Planning for Water Quality Improvement and a Sustainable Landscape in Urbanizing Southern California Aided by Innovative GIS Solutions

The Chino Creek Integrated Plan (CH2M HILL 2006) is a planning tool generated by the interest and desire of the Regional Water Quality Control Board (Regional Board), Inland Empire Utilities Agency (IEUA), Orange County Water District (OCWD), and local cities. The CCIP will contribute to the implementation of projects and policies that will contribute to the sustainability of the Study Area by integrating the built environment with the natural environment to ensure flood control, water quality improvement, and habitat preservation and restoration. The use of geographic information system (GIS) tools allowed baseline data to be used to build models for assessing the suitability of study area lands for various study purposes. These suitability analyses were completed for streambank stabilization, stream restoration, and both inline and offline treatment wetlands siting. In addition, the GIS tool proved useful in analyzing at the landscape level, the optimum location for habitat preservation and restoration. The results of the GIS analyses are useful to governmental and non-governmental stakeholders to identify the optimum locations for implementation of projects that meet study objectives and are useful in identifying opportunities to collaborate on habitat preservation and restoration.