Fairbanks Suitability Mapping

Project Date: 2009 - 2011
Project Manager: Chris Beck
Client: Fairbanks North Star Borough
Location: Fairbanks, Alaska

Project Description

This project developed a GIS-based Land Use Suitability Map and project website as well as Alternative Futures Analyses – important steps toward preparing an updated land use map for the Fairbanks North Star Borough. A bit like clearing the ice off your windshield, the project gives residents, businesses and decision makers a better view of what might lie ahead, in terms of both challenges and opportunities.

Led by Agnew::Beck Consulting, this project was prepared by a team of consultants including Kelly Hegarty + Associates, Allegra Bukojemsky of Biohabitats, Scott Goldsmith of the University of Alaska Anchorage Institute for Social Economic Research (ISER) and Jeff Winston of Winston Associates, Inc.

Background Information

Like the state as a whole, there are some big unknowns in the borough’s future. These include the possibility of the natural gas pipeline and other major resource development projects, the end of the “Uncle Ted” era and the start of a new federal administration, changes in military spending, and the evolution of the relationship between rural villages and hub communities like Fairbanks. To make all this more interesting, the nation and world are confronted with daunting new challenges: global climate change, resource scarcity, volatile energy prices, pressures for economic development and also, strong desires to protect remaining natural areas. Add to this a global recession of uncertain dimensions, and it is possible that the borough’s biggest future challenge could be alarmingly rapid growth, or conversely, alarming decline.