Goals and Objectives
The agriculture group evaluated the agricultural land uses in the area and designed a future land use plan to accomodate the needs of those agricultural land uses. The group's main goal was to preserve, protect, and enhance agriculture in the Ichetucknee study area.
Two main objectives were employed to meet this main goal:
1. To identify areas that are suitable for existing and future agriculture.   2. To identify sensitive areas in which agricultural land uses threaten water quality.
The agriculture group used the Hydrologic Boundary for their study area (see the "Study Area Determination" page for more explanantion).
Methodology
In order to identify areas that were suitable for existing and future agriculture, existing agricultural land uses were examined. Data was obtained from 1995 Suwannee River Water Management District Land Use coverage, a digital map which contains land use and cover classifications in the counties that comprise the district (this includes Columbia, Union, and Suwannee county). Through this inquiry, the group was able to gain an understanding of the character and patterns of existing agricultural land uses within the study area.
I. Classifying Existing Agricultural Land Uses
The agricultural land uses were classified into three categories: high, medium, & low intensities. Agricultural intensities were determined by the level of nutrient inputs and potential chemical runoff from various agricultural types. The agricultural types and intensities are as follows:
HIGH INTENSITY MEDIUM INTENSITY LOW INTENSITY   Row Crops Improved Pasture Pine Plantations   Blueberries Peaches Horse farms   Dairy Pecans Aquaculture   Fruit orchard Tree nursery   Sod farm Other groves   Ornamental nursery
MAP OF VARYING AGRICULTURAL LAND USE INTENISITES
II. Examining Physical Characteristics of Existing Agricultural Lands
Next, the potential impact of the existing agricultural land uses on the water quality of the Ichtetucknee River was examined. In order to examine the role existing agriculture plays within the environmental dynamics of the area, physical factors of the land upon which agriculture is located were examined. The most important physical factors being soil erodibility and soil permeability.
In order to evaluate soil properties, the Specific Soils coverage from the Florida Geographic Data Library (FGDL) was used. The coverage is a digital representation of the County Soil Survey maps that are published by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) as the Soil Service Geographic (SSURGO) data set. Soil properties for Suwannee, Columbia, and Union counties were examined. Soils with high permeability and high errodibility characteristics were determined and evaluated since these properties would be a detriment to agricultural activities and could potentially lead to pollution of the aquifer.
III. Evaluating Aquifer Characteristics
Finally, aquifer vulnerability to pollution introduced on the ground's surface was evaluated. This was accomplished by using the Florida Department of Environmental Protection's (FDEP) DRASTIC data for the Surficial Aquifer System, which was developed jointly by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) and the National Water Well Association (NWWA). The mapping system methodology utilizes existing hydrogeological information to produce maps which display areas that are more or less likely to be affected by pollution introduced on the ground's surface. These maps depict areas which are more or less sensitive to land use changes that may affect ground water quality.
DRASTIC is an acronym for the parameters of the dataset and they include:
DWV Weighted score of Depth to Water   NRV Weighted score for Net Recharge   AMV Weighted score for Aquifer media   SMV Weighted score for Soil media   TV Weighted score for Topography   IVV Weighted score for Impact of Vadose Zone   HCV Weighted score for Hydraulic Conductivity
The following map shows areas where the aquifer is more or less protected by a geologic layer through which pollutants can filter. Areas that are well-confined have a thick geologic layer which buffers the aquifer from direct pollution introduced on the earth's surface. Areas that are unconfined or moderately confined have a thinner layer in which pollutants can filter, and thus are more susceptible to pollution.
MAP OF AQUIFER VULNERABILITY
IV. Reclassfying Agricultural Land Uses
By analyzing all of these physical factors, our goal was to locate those Agricultural Land Use Type located over (1) highly permeable soils, (2) highly erodible soils, and (3) surfaces potentially vulnerable to aquifer contamination. For example, we were cautious of an intense agricultural land use with highly permeable and erodible soils over areas of the aquifer more sensitive to pollution at the surface. If you examine the Agriculture Base Map you will find the agricultural lands shaded in their varying intensities. By overlaying all the data the agriculture group created three categories of agriculture: Reducible, Appropriate, and Intensifiable:
Reducible Agriculture includes intense agricultural land uses that had at least a combined high aquifer vulnerability with high soil permeability.   Appropriate Agriculture includes areas that are either not subject to high soil permeability / erodibility or that rest upon a fairly contained portion of the aquifer, regardless of the agricultural intensity.   Intensifiable Agriculture are those areas that have sound soils over a fairly contained portion of the aquifer, regardless of the agricultural intensity.
PRELIMINARY RESULTS MAP
Results
The result of our analysis was the production of a preliminary master plan that revealed the nature of existing agriculture and the interaction of that agriculture with the environmental sensitivity of the Ichtucknee Trace. This plan revealed areas that need to have agricultural uses reduced due to environmental sensitivity, and areas in which agricultural uses could be intensified by utilizing the land for more intense agricultural uses such as row crops.
AGRICULTURAL LAND USE MAP
Conclusions
Alternate Design Scenarios: "The Agricultural Hub"
The next step in producing a final plan for future agricultural land uses was the derivation of design concepts to 'translate' our conceptual goals into a spatial map. Our basic conceptual goal was to enhance agriculture by integrating future development, especially the increase of low density residential, with agricultural land uses and production. However, we did not want to encourage the increased growth in the form of urban sprawl that is occuring around Lake City. To avoid this growth pattern, while still allowing for development and integrating agriculture within the urban community, our group came up with an "Agricultural Hub" concept.
This concept consists of small residential and commercial hubs, with approximately x # dwellings/ people, that are surrounded and enclosed within a greenway ring. Commercial areas would consist of basic community needs along with farmer's markets, farm supply businesses, farm support facilities, and agricultural processing areas. The greenway surrounding this 'urban core' would limit sprawling growth to create a more functional community while providing an ecological and potentially recreational easement.
DIAGRAM OF AN AGRICULTURAL "HUB"
Outside of this greenway ring would be smaller farms, approximately 5 to 10 acres, which would provide residents that wanted the rural lifestyle with available property and would buffer the larger, outlying farms from the "hub" development. This gradation of land uses, from a commercial core, to a residential area, through the greenway, and into the smaller farm areas, would fit easily into the existing larger farm fabric of the county. It will also allow residential areas to benefit from the aesthetic benefits of agriculture while providing economic and political support for the agriculture of the area.
MAP OF PROPOSED AREAS FOR AGRICULTURAL HUBS