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Identifying Habitats for Black Bears in the Great Smokey Mountains National Park
Problem and Objective
I need to create a map for the biologists at the Great Smoky Mountains National Park that indicates suitable bear habitats. Problems occur when the bears and visitors interacts, so to the biologists are trying to locate more habitat areas to be able to relocate the bears. They have given me the criteria for most favorable, favorable, and least favorable habitats. I am to create a map that displays the habitat options.
Analysis Procedures
To solve this problem, I used the ArcGIS Pro software ModelBuilder. I used shapefile data for roads, streams, trails, and vegetation. Also, I used raster data for elevation. With this data I used the Slope, Feature to Raster, Distance Accumulation, Reclassify, and Weighted Overlay tools from ArcGIS Pro.
Within a new model in ArcGIS Pro, I first used the Distance Accumulation tool three times. The first to create an output raster to represent the distance from a road. The second time was to create an output raster to represent the distance from a stream, and the third for distance from a trail. I then used the Slope tool with the elevation raster data to create a raster that represented the slope of the land in the area. I then used the Feature to Raster tool with the vegetation shapefile to create raster data of the types of vegetation in the area. I then used the Reclassify tool with each of the five new output rasters. This tool allowed me to classify the characteristics for each factor that would make it most favorable, favorable, or least favorable for black bears. Finally, with the five reclassified datasets I used the Weighted Overlay tool. I set each factor to have equal weight and the tool created the final output raster that displays areas of most favorable, favorable, and least favorable habitat conditions.
Results
The map to the left depicts the suitabilty of habitats for black bears in the Great Smokey Mountains National Park. Within the study area, there was no location that fell under the least favorable catagory. Most of the area was favorable, but now the biologists have a clear map to show them the most favorable area for relocating the black bears.
Application and Reflection
Using the weighted overlay tool was a new concept to me. It takes several steps to even have the correct data to use as inputs to this tool, but I can see how powerful it can be. Below I describe another scenario where this skill would be used.
Problem Description
As a GIS analyst for a county, I am tasked with determining where to put in a new fire station. The county tells me the criteria and it is based on locations of fires in the last ten years, relative distance to current fire stations, and the type of surrounding developed area.
Data Needed
For this problem, I need data on where fires have occurred over the last ten years, where current fire stations are located, and what type of developed area is around. Some of this would need to be provided by the county and some I would be able to create on my own.
Analysis Procedure
Once all the data is obtained and imported into ArcGIS Pro, I would be able to use the town's criteria for the new location to derive the raster data to represent each factor. I would then use that data as the imports for the Weighted Overlay tool to create the final output layer of suitable locations for the new fire station. I would then create a map depicting the final output and present it to the county so they can make the final decision on where to build the new station.
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