ICE Documents and Manuals

The Information Center for the Environment maintains these online manuals for interested parties. Many of these documents are collaborative works, and are still "works in progress". If you have any suggestions, please send us feedback using the email form.

Documents

UPlan - Urban Growth Modeling

UPlan is a simple rule based urban growth model intended for regional or county level modeling. Originally conceived by Prof. Bob Johnston, it has now been programmed by a long list of folks. Currently UPlan is being maintained by Nathaniel Roth and under the direction of Michael McCoy at the Information Center for the Environment, UC Davis.

Simple Version of how UPlan Works.... The needed space for each land use type is calculated from simple demographics and assigned based on the net attractiveness of locations to that land use (based on user input), locations unsuitable for any development and a general plan that determines where specific types of development are permitted.

The most recent version is: 2.64g Released 08/11/2008
Bug Reporting or Feedback: neroth@ucdavis.edu

System Requirements

ArcGIS 9.X
ArcGIS Spatial Analyst Extension
MS Excel (for reports)

New Features in UPlan 2.6

Variants

The ability to add or remove land uses of either a residential or employment type
Custom control over the number of attraction/discouragement groups and what land uses they apply to

Subareas

Employment can be explicitly assigned to subareas

General

Fixed employment increases
Buffer class copying: A set attraction or discouragement buffer and weight set can be copied directly to another buffer class

Transport Model Export

Improved handling of exports for subarea model runs
Default export: An unmodified export of UPlan outputs by TAZ computed directly from input values used in the model run.
For more details see TAZExport

Custom export

Remap UPlan outputs to an existing TAZ database structure
Manipulation of values through algebraic formulas
Saving export configurations for reuse with subsequent model runs

UPlan Resources and Instructional Material

User Manual

Current UPlan 2.6 User Manual, 1MB

Published Material:

Training Material:

Projects Using UPlan

Current Projects using UPlan:

Blueprint:

San Joaquin Valley: San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Merced, Madera, Fresno, Tulare, Kings and Kern Counties
San Luis Obispo County
Shasta County
Tuolumne County (closely linked to the Amador, Alpine and Calaveras counties project)
Lake County

Cooperative Planning:

Amador, Alpine and Calaveras Counties

Sacramento River Watershed Project:

Used at ICE for a broad look at the Sacramento River Watershed.

Old Projects:

San Joaquin Valley Partnership

Used at ICE for a broad look at scenarios in the San Joaquin Valley

Delaware Valley Transportation Commission

Merced Partnership in Planning (PIP)

Transport Analysis Zones (TAZExport)

The Transportation Analysis Zone Export (TAZExport) function was created to provide support for the conversion of UPlan output into the existing structure of a Transportation Analysis Zone (TAZ) table. TAZExport makes the export of UPlan outputs into a TAZ both simple and repeatable. The TAZExport module enables mapping UPlan output values to fields within a TAZ table including manipulating values through constructing mathematical formulas.

Default Export

The default export provides a simple export based entirely on computations made using the input values for the UPlan run being exported. A table called “DefTAZExport” is created within the collection of stand alone tables in the run’s data frame. This table can then be exported to .dbf for further conversion to excel or for import into another procedure.

Custom Export

The custom export function begins with creating the DefTAZExport table identically to the default export. Then the structure from an existing TAZ table is imported. The final output will maintain the same fields and field types as this input.

After importing the TAZ table structure, the user can then establish a "mapping" that links the values in DefTAZExport to their TAZ table's fields. Both values from the imported TAZ table and the DefTAZExport can be used in creating a final value to be exported in the final exported table. These functions are then applied to all of the TAZs that are not specified as exceptions (see below).

For example:

[SF_DU] = [SELF] + [RM_HH] + [RL_HH] + [RVL_HH]

In this example [SF_DU] will be the final value output in the field "SF_DU" taken from the input TAZ table's structure.

[SELF] is the number of households that exist in the input TAZ table's field called "SF_DU". If the input TAZ Table contains a specific year's household count, then the new houses from UPlan will be added to that.

[RM_HH], [RL_HH], [RVL_HH] are the number of new households of those land use types produced by UPlan.

Or another example:

[SVC_EMP] = [SELF] + 0.8 * [CH_EMP]

[GOV_EMP] = [SELF] + 0.2 * [CH_EMP] + 0.2 * [CL_EMP]

[RET_EMP] = [SELF] + 0.8 * [CL_EMP]

In this example. Three output values are created by splitting two of UPlan's land use categories up and adding them to the existing value. In effect [SVC_EMP] equals the starting value plus 80% of the employees in UPlan's commercial high category (for that TAZ).

Other possible manipulations include not using the [SELF] value to build a value from only UPlan outputs, to add a constant value to the field, multiplying the [SELF] by a constant (i.e. assuming 150% growth would be [SELF] * 1.5)

Exceptions:

While a general configuration is created to apply the same mapping to all TAZs within the analysis area, it is possible to select some TAZs and highlight them as exceptions that will use an independent mapping. This exception is set in exactly the same manner as the default one, but applies only to the specified TAZ.

Download UPlan

Important Note
Any UPlan version prior to 2.63 has a critical error when used with a projection in "Feet." Please discontinue use of any version of 2.6 predating 2.63. This same problem occurs in version 2.21 and should be checked for.

The most recent version is: 2.64g Released 08/11/2008

System Requirement: ArcGIS 9.X, Spatial Analyst Extension, MS Excel (for reports)

UPLan Change Logs

08/11/2008

Improved error checking in the Data Loader
GHG module included in codebase
Resolved error in vacant inner and outer functions

03/25/2008

Automatic selection of all buffer classes when adding an Attractor or Discourager
Fixed Explicit Employment function in repeated runs using template
Enabled Service Costs Modulefor use with variantes
Added "Tools" button to the UPlan Menu
Tool: Reconstitute Run, Adds a run back into the table of contents
Tool: Summary, provide a raster with zones and get feed back on Acres, HH, employees by zone
Tool: Added TAZ Exporter to Tools menu

02/11/2008

Improved Data Loader Error Checking.
Fixed sub area percentage bug
Fixed "Unable to Initialize Reclassification Table" error caused by a failure to create the reclass table text files. Note, this error can still be cause by datasets with incorrect projections.

01/03/2008

Improved Data Loader Error Checking.

12/06/2007

Reduced incidence of an over sensitive validation algorithm in the data loader.

11/19/2007

Copied Buffer specifications for attractors and discouragers cannot be copied to buffer classes not set to accept the layer as an attractor or discourager.
Minor error checking improvements to the Data Loader.

10/25/2007

Variant Land Uses sort by the allocation priority instead of the order they were created in the data loader and user interface
Up to 99 subareas and 99 land uses are now theoretically possible
Standardized the percent values in subarea setups so that all make reference to percentages (i.e. 95%) instead proportions (i.e.0.95)

10/5/2007

Fixed a "Foot" "Meter" conversion factor problem. When a projection using a linear unit of "Foot_US" was used, it was not recognized correctly and defaulted to the conversion used for meters. This resulted in an under estimation of needed land by about a factor of 9 and other inaccuracies in the reporting system.
Added the TAZ export function for 2.6 including a custom TAZ export. This allows the user to export UPlan results to a TAZ structure based on custom mapping.
Minor Usability improvements

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Upgrade information

Upgrading from one version of UPlan 2.6 to a newer version

Copy the new mxd into the same folder with the old one
Open both mxds
Copy the UPlan Runs that you wish to have available in the new version from the old one to the new one
Right click on the Run name and choose "copy" from the menu
In the new mxd, left click on the "Edit" menu at the top and select "Paste"

Caution
When extracting the new UPlan version from the ZIP file. Make sure that you do not overwrite your old initialization.mdb. If you do, you will loose all of your configuration data entered through the Data Loader.

Upgrading from a previous version of UPlan to 2.6

All of your grid based data can be reused
You will need to reenter the default data into the data loader manually.

Common Sources of Errors

Directory Structure
UPlan is dependant on the directory structure.

The following items must exist within the uplan folder.

Uplan.mxd: the mxd that is UPlan

Data: Folder containing subfolders for geographic areas to be modeled.

Geographic folder: this folder contains the GRIDs with starting data for the geographic region. These folder are frequently named with a FIPS code. i.e. Fresno County is 06019

ini: initialization folder. This contains the main initialization and configuration database and the templates documents for reports on the run and on services.

initialization.mdb
report_template.xls
service_template.xls

Runs:

info: A directory that is necessary for the creation of new runs by ArcGIS. if the info directory is missing, Restore it by using ArcCatalog to copy any GRID into the Runs folder. Then you can delete that GRID also using ArcCatalog
run folders: These folders will contain the output for all runs. they will be named using the following convention: rYYMMddhhmmss where YY is the year, MM is the month, dd is the day, hh is the hours, mm is the minute, and ss is the second that the setup for the run was started.
Completed runs:
Finalalloc: the final spatial output
ModelRun.txt: a log of the decision tree for that run
Uplan.mdb: a database that stores all of the input settings for the run
Report.xls: the final reporting for the run which is created after the run is complete by clicking on the "Run Report" button in UPlan.
many other GRIDs and files.
Incomplete runs:
Uplan.mdb: the configuration for the run that failed. Frequently this can be used to identify the problem, or to restart a new run with the same settings for debugging.

Projections:

All input data must be in the same projection
If the problem is a new one, check the most recently added layers for projection problems

Wildlife Crossing Guidance Manual

Website Link: http://wildlifecrossing.ucdavis.edu

Preface

The many effects of roads on plants and animals and their associated habitats have recently been sufficiently well documented to have spawned a new science: road ecology (Forman and Alexander 1998). Road ecology is an applied science that examines and documents the interactions between roads and populations of plants and animals. In its application, it seeks both to document and understand the bases of the interactions and to reconcile the need for safe and effective transportation systems with the need to effectively conserve the environment.

This Wildlife Crossings Guidance Manual (the Manual) is a literature-based guide on how to assess wildlife crossings, and includes a review of best practices to effectively mitigate road/wildlife conflicts. This Manual is intended primarily for biologists, but planners, and engineers may also find the guide useful. The manual reviews: 1) scientific publications and agency reports, 2) best practices from within and outside of California, and 3) additional sources of information to help evaluate the interface between wildlife movement and transportation corridors and to keep track of new information.

Evaluating and reducing wildlife-traffic conflicts is a concern for transportation planners, including those in the Department. Transportation agency biologists can use this Manual to help to plan projects in accordance with state and federal law, and use the information to guide recommended actions with smart planning in mind. The Manual is intended to help Caltrans staff to meet regulatory requirements and enhance efforts to avoid, minimize, or mitigate the effects of roadways on California’s plants, animals, and habitats of special concern. Facilitating wildlife crossing may help to avoid and reduce some of the effects of roadways on wildlife populations while enhancing public safety and restoring habitat connectivity.

This guidance Manual is one component of a larger Caltrans strategy to 1) catalog sources of information and knowledge about wildlife crossing, 2) generate, accumulate, and disseminate this information, and 3) develop guidelines for best practices and effective strategies to address road/wildlife conflicts.

Watershed Management

The role of watershed management in meeting water resource needs is becoming an increasingly important consideration for public agencies. Protecting upper watersheds preserves flow regimes, source water supply, and water quality. It is widely believed that conservation is less costly than downstream damage or after-the-fact treatment and remediation, but quantitative evidence is sparse. This class will examine case studies where 1) economic benefits of watershed conservation are claimed or expected and 2) municipal and water agencies conduct watershed protection as a principal or integral part of an overall water supply strategy, including as an alternative to more costly treatment options.

This document was created based on material assembled by Stephanie Peck during a the Fall 2005 for the Geo298 course, and led by Professor Jim Quinn.

The follow pages are case studies and related articles, mainly focusing on ecosystem services, but other watershed management topics are also covered.

This document is released under a Creative Commons License. Please visit our copyright page for more information.

Case Studies

Case studies include New York City, Boston, Seattle, Portland, Lake Tahoe, and other U.S. an international examples of filtration avoidance, watershed protection for water supply, and alternative water supply approaches. Issues to be discussed include ecosystem services and watershed protection benefits, institutional and policy frameworks, current paradigms of watershed management, water supplier concerns, and challenges and potential application in California.

New York City

Overview

New York City has one of the few sources of natural, unfiltered water in the U.S. It is the largest water system in the country operating under an approved filtration avoidance waiver. The abundant reserve of forest, as well as soil with adequate carbon levels, is essential to the Catskill/Delaware watershed’s excellent conditions for natural filtration.

The natural filtering abilities of New York’s ecosystems, wetlands and waterways were being threatened by development, runoff from agricultural lands and impervious surfaces, and discharges from wastewater treatment plants at a time that the city faced the potential major investment in a new treatment facility.

Water System and Watershed

The Catskill/Delaware, or Cat/Del system, drinking water supply system consists of four Delaware reservoir watersheds (Cannonsville, Pepacton, Neversink and Rondout) and two Catskill reservoir watersheds (Askokan and Schoharie) west of the Hudson River. Due to the Delaware aqueduct connection with Branch Reservoir and Cat/Del system discharge into Kensico Reservoir, the system also includes West Branch-Boyd’s Corner Reservoir and Kensico Reservoir watersheds, both east of the Hudson River. Ninety percent of the City’s water is from the 1,600 sq. mile area Catskill/Delaware Watershed. The upper watershed consists primarily rural area of farms, forests and small towns with growing number of suburban developments and vacation homes.

Amount of water

1.3 billion gallons per day to 9 million people in New York City.

Cost savings

$6-$8 billion for construction of new filtration facility
$200-$300 million operation and maintenance costs

Lead Agency(ies)

New York City, Department of Environmental Protection

Agreement Vehicle

A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed in 1997 by New York City, communities of Catskill/Delaware watershed, U.S. EPA, state of New York, and certain environmental organizations in exchange for a filtration avoidance waiver from EPA. EPA reissued New York City a Filtration Avoidance Determination (FAD) in November 2002.

Program Implemented

New York City chose to implement a comprehensive watershed protection program to preserve and restore natural filtration services as a more cost effective means of maintaining water quality than water treatment.

1997 Watershed MOU/FAD

Watershed management measures included land acquisition and comprehensive planning, water quality monitoring and disease surveillance, and upgrading wastewater treatment plants.

MOU stipulated that New York City solicit purchase of 355,000 acres of land in the watershed between 1997 and 2007, coupled with $250 million commitment from the city. Conservation easements funded through federal, state, and city strategies including USDA Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP). Land was to be purchased from willing sellers and full market price. Wastewater treatment plant upgrades at cost of $70 million were funded by city of New York.

City also shared cost of implementing agricultural, forest and stream BMPs including buffers and setbacks, soil-conserving tilling and grazing practices, stream-bank fencing, and erosion-prevention forestry practices. Watershed Agricultural Council (WAC) assisted agricultural and forestry communities with adopting management techniques to protect water quality and enhance economic viability. Conservation easements provided landowners with annual payments in exchange for maintaining the land in a natural state.

2002 FAD
The renewed FAD continues protection and remediation program called for in 1997 FAD with city providing necessary funding to meet milestones, as well as significant expansion of a number of programs. Cost to New York City of watershed protection programs is approximately $1.3 billion.

Status of programs

Land Acquisition Program. This is the foundation of the watershed protection program. Overarching goal is to ensure that undeveloped, environmentally-sensitive watershed lands remain protects and the watershed continues to be a source of high-quality drinking waters to the City and upstate counties. EPA’s continuance of filtration avoidance rests largely on success of this program.
City continues to solicit for acquisition of land, either to acquire outright or to acquire conservation easements which restrict development. Between 1997 and 2003, City obtained or had under contract over 52,000 acres at a cost of $131 million. Over 70% of the acreage obtained is in high priority areas, including 1,200 acres of wetlands. City is also working with local land trusts to increase solicitation. City is more than 1/3 of the way through a 15-year program.
Wastewater Treatment Plant Upgrade. City is upgrading all City- and non-City owned wastewater treatment plans that discharge into surface water in the watershed to tertiary treatment technology. Cost is over $200 million. Over 90% of wastewater flow is subject to advance tertiary treatment. All plants are expected to be operational by end of 2004.
Stream management program. To address pervasive stream degradation that has contributed to erosion and loss of riparian buffers, FAD continues milestones for 10 large restoration projects through 2007 and completion of 9 stream management plans.
Agricultural program. Over 95% of large farms in the watershed are enrolled in this voluntary program. More than 2,500 actions have been implemented using BMPs at a cost of $18.6 million. 2002 FAD expanded this program to include small farms.
Other programs include: new wastewater infrastructure program, community wastewater management program, septic program, Catskill Turbidity Control program, UV disinfection facility, as well as more emphasis on enforcement and more comprehensive monitoring and program analysis.

Benefits

Significant cost savings over the build and operation of a filtration plant.
Wastewater treatment upgrades expected to result in 90 percent of wastewater flow being micro-filtered and safer drinking water benefiting both rural and urban residents.
Preservation of open space and rural character of Catskill/Delaware watershed, increasing opportunities for agriculture and forest-based businesses.
Ecosystem services benefits realized including steps towards market development of previously unrecognized economic opportunities.
Protection of other valuable services such as flood control, storage of carbon by plants.

Contacts

David Warne
Chief of Staff
Bureau of Water Supply
Department of Environmental Protection
New York City
(914) 742-2099
dwarne@dep.nyc.gov

Bibliography

Appleton, A. 2002. How New York City Used an Ecosystems Services Strategy Carried Out Through an Urban-Rural Partnership to Preserve the Pristine Quality of its Drinking Water and Save Billions of Dollars. A Paper for Forest Trends, Tokyo, November 2002. Accessed at: http://www.forest-trends.org/documents/meetings/tokyo_2002/NYC_H2O_Ecosy...

Murphy. S., J.W. Tone, and P. Schwartzberg. Land Acquisition for Water Quality Protection: New York City and the Catskills Watershed System. in Integrated Watershed Management - A New Paradigm for Water Management? Robert C. Ward, ed. Water Resources Update. Universities Council on Water Resources (100) Spring1995. 60-62. Accessed at: http://www.ucowr.siu.edu/updates/pdf/V100_A9.pdf

New York City. 2001. New York City’s 2001 Watershed Protection Program Summary, Assessment and Long-term Plan. New York City Department of Environmental Protection, Bureau of Water Supply. Accessed at: http://www.ci.nyc.ny.us/html/dep/pdf/moapdf/fadplan.pdf

New York City. 2002. New York City 2002 Drinking Water Supply and Quality Report. New York City Department of Environmental Quality. Accessed at: http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/pdf/wsstat02a.pdf

New York City. 2004. Filtration Avoidance Annual Report for the period January 1 through December 31, 2003. New York City Department of Environmental Protection, Bureau of Water Supply. Accessed at: http://www.ci.nyc.ny.us/html/dep/watershed/pdf/fadannual.pdf

Nickens, E. 1998. A watershed paradox – New York City’s water quality protection efforts. American Forests. Winter 1998.

U.S. EPA. 1996. Watershed Progress: New York City Watershed Agreement. Dec. 1996, EPA840-F-96-005. http://www.epa.gov/owow/watershed/ny/nycityfi.html

U.S. EPA. 1999. Protecting Sources of Drinking Water: Selected Cases in Watershed Management. EPA 816-R098-019. http://www.epa.gov/safewater/swp/swpcases.pdf

U.S. EPA. 2000. Assessing New York City’s Watershed Protection Program. The 1997 Filtration Avoidance Determination Mid-Course Review for the Catskill/Delaware Water Supply Watershed. U.S. EPA Region 2. May 2000.

Web Sites

New York City’s Water Supply System. Watershed Agreement Overview. http://nyc.gov/html/dep/html/agreement.html

Map

http://www.ci.nyc.ny.us/html/dep/html/catdel.html (Catskill/Delaware Water Supply System)
http://www.ci.nyc.ny.us/html/dep/html/wsmaps.html (Catskill/Delaware Watershed)

ICE Handbook

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Directions to ICE

Driving Direction to ICE (Wickson Hall, UC Davis)

From either the Bay Area or Sacramento, take I-80 toward Davis.

Exit north onto Rt. 113 North toward Woodland. (Note that this is nowhere near the 113 South exit, which goes into Dixon.)

Take the second exit, Russell Blvd., and turn right (east).

Follow Russell east to the third light, and turn right on Howard Way (right after a large practice field, and before the football stadium.)

State vehicles can turn right at the stop sign, and park in designated [E] spaces.

There is a kiosk next to the bus stop where you can ask for instructions. (If you go past the gate behind the kiosk, the buildings straight ahead are the student union, bookstore, and Freeborn auditorium complex. The next building to the right and across the street is Wickson).

An almost-useful campus map is on-line at
http://www.taps.ucdavis.edu/parking/info/cpark.jpg

Directions from Sacramento Airport to ICE (Wickson Hall)

At the exit from the airport, take the ramp (right) onto Interstate 5 North (toward Woodland and Davis).

Take the second exit (about 8 mi.) onto Road 102, Davis. Turn left (south).

It is about 10 mi. to the edge of Davis. Continue to the fourth traffic light and turn right onto 5th Street (just before a bridge)

Drive on 5th Street (which will change its name to Russell Blvd.) for about a mile. The downtown Davis cross streets have letters (... D, C, B, A) You will see the campus on the left immediately after A Street. Turn left at the next light onto Howard Way.

There is a parking garage on the left, just before you get to the campus bus terminal, where there are both 2 hour parking meters (bring quarters) and spaces that can be used with university temporary permits. State and federal government vehicles can turn right at the stop sign, and park in designated spaces. There is a kiosk next to the bus stop where you can ask for instructions. (If you go past the gate behind the kiosk, the buildings straight ahead are the student union, bookstore, and Freeborn auditorium complex. The next building to the right and across the street is Wickson)

We have an ICE office in room 2120 Wickson.