Project Overview
On behalf of the New Jersey Highlands Council, T&M’s planners, environmental scientists, and software developers prepared a web-based Regional Interactive Environmental Resource Inventory (ERI).
The Regional Interactive ERI provides users with the ability to select a customized study area within the Highlands Region, and view and analyze any number of approximately 200 geospatial datasets (e.g., climate norms, climate projections, flood hazard area, wildfire fuel hazard, etc.) within same. Based on data layers studied, the Regional Interactive ERI provides maps and automatically generated, dynamic text to describe the extent of features within a given study area. The application ingests data and services from multiple ArcGIS Enterprise and ArcGIS Online Organizations leveraging the Esri ArcGIS Maps SDK for JavaScript.
A chief goal of the Regional Interactive ERI is to facilitate the preparation of municipal ERI documents by Highlands Region municipalities, which is a requirement for Plan Conformance. Plan Conformance includes the preparation or amendment of local planning and regulatory documents to incorporate the land use and resource management requirements of the Highlands Act, so that they conform to the goals, requirements, and provisions of the Highlands Regional Master Plan. The Highlands Water Protection and Planning Act requires plan conformance throughout the Highlands Preservation Area, whereas it is voluntary in the Highlands Planning Area.
The development of the Regional Interactive ERI document was informed through close collaboration with the staff of the Highlands Council as well as extensive stakeholder outreach, which was conducted in an online format and garnered valuable input from a diverse body of public and private stakeholders throughout the Highlands Region. Located in northwestern New Jersey, the Highlands Region and comprised of 88 municipalities within seven counties.
