In rapidly developing urban areas such as the Twin Cities, conservation efforts are especially important. However, when identifying areas to target for conservation it is not enough to simply locate green spaces. Instead, size, cost, and the disruptive effects of noise pollution must also be considered. I was a member of a group that utilized Carleton professor Tsegaye Nega’s noise propagation model in combination with building footprint, road network, and parcel data in order to identify and rank land parcels within Ramsey County that were the most cost effective and suitable for conservation.
