The ROSS Project
The Regional Open Space[1] Strategy (ROSS) project is a scoping study that aims to identify “measures to conserve and enhance open space systems that contribute to the ecological, economic, recreational and aesthetic vitality of our region.”This project is funded by the Bullitt Foundation and undertaken by researchers at the Green Futures Lab and the Northwest Center for Livable Communities at the UW College of Built Environments. The ROSS Project is a partnership with Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC)[2] and other organizations working on major initiatives that can be leveraged to support open space planning in the region. Concurrently, ROSS project’s study area includes King, Snohomish, Pierce, and Kitsap counties in the Puget Sound basin. Data from the ROSS project is available in the ross geodatabase on the UW Geography server, which you will connect to as part of Assignment 4.
Researchers at the Green Futures Lab and the students from the previous cohort at the MGIS program have made effort to collect data for the ROSS project. Some of them can be found at the gishub geodatabase hosted by the Geography server. You can use these data as a reference for designing and creating your geodatabase. Use the same method described in Assignment 4 to connect to gishub. Since gishub is served as a reference geodatabase, you can only view the data stored in it but not edit.
The geodatabase you will beworking with directly during Assignment 4 is called g582, and it is the first geodatabase that you will connect to. You will have write access to feature datasets that you create, and it is here where you will be building your feature datasets for Assignment 4.Please refer to Assignment 4 for details about how to connect to the Geography server through ArcCatalog.
[1] In the ROSS project, the term open space embraces a wide spectrum of lands and water bodies across a rural and urban continuum on large and small scales, including wilderness lands, public parks, resource lands for agricultural and timber production, wetlands and water bodies, local and regional recreational trail systems, and urban green spaces like parkways, rain gardens, and green roofs (The ROSS Preliminary Comprehensive Strategy, September 2012).
[2] PSRC’s Vision 2040 calls for the development of a regional open space strategy, which has become a vital momentum and mandate for the ROSS project.