Suitability Analysis

Task of Lab: 

The objective was to complete a Suitability Analysis exploring potential suitable areas for environmental protection using Multi-Criteria Evaluation and a Weighted Linear Combination approach.

Methodology:

1. Uploaded provided water, landuse, and DEM raster layers

2. Made a Constraint layer by using the landuse raster layer. The purpose was to limit the analysis to only undeveloped areas. To create the constraint, the Con tool was used for its ability to reassign landuse layers as 0 or 1 based on land type. Undeveloped land (Cropland, Pasture, Forest, and Open Undeveloped) was assigned a 1 while all other types were assigned a 0. 

3. Used Slope and Aspect tools on the DEM raster layer to create Slope and Aspect raster layers. The Reclassify tool was used to categorize the cell values with each raster into a score from 1-3, with 3 being the most suitable for environmental protection. The output raster layers became my Cliff Factor and Aspect Factor, respectively. The same reclassifying process occurs for all of my factors to standardize the cell values into the 1-3 scale, which allows for the different factors to be compared against each other.

4. Used the Extract by Attributes tool twice on the landuse raster layer to get two outputs, Areas of Developed Land  and Forest Areas.

4a. With the Areas of Developed Land, the Euclidean Distance tool was used to create a "Distance from Developed Land" raster layer. 

4b. With the Forest Areas, the Region Group tool was used to find the largest continuous patches of forest. Larger areas of continuous forest were better

5. The Reclassify tool was used on both the Distance from Developed Land and Forest Area raster layers to categorize the cell values within each raster into a scale from 1-3, with 3 being the most suitable for environmental protection. The output raster layers became my Distance from Developed Land Factor and my Forest Factor, respectively.

6. Used the Euclidean Distance tool on the water raster layer to develop my Distance from Water raster layer. The Reclassify tool was then used to categorize the raster layer into a scale from 1-3, with 3 being the most suitable for environmental protection. The output raster layer became my Distance to Water Factor.

7.  Once the five factors were attained, a pairwise comparison matrix was used to determine each factor's weight in in the analysis.

8. Once weights were determined, used the Weighted Sum tool to add all the layers into a single Suitability Layer.

9. The final step was to mask out the Developed Areas, which are unsuitable for environmental protection. The Times tool was used to perform this task. The complete Suitability Analysis raster layer is displayed below.