Colorado Roadless Rule ArcGIS Story Map
Date: 1/1/2021 - 5/31/2021
Colorado Roadless Rule ArcGIS Story Map
Student Researcher: Victoria Sanderson
Client: U.S. Forest Service - Rocky Mountain Regional Office
View Capstone Poster
View Executive Summary
The US Forest Service 2012 Colorado Roadless Rule guides management of Colorado Roadless Areas on National Forest System lands. There may be misconceptions that management is not allowed or needed in roadless areas and that the Colorado Roadless Rule itself can be a barrier to sustainable multiple use management. This may leave roadless areas unmanaged, risking increased forest fuel loads and impacts to drinking water sources, infrastructure, and ecosystem services that roadless areas provide. To help dispel these misconceptions, this Capstone explored a different approach to communicating the Colorado Roadless Rule that may not yet be widely used by agencies – visual storytelling with an ArcGIS Story Map. The Rundown on Roadless Story Map was created to assist the Forest Service Rocky Mountain Regional Office in communicating the agency’s vision for the management and protection of Colorado Roadless Areas to employees, particularly land managers and practitioners in Colorado. The Rundown on Roadless Story Map is an internal planning support tool and demonstrates how large amounts of information can be communicated in a more accessible and clearer framework to minimize misunderstandings of large-scale complex issues.