Creating an effective landscape design requires an understanding of your site’s location, orientation, boundaries, slope, soil, and watershed. Fortunately GIS and the internet make putting together a map of all this data relatively easy for anyone who has access to a computer.

GIS AUSTIN
Austin maintains a great public ftp site where you can download all of the city’s GIS data. You need GIS software, some of which is available free and open source, to view the detailed maps, but unfortunately, as a mac user, I’m GIS impaired. It’s difficult to find anything that will run on my computer and impossible to get anything for free.

Or so I thought–The Watershed Protection and Development Drainage Viewer lets me view Austin GIS maps through my browser. How invaluable to be able to pull up an aerial photo of a client’s property and overlay it with property lines, building footprints, contour lines, creeks and watersheds with only a few clicks! The operation is a little slow and clunky, but I’m smitten.

Just search the address in the left toolbar, select your desired map layers on the right, and click “Refresh Map”. I created this map of Fonda San Miguel, where I manage the restaurant garden:

Fonda San Miguel GIS Map

I can see all of my boundaries and can infer a good deal about the solar and water energy flows through the property right here. Now I can print a few copies as a base map and start designing.

NOTE ON SOIL DATA
While some soil data is available through the Drainage Viewer, the USDA’s Web Soil Survey, another online GIS application, is much more complete. It maps out the myriad of differing soil types over an area, and includes information on depth, structure, pH, drainage, etc. from past USDA surveys. Of course, the most accurate method, would be to just get a soil test–but this is free and fun.

EMPOWERED DESIGN
I find these online tools very empowering for both my design and understanding of place, and I hope all of you will take advantage of them too. Bringing our landscapes into line with the natural patterns of our places, is the only way we’re going to avert future disasters brought on by resource depletion and ecological disruption. These changes will only be made piece by piece, but a total revolution isn’t impossible. With these technical tools and design systems such as Permaculture, anyone design a landscape that is beautiful, functional, and fits.