Land Use Maps, Peace Corps Response Philippines

This project represents my 7-month assignment with the Peace Corps Response Program. I worked as a rural development specialist with Cagayan State University, located in Northern Luzon in the Philippines. The maps supported their academic accreditation requirements with the Board of Regents, as well as the Commission of Higher Education (CHED) requirements that accurately reflect CSU’s property holdings. My responsibilities included working with campus deans, university administrators, and chief executive officers from each college. I took existing information from their prior land use maps. I assessed and made revisions to the original land use maps and then with a team of faculty members from each of the universities, we developed a more accurate map that identified and highlighted the GPS boundary points, and land areas under agriculture development. Additionally, I defined old, new, and future infrastructure along with highlighting land areas for future agricultural development. The land use maps that were created were made using a variety of software and programs, specially QGIS, Google Earth Pro, Adobe Creative Suite, AutoCAD, Google Mapulator, Garmin GPSMAP 64st, smartphones, and personal computers. The land use maps that I helped to create were used to help CSU meet their accreditation requirements for the Board of Regents regarding having a short term and long-term land-use plan that depicted infrastructure, land holdings, and the resources located on each university’s property.

More about the land-use work and project can be found here: https://www.peacecorps.gov/stories/unfolding-experiences-and-everlasting-friendships-philippines/