Week 7 Site Selection

Week 7's assignment was to come up with a scenario of our own regarding site selection. I chose to work a parish in Louisiana.
Parish commissioners wanted to locate parcels that could potentially be purchased and developed into a park or recreation area.
The criteria:
Funds allowed for approximately 400 acs to be purchased. I brought in the parcel layer and ran a calc'd acre field. I then broke it down in to 6 size categories. I added an additional field to note the rank of 1-6 so I could run a merge as converting to raster didn't work without that.
I then brought in Gap data and to look for land that was suited for a park. Primarily to exclude water areas and highly developed areas.
I looked at roads to allow for accessibility. I ran a 100 ft buffer on all roads. My ranking was within 100 ft and outside 100 ft.
I think used the only recreation area that already exists to run a distance. As we might want to place a park away from an existing park for greater opportunities.
Running analysis:
I first ran all criteria as equal. The results were not good as I suspected they would be.
I then ranked the parcel data as the highest (50% weight), gap data (30%), roads and proximity to existing wma (10% each). This allowed for a better result.
You can certainly play with these rankings as well as add a few more criteria to narrow your searchs. Once you find some parcels that would fit your needs, running another series of analysis could be done to decide the uses within those ideal sites. This would then help with determining which site is better as well as what to develop in the site (i.e. boat ramps, bike trails, etc.
Enjoyed the exercise.

Week 6 Site Selection

We were tasked with creating some maps showing desirable locations for a couple moving to a location. We were given some criteria that was important to where they wanted to relocate. Using spatial analysis, we were able to find areas that fit a specific set of criteria. This exercise was a good example of some real life GIS applications. I have used this type of analysis in determining recreation needs in South Florida.

Urban Planning Mod 5

Here are a few maps from the urban planning module.

Participation Post - Week 2-4 Natural Hazards

"Summarize the role of GIS in disaster response and discuss how it relates to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill even occuring in the Gulf of Mexico."
GIS and disaster, it has become an invaluable tool in the before, during, and after a disaster (natural, manmade, or both) has occurred. I will focus a bit on the during and after as the participation request asked about response. GIS has become a necessity in tracking the path of the event, whether it’s a fire or an oil spill. Those fighting the “fire”, those that might be affected by the course of the “spill” are just two groups needing that information. Where it has been and where it is going are best tracked, analyzed, and displayed through maps and GIS software. Other groups come into play more in the “after” part. Where do relief supplies and cleanup and or aid workers need to go, how best to get them there are all questions that GIS can help with. There are many other applications GIS can be used for to respond to a disaster of any kind. Last but not least, GIS can show where the most extensive damages have or will occur for monetary assistance to people and agencies affected or fighting the fight!

Animation...Week 4 Oil Spill

Testing...testing...

Exercise was interesting...had never done animation before so that was good to learn a little about. Again, the biggest hangup...like most everyone else...just because the defined projection says one thing - doesn't necessarily mean it is...I hadn't had much problem with those pesky projection issues until these oil spill lines/polygons. Also - the animation doesn't work too well when the shapefiles have a display transparency greater than zero. It didn't seem to matter with the raster files. Now, get a big bowl of popcorn and enjoy the show...or maybe just a kernal or two.

Week 4 - Applications in GIS

Here are the project 2 map deliverables. I actually did 4 maps as the creature info - I felt - although not greatly - was best displayed on a map as opposed to a spreadsheet. I did include the marine mammal info on another map as well - as this was a small area and I thought needed to be seen by itself as well as with the other "creature" data. Learned some things as usual about GIS and ArcMap.

GIS 4048 Applications Week 3

First post for the Applications Class. The biggest hiccup I had was trying to work on my own computer with that elevation file that apparently gave others fits as well. I am still trying to figure out the problem just in case something like that happens in the "real" world but I managed to work the entire project on the UWF server so other than just wanting to know why - it didn't mess me up too much. I am just quite spoiled on speed and dual monitors. It's nice to work real data and real scenarios much like my job!