GEOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION-SYSTEMS FOR RURAL LAND-USE PLANNING

Two recent initiatives from the Scottish Office Environment Department are used as examples of the current and potential application of GIS-based techniques to rural land use issues and land use planning: the Land Cover of Scotland project, which will provide a census of land cover for Scotland at 1:25000 scale, and the Indicative Forestry Strategies, which are intended as a broad assessment of opportunities for new forestry taking into account environmental and other factors. These initiatives are used as examples to highlight some of the methodological and technical issues underpinning the application of GIS to 'land use' and land use planning. These are considered fundamental in relation to the relevance of GIS as an applied technology. The paper describes the context within which GIS must be applied and discusses issues of data quality in GIS as a basis for the examples presented which are drawn from the Cairngorms and Badenoch and Strathspey District.