Bowdoin College

06/11/2025 | News release | Distributed by Public on 06/11/2025 09:24

Students In Advanced GIS Mapping Class Boost Local Conservation

Class Goals

The students in the class categorized the major objectives for their project:

  • Update GIS data for six major environmental categories: recreation, water quality, habitat, wetlands, environmental health and safety, and lead productivity.
  • Assess changes in conservation lands since 2010, identify newly protected areas and potential conservation opportunities.
  • Analyze development patterns, including new construction and impervious surface expansion.
  • Evaluate green space accessibility to guide future park and trail development, including accessible trails.
  • Reassess priority places, complete a trial scenic assessment to identity and prioritize areas of high scenic value.
  • Integrate new categories into the map, such as significant habitats and flood risk, to address a changing world.
  • Develop a habitat matrix analysis for future community engagement.
  • Provide updated data for the town to pursue next steps.

In addition, two students provided additional analyses:

  • Determine carbon sequestration potential, particularly in wetlands and forests.

  • Create a build-out scenario to help inform future zoning and understand development patterns.

Pellerin's smaller group of three students worked on updating GIS maps for six major environmental categories: recreation, water quality, habitat, wetlands, environmental health and safety, and lead productivity. His research looked specifically at water quality, and he mapped wells, aquifers, water runoff sites, and areas prone to flooding in major storms.

Environmental studies and history major Issie Gale '25, also in Pellerin's group, updated habitat maps, "identifying areas where there are ecologically significant plants and animals and areas of interest [such as waterfowl and wading bird habitat, wetlands, and open fields] to guide land-use planning and conservation efforts," she said in her presentation to the commission.

Her maps also show large contiguous undeveloped lots that don't have much infrastructure or roads-possible sites for future conservation. (Gale has a prior connection to Topsham: she was an environmental studies fellow with the town's planning department in the summer of 2024, when she helped to develop a pollinator park.)

Chase Lenk '26, an environmental studies and economics major, said he enrolled in the class because he wants to pursue a career in city planning-"and GIS skills are very important for that. This class seemed like an amazing opportunity to learn more and put them into practice." (Read about his summer internship with the Gorham planning division.)

For his piece of the project, he worked with Seamus McDonough '27 to map new buildings and paved areas. They revealed that less development had occurred in focus areas designated for preservation than in the previous decade, "a pretty cool finding to include," he said.

He added, "I am interested in how you can balance development with environmental impacts, and how to build housing stock in an environmentally conscious way. This project let me analyze something in the pursuit of this interest."

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