Wildlife Ecology, Swedish Univ. of Agric. Sciences, Uppsala.

Jeff Hardesty, The Nature Conservancy

Larry Harris, Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, UF, Gainesville

Joe Huss, DEP, Technical Services

Rob Jongman, Dept. of Phys. Planning and Rural Develop., Wageningen Agric. Univ., NL

Dennis Jordan, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Gainesville

Randy Kautz, Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission, Tallahassee

Eugene Kelly, Southwest Florida Water Management District, Brooksville

Gary Knight, Florida Natural Areas Inventory, Tallahassee

Laurie Macdonald, Habitat for Bears - Sierra Club/Defenders of Wildlife, St. Petersburg

Jim Marx, DEP, Ecosystem Management

Brent McCallister, Ocala

Patti McKay, 1000 Friends of Florida, Tallahassee

Kraig McLane, St. Johns River Water Management District, Jacksonville

Jim Miller, Division of Historical Resources, Tallahassee

Paul Moses, DEP, Tallahassee

Mary Frances Mullins, Department of Community Affairs, Tallahassee

Trish Neville, Department of Environmental Protection, Tallahassee

Reed Noss, Conservation Biology Institute, Corvallis, Oregon

Rick Noyes, Ocala

Dale Patchett, DEP, Tallahassee

Leonard Pearlstine, Dept. Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, University of Florida, Gainesville

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Dan Pennington - DCA, Intergovernmental Programs

Lance Peterson, Florida Natural Areas Inventory, Tallahassee

Leah Polomchak, Southwest Florida Water Management District, Brooksville

Ann Redmond - DEP Environmental Resource Permitting

Joe Reinman, St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge, St. Marks

John Richardson, The Nature Conservancy

Karl Siderits, U.S. Forest Service, Tallahassee

Bob Simons, Gainesville

Christine Small, Defenders of Wildlife, Sanford

Eric Songer - DEP Technical Services

Michael Soule, UC Santa Cruz

Ellen Stere - DEP Aquatic Preserves

Heather Stipanovich, Department of Environmental Protection, Tallahassee

Pat Werner, Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, UF, Gainesville

Robin White, Department of Environmental Protection, Tallahassee

Jora Young, The Nature Conservancy

Vivian Young, 1000 Friends of Florida, Tallahassee

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Section 9, Appendix 5 - Decision Support Model Details

Description Page No.

1. Definitions 9 - 9

2. GIS Datasets Used in the Model 9 - 14

3. Florida Landscape Units 9 - 18

4. Trail Types to be Included in the Statewide Greenways System 9 - 26

5. Points of Interest Categories 9 _ 27

6. Outline of Steps for Modeling the Ecological Network 9 - 28

7. Selection Criteria for Priority Ecological Areas (PEAs),

Significant Ecological Areas (SEAs) and Other Ecological

Landscape Features (oeFs)

9 - 41

8. Ecological Network Suitability Surfaces 9 - 45

9. Outline of Steps for Modeling the Trails/Cultural-Historic

Network 9 - 51

10. Trailheads Used for Modeling Multi Use Trails 9 - 59

11. Trailheads Used for Modeling Hiking, Bicycling and Equestrian

Trails 9 - 62

12. Other Key Cultural-Historic Sites 9 - 65

13. Trail Use Classification Criteria for Ecological Lands 9 - 67

14. Visual Preference for Land Use Types 9 - 69

15. Attractability of Points of Interest by Trail Type 9 - 71

16. Trails Network Suitability Surfaces 9 - 73

Note: Detailed code in Arc Macro Language (AML) for the GIS Decision Support Model can be obtained through the University's GeoPlan Center website (www.geoplan.ufl.edu) under the Florida Greenways Project.

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1. Definitions

Category I Lands - Non-native land use/land cover types with a moderate ecological value (e.g. rangelands, tree plantations).

Category II Lands - Non-native land use/land cover types with low ecological value (e.g. row and field crops, citrus, improved pasture, golf courses).

Category III Lands - Non-native land use/land cover types that have no or negative ecological value (e.g. residential, commercial and industrial land uses).

Coastal Landscapes - Landscapes that encompass all native ecosystems presently influenced by coastal processes. The predominant coastal landscape features are coastal islands and estuaries. The predominant coastal process is salt water flooding during the daily tidal cycle and periodic major storm events.

Decision Support Model Results _ Model Results¹

Ecological Elements - Ecological Hubs and Ecological Linkages.

Ecological Features - Biological, hydrological, physiographic and cultural/working landscape features used for modeling the Ecological Network. Six different types of ecological features are used in the UF Model: Priority Ecological Areas, Significant Ecological Areas, Other Ecological Landscape Features, Category I Lands, Category II Lands and Category III Lands.

Ecological Hubs - Medium to large areas of native and, in some cases, compatible non-native landscape features selected to serve as ecologically functional conservation areas. Ecological Hubs are identified by excluding inappropriate lands from identified Priority Ecological Areas and then selecting Priority Ecological Areas that are 5,000 acres or greater in size.

Ecological Linkages - Areas of native and, in some cases compatible non-native landscape features selected to meet established ecological conservation goals and objectives. Optimal Linkages between Ecological Hubs are identified through several steps including the development of a suitability surface for each Ecological Linkage Type, the application of a GIS linkage algorithm to identify most suitable paths, the addition of appropriate landscape features to meet functional minimal widths, and the analysis of the results.

Ecological Linkage Types - The UF Model searches for linkages between the same landscape units (i.e. Coastal Landscapes, Riverine Landscapes and Upland Landscapes) and between different landscape units (i.e. Coastal Landscapes to Riverine Landscapes and Cross-Basin Upland to Upland, Coastal or Riverine Landscapes).

Ecological Network - A Network, composed of connected Ecological Hubs and Ecological Linkages, designed to: conserve native ecosystems and landscapes; restore connectivity among native ecological systems and processes; and maintain the ability of native ecosystems and landscapes to function as dynamic systems and to allow biota to adapt to future environmental changes.

Elements - In its 1994 Report to the Governor, the Florida Greenways Commission identified Hubs, Linkages, and Sites as the three primary elements or building blocks of the Florida Greenways System.

Features - In the Florida Greenways Decision Support Model, a wide variety of landscape features are used together to design the Statewide Greenways System. These features are grouped as either Ecological Features or Trails Features.

Five Year Implementation Plan _ Document prepared by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and the Florida Greenways Coordinating Council, as required by 1995 legislation, describing the potential and logistics for greenways implementation.

¹ Definitions for italicized terms are provided in alphabetical order elsewhere in this attachment.

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Florida Greenways Decision Support Model - A model developed by faculty and staff from the University of Florida's Department of Landscape Architecture, GeoPlan Center (Department of Urban and Regional Planning), and Program in Landscape Ecology (Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation) to identify, explain and support the decisions used in the design of Florida's Statewide Greenways System. The model uses the spatial analysis capabilities of ESRI's ArcInfo Geographic Information System (GIS) Software and Florida's extensive statewide databases, available through the Florida Geographic Data Library housed at GeoPlan, to conduct analytical system design steps developed by the University's Greenways Team.

Florida Greenways System - A statewide system of natural areas, trails, urban open spaces and working landscapes proposed by the Florida Greenways Commission in its 1994 Report to the Governor. The Commission envisioned, by the 21 century, a protected system of greenways that is planned and managed to conserve native landscapes, ecosystems and their species; and to connect people to the land and their archaeological, historic and cultural resources. The Florida Greenways System will consist of ecological, trails and cultural features linked through greenways systems planned and managed at two or more scales: The Statewide Greenways System, and Regional and Local Greenways Systems.

Foundations - The fundamental principles upon which the Florida Greenways Decision Support Model are based. These include the programmatic findings and recommendations of the Florida Greenways Commission and the theories and practices of Conservation Biology, Landscape Ecology, Environmental Planning and Design, and GIS Spatial Analysis.

Hubs - Hubs anchor a greenways system and provide an origin or destination for people and wildlife. Hubs range in size from large conservation areas to smaller regional parks and preserves. Trailheads and urban areas are also considered hubs.

Greenway - A corridor of protected open space that is managed for conservation and/or recreation. The common characteristic of greenways is that they all go somewhere. Greenways follow natural land and water features, like ridges or river corridors, or human landscape features like abandoned railroad corridors or canals. They can link ecological reserves, parks, cultural and historic sites with each other and, in some cases, with populated areas. Greenways not only protect environmentally sensitive lands and wildlife, but can also provide people wit