An On-line Application for Searching Land Use Plans

Land use plans contain many objectives and strategies, each relating to specific areas on the ground.  Each land use plan can contain hundreds of objectives and strategies and cover millions of hectares.  It can be quite a daunting task to find out which objectives affect your area of interest.   Now, there is a simple, time-saving tool to help you and your business. 

PlanMapper is the first online tool of its kind that links or tags each land use objective with its related spatial area.   This means that when you draw your "area of interest" and press the search button, a report will be created in seconds that will tell you which land use objectives relate specifically to the area of interest you described.   Your area of interest might be a mineral claim, a cutblock, a proposed agricultural lease, a pipeline corridor - essentially anything you need to describe.  The screen shot below shows an example of an "area of interest" (red line) that has been described over a land use map with coloured zones. 

By drawing any shape on the online map of BC, PlanMapper will generate a colour-coded map and a report of all the land use direction for the area you described.  This is a valuable tool for potential resource developers, exploration sectors, and land use and tenure decision-makers.  PlanMapper will also provide either a direct link or the appropriate website for related information.

Land use plans can be hundreds of pages long and a single plan can provide direction covering millions of hectares. You don’t have time to search a huge plan for your specific topics of interest. When you use PlanMapper, your defined searching is done for you.  In seconds, a report is provided on your screen showing only those parts of the land use plans that pertain to your area of interest.

Several partners are assisting with the development of PlanMapper including the Province of BC, Ministry of Agriculture and Lands; Association of Mineral Exploration BC; GeoScience BC; UNBC; Noratek Solutions Inc.; Resources North; and GeoConnections.

ESRI Conference Presentation

This summer the PlanMapper coordinator, Dave Leman, attended the ESRI International User Conference in San Diego California and presented on PlanMapper, resulting in several interested contacts from the USA and Africa. A link to the presentation abstract is available at: http://www.conservationgis.org/scgis/Scgis2007PapersA.html. To view the full poster click here (3MB pdf).

Honoured to Receive Business & Technology Award!

During the 2007 Northern BC Business & Technology Award Ceremony, the Collaborative Research Award was presented to Dan Adamson from the former McGregor Model Forest Association, Scott Emmons from the University of Northern BC, and Steve Findlay from Noratek Solutions Inc. for their work on PlanMapper, an innovative online application for searching land use plans.  In their acceptance of the award, the recipients thanked Dave Leman who championed PlanMapper over the years, and the many partners who support the project.  The award was sponsored by UNBC to celebrate a UNBC - Industry collaboration which fosters economic diversification and innovation. "This award recognizes a project which truly is one of collaboration with UNBC, local innovative organizations, the provincial government and the mineral exploration sector," stated Max Blouw, VP Research, UNBC.

Dave Leman, Scott Emmons, Dan Adamson, Steve Findlay,
Lorne MacGregor

For further information, please review our BROCHURE, read our article in FORREX’s LINK publication, or contact:

Dave Leman, Project Manager
Resources North Association
Phone: (250) 612-5842; E-mail: planmap@pgonline.com

or

Scott Emmons, Senior Lab Instructor (GIS)
University of Northern British Columbia
Phone: (250) 960-6486; E-mail: emmons@unbc.ca