The purpose of this lab was to gain a better understanding of using various geoprocessing tools and how they are to be used in the proper way to figure out the problem at hand. We were given multiple sets of data, bear habitat, streams, land type, and the county data, and using our knowledge learned we had to apply multiple geoprocessing tools to figure out where the best place for the bears of Marquette County to be moved to.
In lab 4 we followed a vague set of guidelines to help us conduct the project. The vagueness was to assure that we as students had a full grasp on the information at hand and would be able to use it in a real world scenario. After importing the county data, streams, and bear data we had to change the landcover feature so it could easily be seen which was what category. After that we conducted a summarize on the data to see which landcover areas had the most bears. These three areas were Evergreen Forests, Residential areas, and Lake regions. The next step was to create a 500 meter buffer, and dissolve, around the streams in Marquette County. About 72% of the bears live within the 500 meters of the stream, making it a very important component in finding a new habitat for the bears. The next step I did was intersect the data around the the streams with the top three bear landcover types and only have those areas selected with the areas around the streams. Next was to incorporate the data with DNR management locations and intersect them. Using the newly added DNR management data I intersected it with the likely areas of the bear habitats. The next step was to use the newly added DNR and landcover bear habitat data and eliminate any areas within 5 kilometers of a Urban or Built up land. Any area within the 5 kilometers of an urban or built up area was erased and not used in finding a new bear habitat. Lastly, after all that I had my ideal location. I then made it a visually pleasing map with a scale, little picture of Michigan showing the highlighted county, a legend showing all that is on the map and finally the sources used.
The results found in this lab were all ideal areas for bears is around water(due to the buffer) and away from any built up areas. Several bears live around the new ideal locations, but no so many live in the ideal regions.
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Sources
Michigan Geographic Data Library
Landcover is from USGS NLCD
http://www.mcgi.state.mi.us/mgdl/nlcd/metadata/nlcdshp.html
DNR management units
http://www.dnr.state.mi.us/spatialdatalibrary/metadata/wildlife_mgmt_units.htm
Streams from
http://www.mcgi.state.mi.us/mgdl/framework/metadata/Marquette.html
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