7. Best-fit alternative strategy development (Gap Analysis)The project team also decided to test another approach for identification of alternative strategies related to new alignments. Similar to the previous gap analysis example, overlays of resources to identify sensitive areas were used. However, this methodology took advantage of cell format data that allowed a least cost or lowest impedance path to be determined using numerous data layer inputs over a large geographic area. In this case, ‘cost’ or impedance was judged in terms of number, quality and importance of resources. The previous example overlaid resources on each other and calculated the total number of coincident resources. This previous procedure assumed that each resource was weighted equally. In this example, each resource was assigned a weight to reflect its relative quality and/or importance. The GIS "best-fit" program was then able to determine the lowest impedance path between two points. 7. Best-fit alternative strategy development demonstration
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