Interdisciplinary research on the application of ERTS-1 data to the regional land use planning process.

Although the degree to which ERTS-1 imagery can satisfy regional land use planning data needs is not yet known, it appears to offer means by which the data acquisition process can be immeasurably improved. This paper documents the initial experiences of an interdisciplinary group attempting to formulate ways of analyzing the effectiveness of ERTS-1 imagery as a base for environmental monitoring and the resolution of regional land allocation problems. Because of the need to describe and depict regional resource complexity in an interrelatable state, certain resources within the geographical regions have been inventoried and stored in a two-dimensional computer-based map form. Computer oriented processes were developed to provide for the economical storage, analysis and spatial display of natural and cultural data for regional land use planning purposes. Statistical programs have been developed that correlate interpreted data with stored data, both spatially and numerically.