Planning the Boom to Prevent the Bust: Community Decision Making & Natural Resource Management

Boom! Bust! Rural communities, past and present, have cycled between boom and bust phases with the extraction of natural resources such as coal, oil and timber. With the advent of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) for natural gas, the boom-bust cycle is poised to repeat. Communities with natural gas resources are challenged to plan for the future, while balancing the realities of the present. This is an introduction to my dissertation research using geographic mapping (or GIS).