Bonner Park

1. Bonner Park Group 2 Andrew Shaw George Smith Kyle Melvin

2. Problem Statement • Milledgeville’s Bonner Park is in poor condition. The park has the potential to be utilized for a vast array of activities. Bonner Park has drainage problems, unused areas, overused areas, outdated facilities, and soil erosion problems that need to be addressed. The park has poor drainage routes which culminate from outside sources, but ultimately leave the park flooded at times. There are many vacant areas in the park that could be utilized for the public. Bonner Park can be noticeably overused in specific areas and is possibly due to the lack of other under utilized areas. Many of the facilities are outdated and therefore serve no useful purpose. Bonner Park has evidence of soil erosion in several locations which can use some attention. Milledgeville’s local population as well as its visitors could greatly benefit from proposed solutions to Bonner Parks problems. These problems have led to the park to not be fully utilized and become an eyesore to the people that visit Milledgeville.

3. Background Literature • GIS is a critical tool used to analyze both quantitative and qualitative aspects of public park areas. GIS is used in research to measure levels of accessibility and distributional equality within public park systems. GIS is used to determine land cover and land use within various public recreational sites. GIS can be used to determine both large and small scale problems such as suitable locations for new parks, or determine areas for land use within the study area. GIS can be used for a seemingly infinite array of spatial problems. This technology is quickly becoming the most practical method of land survey and land use within public park systems.

4. Field Methods / Data collection • Observations • Total Station • Garmin GPS

5. Field Methods / Data collection

6. Results

11. Results • From our collected data we can see a strong correlation between slope angle, slope length and vegetative cover. As we predicted areas with steep slope angles and low vegetation were more susceptible to soil erosion. The loss of soil creates rills which are a major health hazard and an eye sore. There are various methods of erosion prevention. We prefer a natural approach by adding vegetation in areas that are more probable to soil erosion. The addition of vegetative cover in high risk areas is the most feasible erosion prevention method for Bonner park.

13. Discussion • The surveying methods that we used are commonly used in land survey. The use of the total station along with the GIS software allowed us to acquire accurate spatial data of the study area. We would like to take more points of the study in order to produce a more precise map. We needed time to study human activity in order to determine more commonly used areas within the park. The continuation of the project would include the budgeting of materials and determining the extent of reclamation needed.

15. Geo-Processing Data Collection with Total Station Arc Map used to analyze points Vectorized Land cover to match slope Statistics analyst tools / Slope Statistics Analyst Tools / IDW Spatial query to find areas of concern Max changes in Z values Digital Elevation model Area of Concern Map

16. References / Resources • Dr. Oetter • Background sources • Sarah Nicholls “Measuring the accessibility and equity of public parks: a case study using GIS” • Martha Herzog and Jon Harbor “Are Green Lots Worth More Than Brown Lots?An Economic Incentive for Erosion Control on Residential Developments’ • Terrenance T. Joy “Soil Erosion” • ArcGIS and total station software • Total Station • Garmin GPS 76c