A reservoir siting tool for North Carolina: System design & operations for screening and evaluation

The North Carolina Reservoir Siting Tool (“NC-RES”) is a web-based, comprehensive, geographic information system designed to assist non-specialist and non-scientific users in carrying out first-pass, basic screening assessments of sites for potential municipal, county, or state reservoir locations. The tool operates based on terrain data, and is designed to take advantage of web mapping technology and the availability of North Carolina's LiDAR-derived, high-resolution digital terrain data. The tool presents users with an easy-to-use, “point and click” mapping interface and provides a variety of data and analyses about proposed reservoir sites, including quantitative information about reservoir inundation areas, drainage basins, and the effects of a proposed reservoir on the inundation and drainage areas. This paper provides a basic description of the processing framework and underlying data of the NC-RES tool as an automated approach to potential reservoir site evaluation and screening.