SEQL, Sustainable Environment for Quality of Life

This image shows the SEQL region. View a larger image for the map key information.

Conserving Ecosystems Through Proactive Management Decisions

What is SEQL?

The Sustainable Environment for Quality of Life (SEQL) project is a collaboration encompassing 15 counties in the Charlotte/Gastonia/Rock Hill region of North and South Carolina and includes over 100 political jurisdictions and a population base of 2.1 million people. SEQL is one of the first voluntary multistate collaborations that crosses geographic and geopolitical boundaries and considers the secondary and cumulative effects of land use, transportation, energy, and economic policies on the environment.

Located in the Sunbelt, the region is a highly desirable area to live but faces many challenges: sprawl, air and water quality, water supply problems and a concern about being the "next Atlanta." The region is projected to grow by an additional 1.8 million people by the year 2030. Within these challenges lay the framework to develop and demonstrate nationally a regional integrated planning strategy.

The framework:

Existing relationships with officials in the region and the states
The region is highly motivated, with many existing initiatives already underway
The logical continuation of an earlier project with EPA's Office of Air Quality, Planning and Standards (OAQPS) to improve local air quality through voluntary action

How is ReVA Contributing?

ReVA helps to integrate the pieces. ReVA allows insights into cumulative impacts associated with alternative patterns of development that take air, amenities, water, and human health into consideration.
Develops new methods and models. These new methods and models further characterize the implications of change and tradeoffs associated with different choices.
Works with SEQL Partners to develop a better Vision of the Future. Because much of the region's future concerns are due to transportation issues, SEQL partners envision an alternative future scenario that will encourage both mass transit and distributed economic development. ReVA is working closely with these partners to develop a GIS rule-based model of land use change that is built on what is feasible in the region.
Projects Currently Underway

Developing future scenarios and associated Traffic Demand Model runs
Refining models of nonpoint source (NPS) pollution in water
Developing model to estimate water supply under different scenarios
Exploring ways to quantify air quality changes associated with alternative development patterns
Developing indicators of quality of life (e.g., time spent in traffic, amenities associated with development choices)
Evaluating options for cross-media trading

Impacting Future Decisions

EDT Screen Capture: This image shows the comparison of simple sum - low density to simple sum - high density and a difference map. View a larger image.

EDT Screen Capture: This image shows the the trade-offs of Water Use vs. NO_x. View a larger image.

Web-based Environmental Decision Toolkit (EDT)

Flexible visualization and exploration toolkit
Statistical engine allows analysis of alternative data combinations within seconds
Housed at and maintained by UNCC
Available to Regional Planning Alliance, other regional decision-makers and analysts
Public version of Environmental Decision Toolkit (EDT)

New Models and Methods

Water Supply as Influenced by Impervious Surface
Region-specific Rule-Based Land Use Change Model
Relationship between Land Use Pattern and Air Quality
Relationship between Land Use Pattern and Amenities

Partners

Centralina Council of Governments
North Carolina Department of Natural Resources
Catawba Council of Governments
South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control
UNC - Charlotte
Duke University
American Forests Association
Voices and Choices
Charlotte/Mecklenberg Department of Transportation
EPA's Region 4, OAQPS and Office of Research and Development

For More Information

Visit the SEQL site - This site has a dynamic page that shows the interconnections between action plans and intersecting interest under the Shared Benefits option. It also has tools and calculators to measure your environmental friendliness.

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