Site Suitability Analyst

Biologists at the Great Smoky Mountains National Park are having problems with certain black bears. The problems occur when park visitors and bears interact. The problems seem to be concentrated around roads and trails throughout the park. Even though biologists capture these bears and relocate them to other areas of the park they seem to return. Biologists want to know if there are areas in the park that would provide the basic needs for bears that would reduce visitor interaction. The objective for this assignment was to demonstrate an understanding of Spatial Analysis, including Suitability Analysis and Weighted Overlay function, and Model Builder in ArcGIS, As well as the ability to select and perform appropriate advanced geospatial analysis for specific objectives. Our task for this assignment As GIS professionals was to determine land's suitability for bear habitat in the following three categories, least favorable, favorable, and most favorable

Methods: To complete this assignment, I used tools such as: Slope, Feature to Raster, Distance Accumulation, Reclassify, and Weighted Overlay. Feature to raster was used to Converts the vegetation polygon features to a raster dataset followed by Extracting the cells of the newly created raster based on a logical query using extract by attribute. The distance accumulation tool helped Calculates accumulated distance for each cell to sources, allowing for straight-line distance, cost distance, and true surface distance, as well as vertical and horizontal cost factors for each of our vector line data streams, roads, and trails (as input). For our elevation data I used the slope tool which Identifies the slope (gradient or steepness) from each cell of a raster. The Surface Parameters tool provides a newer implementation and enhanced functionality. After this first series of processes, I used the reclassify tool on each of my outputs from previous processed which were used as input individually in order classify them based on the desired requirements for bear habitat. Finally, I used the weighted overlay tool to Overlays all 5 rasters using a common measurement scale 1-3 and equal weights to each layer 20%. Finally, I used model Builder which is a visual programming language for building geoprocessing workflows. Modelbuilder automate and document your spatial analysis and data management processes.

During the completing of this assignment, I learned to identify possible locations, suitability analysis ranks and scores sites based on multiple weighted criteria.

New Problem description: A location for a new urban park is being chosen in Wake County, NC. Three factors will be considered: land use, population density, and distance to existing parks. The goal is to find an area of suitable land use, such as vacant land, in a neighborhood of high population density to provide green space in crowded areas that are not already served by an existing park.

Data Needed: Existing parks and roads shapefiles from Wake County open data sites.As well as, Land cover data from NLCD

New Problem procedure: Each value class in each input raster is assigned a new, reclassified value on an evaluation scale of 1 to 5, where 1 represents the lowest suitability and 5 the highest. For instance, in the land-use raster, vacant land is highly suitable, while commercial land is not. In the population density raster, suitability values are high for high-density areas and low for low-density areas. In the distance to parks raster, suitability increases with distance from existing parks because areas far from existing parks are inadequately served. Any class can also be assigned a Restricted value, which means that the corresponding area is unacceptable or cannot be used. Restricted areas are excluded from the analysis. In the land-use raster, for example, airports and water bodies are restricted. Each of the three-input raster is then weighted. In this weighted overlay, land use has a 50 percent influence, population density a 15 percent influence, and distance from parks a 35 percent influence.