Third, the approach utilized in the analysis of the "eligible" areas would be the same as the approach utilized to study the United States. In other words, these areas would be analyzed in detail with respect to selected variables of concern and additional information would be gathered at this second level for certain variables not mapped at the national level. Of particular importance at this scale of analysis would be state and local recreational areas, wetlands, major non-interstate highways, "prime" agricultural lands and population concentrations, to mention a few. Then, the overlay or sieve analysis procedure would be performed on these "eligible" areas, thereby excluding certain portions of these areas from further consideration. In this manner, information that would be directly relevant to site determinations could be generated. Inherent in this second level of sieve analysis is the need for more detailed spatial data. While research will need to be undertaken to obtain spatial information for certain of these variables, a major option that should be pursued would be to identify the degree of compatibility between the Rice University data system and several ongoing data management efforts at the federal level. In particular, the Department of Energy is currently establishing the Energy-Environment Atlas which should be coded and ready to use in the near future. Additionally, the United States Geological Survey is also establishing high resolution computerized land use data base, with a substantial portion of the United States already having been mapped. This Soil Conservation Service is following the U.S.G.S. mapping effort with interpretative soils data and prime agricultural land designation. Finally, the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Wetlands Inventory is also supposed to be established as a computer data system. With all of these data systems in existence, an obvious area of future research would be to determine how these systems could be integrated at the output level and to determine how a varying resolution spatial data base could be established. In short, computer-assisted analysis of existing computerized data should be pursued as a major aspect of future work.
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