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Site Maps

With today’s energy projects facing increasingly difficult siting issues, understanding the technical constraints a development may face can make the difference between a proposal’s success and its failure. We use state-of-the-art GIS software to build clear, informative maps that describe a site’s topography and outline the challenges that a development may face. These maps can be custom designed to show critical geographical features, such as a site’s terrain and road access points, property boundaries and nearby transmission lines. In addition to being useful for site analysis and planning, our maps help support a transparent planning process and facilitate community outreach by making a project comprehensible to local planners and members of the community.

  • Contour Maps are useful because they present information about topography in a format that is both useful and widely recognized. Contour maps are especially useful when enhanced with hillshade features (see below).
  • Slope Maps help one understand how much area is actually available for development on a site, and whether or not a site may face substantial access and erosion issues.
  • Aspect Maps help planners understand the exposure of a site area. This can be helpful in anticipating issues related to orientation, such as whether a potential site will be well situated to harness the prevailing winds or solar resources.
  • Hillshade Maps are created by modeling the way a light source, such as the sun, would illuminate a site area. Such maps are useful when considering issues related to incident solar radiation, such as where snow may accumulate on a roadway. They also greatly enhance a map’s readability by intuitively conveying to the viewer an understanding of the topography.
  • Viewshed Maps represent an object’s expected Zone of Visual Impact (ZVI). Knowing where a project can be seen from helps planners and site designers address visual impact concerns early on, and gives them a framework in which they can minimize the effects on the community.

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