GIS 1 final Lab (4)

Introduction:

Where in Wisconsin should I build a cabin?

In our final lab in Geography 335: GIS 1, course at University of Wisconsin- Eau Claire, the objective for the project was to create a final map that was based on a relevant and simple question. So when I thought of a question relevant to myself, I thought of my past experiences. Growing up, my family was very into weekend camping trips during the summer. However, as my sister and I progressed through school, the family schedule became too chaotic and we had to sell our campsite. Yet now, both my sister and I have moved out of our parent’s house and talk of buying land to build a cabin has been the forefront of family get-togethers. This then became my question, what areas would be good locations to look at for possibly building a cabin.

To do this, I narrowed my potential cabin sites by using five separate spatial criteria. First, the cabin had to be more than 25 miles away from any cities with populations greater than 40,000. This was to ensure that large to moderate sized cities were removed from near areas. Second, the site also need to be at least 5 miles away from any US highways, as to reduce automobile traffic and noise. Then, I wanted to be within 5 miles of an unpolluted or “non-impaired” body of water (lakes). This was to ensure that the water source was a safe area for outdoor and water related recreation. I also wanted the location to be within 10 miles of recognized forested land again for recreation and also for the “up-north” wooded appearance. Finally, my last criteria was that the cabin was within 15 miles of a hospital, so that if accidents were to occur, my family would not be too far removed from help and assistance.

Data Sources:

In creating this map the first step was to find viable data sources that included data on the criteria I needed. The sources that I searched through then were geodatabases for Wisconsin DNR data and the Esri data files that are provided by ArcGIS. From these sources I gained an outline for the counties of Wisconsin, cities and major roads within my area of interest, DNR evaluations on water body quality, national and state forest locations, and lastly hospital sites.

Some concerns I had about this data involved time frames, as some data was older and others and may have been out dated. Other issues involved completeness, such as the number of DNR evaluated lakes (i.e. the total number of lakes within Wisconsin was greater than the number evaluated). 

Methods:

To create this map I analyzed my data through ArcMap. In doing this, I made use of five separate analysis tools. These included; query (or select by attribute), merge, buffer, dissolve, clip, intersect and erase. By applying these tools to the data collected, I was then able to narrow my search down to one cohesive answer. I accomplished this by selecting cities that were larger than 40,000 in population. I then created a 25 mile buffer around the selected cities. To find US highways I queried ‘U’ (i.e. US highways) from my major roads layer and then created a 5 mile buffer around this feature. “Non-impaired” water was determined again by querying “N” (i.e. no) within the “impaired water” attribute field of DNR evaluated bodies of water. I then also created a buffer of 3 miles around this feature. Recognized forested land was determined by merging together the national and state forest layers. Once this was done, a 10 mile buffer was then created around it. To locate hospitals within Wisconsin, I began by clipping all US hospitals to just those located within the Wisconsin boarder, then I created a 15 mile buffer around this feature.

Once I had all my criteria met, I had to then add all the components together to create my final map. To do this, I first intersected the 3 criteria I wanted to keep (i.e. Wisconsin hospitals, non-impaired water and recognized forests). After this was done, I then erased the two features I did not want to be near (i.e. US highways and moderate to large cities) from the new intersected layer. Finally, to create final map that were more aesthetically pleasing, I made sure all final layers were then clipped to within Wisconsin’s state boundaries and then dissolved the boundaries of my final projected locations into seamless areas of proposed land.

See data flow model above for visual path of methods taken.

Results:

From the query process I was able to narrow down the 75 cities listed by the DNR to 58 cities, 394 major roads within Wisconsin to only 66 US highways, 191 non-impaired bodies of water from the original 211, and 236 state hospitals from 13,378 that were listed as being within the continental US.

Based on my final map, which is shown above, the majority of large to moderate cities appear within the lower half of Wisconsin. Whereas the majority of recognized forest land is within the upper half of the state. Hospitals, although more spaced out as the distance from the cities shown grows, are relatively abundant throughout the state. This also became the case for the US highway road systems. Finally the region of Wisconsin that yielded the most non-impaired bodies of water was also within the northern half of the state. The areas highlighted in pink are then the proposed locations for possible cabin sites.

Evaluation:

When first faced with this project I initially found it overwhelming because of the amount of data in which I was supposed to search through. However as I started looking at different data of interest, such as forested land, I was able to narrow down my research question and create a map depicting the answer. If I were to continue this project farther or redo it, I would add criteria such as building codes of the townships in which my proposed sites overlap. I would also have to look into building regulations within recognized forests as some are not available for development. Finally I would consider other aspects such as land prices and other recreational opportunities within the range of possible cabin locations. One of the biggest problems I faced was in creating the flow chat after my map was completed, because of the lack of formal notes taken during the map making process. In future projects I would just create the two simultaneously in hopes of eliminating such confusion.