Think about a place where you have spent a significant amount of time. For example, where you grew up or where you currently live. This place will be the area of interest (AOI) upon which you will base most of your work for the remainder of the course, so consider 1) multiple areas and 2) areas where you may already have a significant amount of supporting information or knowledge.
Then, please write a short paper answering the following questions.
Define the AOI and Issue
1. Briefly describe the place.
2. Identify ten key systems (e.g. climate, ecology, groundwater, transportation development, housing development, etc.) that operate in this place.
3. Based on what you know about your AOI, are there any constants, trends, or assumptions you can make about the future of your AOI? What change is on the horizon that you know will impact the future of the area? For example: sea-level rise, doubled population growth, a planned development....
4. Which of the systems you listed in #2 are most vulnerable to change, and which are most attractive to change based on current trends you identified? For example, if there is a trend toward doubled population growth in a particular county over next 50 years, the system of economic growth and housing are attractive to change, however at the expense of putting ecological systems and water supply at risk. The geodesign process provides us with a framework for weighing and evaluating these kinds of conflicts and opportunities in order to make the most informed decision.
Asking and answering these sorts of initial questions is the first step in "scoping the study area", and helps you identify vulnerabilities in one or more systems. This exercise prepares you with critical information to build an evaluation model, which we will learn about in next week's lesson.