Advanced Geospatial Analysis

This lab was designed to help the BLM pick test sites for vegetation analysis. "Vegetation analysis is a method to study species composition and the structure of a plant community. The method is an important tool in and classification (Damman 1979), conservation management of endangered plants (Cropper 1993) and animals (Deutschlander and Bredenkamp 1999), and conservation management of soil and water (Maridi et al. 2014). It also plays a crucial role as a baseline data for helping plant species and community to adapt to future climate change (Palmate et al. 2017)." (Robasiyah, 2018)

The map also was designed to help the technicians in the field find where everything is in relation to county roads in Eastern Utah. I used the random points tool in ArcGIS Pro, set a limit of points within 500 meters of a road less than 35 miles per hour, and then used the buffer from there to create my 20 meter circles.

The requirements were as follows:

"• Create 1000 (read this: ONE THOUSAND) circular plots

• Each plot should have a 20-meter diameter

• Make sure each site falls on BLM land

• Prioritize sites near roads (not freeways)

• Create final random selection (Narrow down to 50)

• Make map book " (Belmont, 2021)

I used a yellow circle for the buffer, and an orange dot for the middle so that people can quickly identify the test site. Circles are unnatural in nature, but help us focus. I made sure that people could see the vegetation within the circle. ArcGIS Pro was giving me some issues. Normally I can take the inside of a circle and make the symbology slightly transparent, but today it wasn't even letting me access the transparency pane, so I couldn't figure that out. I used a maroon red for the roads and the background to my coordinates, and this is so that people could see the county roads on any color of terrain, and so they could read the coordinates on any kind of terrain. I wanted my technicians to find where they were going, what direction it was, and the general lay of the land surrounding them.I then added county road labels so that again, my technicians knew where they were so they could carry out the study. Perhaps I could in the future add speed limit signs so that they know how slow to go!

Number 15 was the only one that actually doesn't fit the requirements. It is within 20 meters of the road, and the buffer intersects it. It shocks me how this happened.

Sources:

ROBIANSYAH, IYAN. “Diversity and Biomass of Tree Species in Tambrauw, West Papua, Indonesia.” Biodiversitas Journal of Biological Diversity, vol. 19, no. 2, 1 Mar. 2018, pp. 377–386, 10.13057/biodiv/d190204. Accessed 8 Nov. 2019.

Map information:

Map Author: Logan Bolan

Map Date: 2/7/2021

Map Data: Belmont (Instructor), UTARGC