Ecological Planning Method - Design with the Desert: Conservation and Sustainable Development - page 232

requires systems to find the fittest environment, adapt it and themselves. Fitness of an
environment for a system is defined as that requiring the minimum of work and adap-
tation. Fitness and fitting are indications of health and the process of fitness is health
giving. The quest for fitness is entitled adaptation. Of all the instrumentalities avail-
able for man for successful adaptation, cultural adaptation in general and planning in
particular, appear to be the most direct and efficacious for maintaining and enhancing
human health and well-being. 2
Arthur Johnson explained the central principle of this theory in the following way:
The fittest environment for any organism, artifact, natural and social ecosystem, is that
environment which provides the [energy] needed to sustain the health or well-being of
the organism/artifact/ecosystem. Such an approach is not limited by scale. It may be
applied to locating plants within a garden as well as to the development of a nation. 3
The ecological planning method is primarily a procedure for studying the biophysical and
sociocultural systems of a place to reveal where specific land uses may be best practiced.
As Ian McHarg summarized repeatedly in his writings and in many public presentations:
The method defines the best areas for a potential land use at the convergence of all or
most of the factors deemed propitious for the use in the absence of all or most detrimen-
tal conditions. Areas meeting this standard are deemed intrinsically suitable for the
land use under consideration.
13.2 Steps in the Ecological Planning Method
As presented in Figure 13.1, there are 11 interacting steps. An issue or group of related
issues is identified by a community—that is, some collection of people—in step 1. These
issues are problematic or present an opportunity to the people or the environment of an
area. A goal(s) is then established in step 2 to address the problem(s). Next, in steps 3 and 4,
inventories and analyses of biophysical and sociocultural processes are conducted, first at
a larger level, such as a drainage basin or an appropriate regional unit of government, and
second at a more specific level, such as a watershed or a local government.
In step 5, detailed studies are made that link the inventory and analysis information to
the problem(s) and goal(s). Suitability analyses are one such type of detailed study. Step 6
involves the development of concepts and options. A landscape plan is then derived from
these concepts in step 7. Throughout the process, a systematic educational and citizen
involvement effort occurs. Such involvement is important in each step but especially so
in step 8 when the plan is explained to the affected public. In step 9, detailed designs are
made that are specific at the individual land-user or site level.
These designs and the plan are implemented in step 10. In step 11, the plan is administered.
The heavier arrows in Figure 13.1 indicate the flow from step 1 to step 11. Smaller arrows
between each step suggest a feedback system whereby each step can modify the previous
step and, in turn, change from the subsequent step. Additional arrows indicate other possible
modifications through the process. For instance, detailed studies of a planning area (step 5)
may lead to the identification of new problems or opportunities or the amendment of goals
(steps 1 and 2). Detailed designs (step 9) may change the landscape plan, and so on. Once the
process is complete and the plan is being administered and monitored (step 11), the view of