GIS 1 Lab 5

Goals and Background:
The goal of this lab is to determine which vector geoprocessing tool to use in a given situation and apply that tool correctly.  In this lab, we will use the tools to find suitable habitats for bears in Marquette County Michigan. We will use GPS locations of black bears and fit their locations with a suitable forest habitat.  Other criteria like proximity to streams will also be used to determine the best habitat for bears.  The lab will also introduce basic scripting in python for ArcGIS with vector geoprocessing tools.

Methods:

To start, I downloaded the data and created a feature class for bear locations based off of XY coordinates from an excel sheet.  I then used the intersect tool with the bear locations and landcover feature classes to combine the bear ID and habitat type fields to find the three most popular habitat types the bears were found in.  Then I found how many bears were found within 500 meters of streams to determine if that was a popular location for them.  I buffered the streams and intersected that outcome with the bears locations.  The majority of bears were found near streams.  I then used the popular land cover types and the proximity to streams to find general suitable habitat for the bears.  I made a layer by selecting the bears three most popular landcover types and intersected that with the proximity to streams layer.  After dissolving the boundaries within the layer, I got a map of suitable bear habitat (figure 1).  The next objective was to find suitable habitat that was on DNR management land.  I used dnr_mgmt layer and used the clip tool to get it only within the study layer and not the whole county, and then the dissolve tool to get rid if the internal units.  Next I intersected the modified dnr_mgmt layer with the previous suitable bear habitat layer and got suitable land within dnr boundaries (figure 2).  The next step involved changing the suitable bear habitat layer to exclude areas within 5 kilometers of Urban or Built Up lands.  I selected Urban from the landcover feature class and dissolved it.   I then applied the 5 km buffer using the Buffer tool and used the Erase tool to erase it from the suitable bear habitat (figure 3).  For the second part of the lab, I used python scripting to find areas in Wisconsin that are suitable for the development of resorts (figure 5).  I created a 10 miles buffer around cities and wrote code to select by attribute for lakes greater than 5 sq. mi.  For the second task of part 2, I wanted to create potential impact zones of air pollution around interstates in Wisconsin.  In python scripting, I used code for a multiple ring buffer around interstates and created a graduated colors map (figure 6).

Results:

Figure 1: All suitable habitat for bear within the study area of Marquette county

Figure 2: Suitable land for bears within DNR management land in the study area

Figure 3: Suitable habitat for bear with a 5 km buffer from urban land

Figure 4: Final product showing suitable area and area with DNR management land

 Figure 5: python code for a buffer are lakes to find areas suitable for a resort

Figure 6: Air Pollution hazard index around interstates in Wisconsin using a graduated colors map.

Sources:

 Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR). 5.1.2016

 Price, Maribeth. 2016.  Mastering ArcGIS. 7th Edition data. McGraw Hill.

 Wilson, Cyril 2012, A comprehensive Lake features for Wisconsin, Unpublished data.