The nature of this master’s-level thesis project is to develop a GIS-based decision support tool capable of determining the viability of potential sites within rural Great Plains communities for the construction of GSI. This assessment will utilize multi-criteria-based site evaluations that account for priority issues as well as social and economic dimensions. This project will use a combination of pre-existing GIS datasets and community surveys to gather sufficient information for our tool to rank order suggested practices.
The project has three primary goals:
- The development of a GIS method capable of carrying out multi-criteria site assessments
- Community involvement aimed at gathering information on which factors need greater weight in site assessment
- Performing a pilot test of the tool on a smaller scale, largely focused on a subset of small rural communities in Oklahoma and Kansas
This project will contribute to the establishment of a technology-based methodology to support local communities, and is expected to result in a peer-reviewed publication.