GIS I Lab 4: Final Project

Lab 4: Mini-Final Project

Introduction: 

Lab 4 requires all students to come up with a spatial question to analyze and answer. To answer the question, the students must analyze data, create a data flow model, and use geoprocessing tools in ArcGIS to create a map to explain the answer. 

My question is centered around St. Croix County, Wisconsin. I wanted to know where the best placement is for a new high school in St. Croix County. There are a few criteria that have limits on where the new high school can be built. It must be at least five miles away from another high school, it must be further than two miles from any major roadway, it must be in an area of over 1000 people, and it must be ten miles or closer to a middle school. With overpopulation in many high schools throughout St. Croix County, I wanted to uncover the best placement for a new high school.

Methods:
To find the answer to my question, I used multiple geoprocessing tools with the data to find what I needed. All of the data I used for this project started with a query to gather data strictly from St. Croix County. Figure 1 below shows the work flow model I used to find the necessary information I needed. Some of the geoprocessing tools I used were the following: queries, buffers, intersect, erase, and union to find all of the necessary data I needed.

Figure 1: Workflow map showing the geoprocessing tools used as well as the results upon using them

Results:

I found that there are many areas within St. Croix County that would be a good area to build a new high school based off of the criteria I chose. Figure 2 below is the map I created showing the best possible area for a new high school. The red polygons created (shown below) are the areas in which a new high school meets the criteria. The criteria are that the new high school must be five miles from a currently existing high school, in a town with more than 1000 people, within 10 miles of a currently existing middle school, and at least two miles away from any major roadway. 

Figure 2: This map is used to show the best possible area (in red) for a new high school in St. Croix County. 

Data Sources:

To create this map, I needed placements of schools in St. Croix County. I had to query the data to find specifically where middle schools were versus high schools. I also had to have data about all of the major roadways in St. Croix County. The last piece of information I needed was The placement and data about St. Croix County which was gathered from a data source with all of the counties in Wisconsin. All of the data used for this project were taken from an ESRI data source. A few data concerns were keeping the coordinate systems the same throughout all of the layers within the map, and not taking into account that most of the major towns in St. Croix County already have a high school. After I finished the map, I had to double check all of the layers and make sure all of the coordinate systems were the same. I am concerned that the area is going to be a rural area.

Evaluation:

Overall, this was the best projects all year. It was interesting to each person because we picked what we wanted to do with our own spatial question. Lately there has been quite a bit of talk about a new high school in the St. Croix County area, so I wanted to see where the best location was spatially. It was cool getting to chose what to do our projects on. It was a great feeling being able to create a map of something from start to finish. I gathered the data I needed from a large data base and used my knowledge of geoprocessing tools and other tools in ArcGIS to create a map. If I was asked to repeat this project I would do more with the population. I only based my map off of a town of 1000 people, but I would like to go more in depth within the population. It was challenging trying to come up with a solid question that incorporated so many different criteria. Overall, creating this map was a great way to end my first GIS class!

GIS I Lab 3: Vector Analysis with ArcGIS

Lab 3

GOAL: The main goal of this lab is to understand how to utilize processing tools to locate and display certain areas in ArcGIS. In this case, the project is to find a suitable habitat for bears in a Marquette County, Michigan study area.



BACKGROUND: The study area for this project is in Marquette County, Michigan. The Michigan DNR are looking for the most suitable area where black bear can live within their managed lands. Using bear location, streams, and distance from urban areas, the DNR can determine where the best suitable habitat is for a bear to live in Marquette County, Michigan.



METHODS:
Objective 1: We were given an excel spreadsheet with bear locations based off of GPS tracking. With the use of an XY event theme I was able to create a feature class with the locations of the bears. With the excel data now in the form of a feature class, I was able to place that information on the map.

Objective 2: We had to determine the type of land-cover black bears prefer. First, I had to join the land-cover data to the bear location data. With a summary, I was able see what the three most likely land-cover types for bears to reside in. They were Evergreen Forest Land, Forested Wetlands, and Mixed Forest Land. Next, I created a separate layer for the three land-cover types.

Objective 3: In order to see how many bears were near streams, I placed a 500 meter buffer around all of the streams in the study area. I then used select by location to find all the bear locations within 500 meters of the stream. The results were surprising yet logical.  Approximately 72% of bears in the study area are located within 500 meters of a stream. Biologists claim that anything over 30% is important, so having a stream near a bear habitat is very important.

Objective 4: Suitable land cover types and the buffer of 500 meters from a stream were combined through the Intersect tool (also using the dissolve tool to remove any overlapping boundaries). This left any areas that fit both of the criteria previously stated.

Objective 5: By intersecting all of the DNR managed land with the ideal location criteria (500 meters or closer to a stream and suitable land cover) and performing a dissolve, I selected the newly formed polygons and created another layer.

Objective 6: This was the most difficult task of them all. I had to create a 5 km buffer around all urban or built up land. Lastly, an erase was performed on the buffered area combined with the most recent data for a suitable bear habitat. Finally, after many tools were applied, it left me with the most ideal black bear habitat locations (as seen in Figure 1).

Objective 7: Creating the map was fun! I added a legend, North arrow, scale, and a data frame giving the context of where the study area was within Marquette County.

Objective 8: Working in ArcGIS Python was something I was initially unfamiliar with. It was a great experience making the buffer distance larger just by entering programming information. With more exposure to the programming system, I am sure I would be able to become accustomed to using it.

RESULTS: The green areas on the map are all areas where it would be suitable for a bear habitat within the DNR managed land. The area near the bottom and bottom right of the map are not suitable for black bear because it is either urban land or built up lands. The possible suitable bear habitats are all within 500 meters of a stream and are suitable land for black bears.



FIGURES:

Figure 1: This map identifies the most suitable bear habitat locations within the Marquette County, Michigan study area

Figure 2: The data flow model used to create the map above (figure 1)

     

       
SOURCES:

• Michigan Geographic Data Library
• State of Michigan Open GIS Data http://gis.michigan.opendata.arcgis.com/
• Landcover is from USGS NLCD http://www.mcgi.state.mi.us/mgdl/nlcd/metadata/nlcdshp.html 
• DNR management units http://www.dnr.state.mi.us/spatialdatalibrary/metadata/wildlife_mgmt_units.htm
• Streams                                     http://www.mcgi.state.mi.us/mgdl/framework/metadata/Marquette.html

GIS I Lab 2: Downloading and Mapping GIS Data

Lab 2

Introduction: The goal of this lab is to produce a map on ArcMap by gathering and downloading data from a website that has data that is open to the public.

Methods: I learned how to download data from an online data source (U.S. Census Bureau). I also learned how to link the key fields from an excel spreadsheet to the attribute table in ArcMap together so the GeoID makes sense when it is mapped. I had to spend quite a bit of time joining tables together to get the field values that I needed.

Results: The results were very interesting! The population distribution makes sense because the most amount of people live in or around the large cities in Wisconsin like Milwaukee, Madison, and the Green Bay areas. When I mapped my second map, a map of households, initially, I thought I did something wrong. It makes sense, however, that the maps are the same because the correlation between a high population and the number of households needed to house the population is very strong.

Sources: I used the U.S. Census Bureau website to download free public data. 

Link to the Web-Map: http://uwec.maps.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?webmap=67d5c8eaeec74c78902bd66717b066c0

GIS I Lab 1: Base Data

Lab 1

     To start lab 1, I analyzed the civil divisions, census boundaries, PLSS features, Eau Claire city parcel data, zoning, and voting districts for the Eau Claire confluence project.
     The goal of lab 1 is to explore various data sets for the City and County of Eau Claire and answer some basic questions about the base data. In addition to exploring data sets I will also digitize the site for the proposed Confluence Project, learn about the Public Land Survey System, create a brief legal description of the two parcels and generate a basic report describing the site, and build a layout with each of the major thematic feature classes.
     The Confluence Project is a proposed upgrade in infrastructure to the downtown area in Eau Claire Wisconsin. The city first needs to survey the land to decide what parcel(s) would be best to purchase in order to move forward with the project. There are two adjacent parcels of land in the center of the proposed site of the project. These parcels would become city property if the final decision is to purchase them for the Confluence Project.
     Figure 1 below is a grouping of six maps created using ArcMAP to create visual aids based on different scenarios surrounding the Confluence Project site. The civil divisions map is a map of three different municipality types in the Eau Claire area. I overlaid the county boundaries as well as the civil divisions over the ESRI imagery base map. In the census boundaries map I mapped the population per square mile near the site to view the population surrounding the Confluence Project. I also mapped the tracts of Eau Claire showing how the land parcels are distributed. The PLSS features map shows where the proposed site is as well as the quarter quarter boundaries are. The Eau Claire city parcel data map provides information on where the centerlines and parcel area lines are near the Confluence Project site. The city parcel map also shows the path of the Chippewa River that will run next to the Confluence Project area. The zoning map shows the six different zoning classes surrounding the Confluence Project site. The voting districts map strictly shows the proposed Confluence Project site as well as labeled numbers for each voting zone. In each map I outlined the proposed site with a solid red polygon. The legal descriptions for both parcels of land are below in figure 2.

Figure 1
Six maps outlining the proposed Confluence Project site area while also providing important information about civil divisions, census boundaries, PLSS features, Eau Claire city parcel data, zoning, and voting districts.

   

1. Parcel 1
Parcel Number: 02-0365
PIN: 1822122709200042068
Street Number: 128
Street name: Graham Avenue

Figure 2
The two proposed parcels for the Confluence Project site with the parcel numbers showing.

Owner’s Name: Haymarket Concepts LLC
Owner’s Address: PO Box 617
Owners’ City, State, Zip: Eau Claire, WI 54702
Legal Descriptions: LOTS 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8 BLK 62 & THE 26 FT W OF E 84 FT OF LOTS 9 & 10 & EX E 140 FT ALL OF LOTS 9 & 10 BLK 62 VILLAGE OF EC ADD TID 8

2. Parcel 2
Parcel Number: 02-0363
PIN: 1822122709200049005
Street Number: 202
Street name: Eau Claire Street
Owner’s Name: Haymarket Concepts LLC
Owner’s Address: PO Box 617
Owners’ City, State, Zip: Eau Claire, WI 54702
Legal Descriptions: PRT OF BLK 58 IN GOV LOT 4 BEING REPLATTED AS LOT 1 CSM 3037 REC V 17 P 95 DOC 1109271 LOC IN GOV LOT 4 SEC 20-27-9 TID 8 **FOR 2015 COMBINED PARCELS 02-0360-A, 02-0357, 02-0358, 02-0359, 02-0361, 02-0362

Sources: City of Eau Claire. (2015). Retrieved from http://eauclairecitywi.wgxtreme.com/
Community for the Confluence. (2015). Retrieved from http://www.eauclairearts.com/confluence/
City of Eau Claire
Eau Claire County 2013


     Overall this lab was a great experience learning about six different uses for mapping a real world project that is happening in real time. If I could go back and fix any mistakes I made, I would make my maps more clear by separating the six-in-one map into their own individual map and I would add better labels.