Determination of new roadway alignments together with the acquisition of right of way needed to support these alignments is a complex multidisciplinary process. This process is further complicated when these decisions require consideration of potential for natural and environmental hazards. Analytical tools are needed to consider alternatives and to make meaningful cost benefit trades. These tools must be capable of visually providing the results of these complex analyses in an easily understood manner. The proposed research effort will determine the types of hazards requiring consideration, determine methods for acquiring and analyzing cadastral data, determine types and nature of analysis and visualization tools, and develop system requirements for a prototype system. A survey will be conducted to determine available applications for hazard analysis, land acquisition management, and data visualization/simulation. A notional system architecture will be developed based on integrating appropriate technologies with newly developed technologies to produce a robust decision-aiding system for making right of way/land acquisition decisions when complex natural and environmental hazards are a concern. A major goal of the system development is to emphasize the use of open GIS and open system architectures wherever possible.
