Lab 3: Vector Analysis with GIS

The goal of this GIS lab is to use various geoprocessing tools for vector analysis in ArcGIS in order to determine a suitable habitat for bears in the study area of Marquette County, Michigan. In order to accomplish this, the first step is to download the lab3.zip file from D2l and to unzip this file into the working folder for this lab 3 assignment. After unzipping the data, the next step was to add it into a blank map in ArcMap. Once that was completed, the next step was to use this X, Y coordinate data of bear locations and create an event layer with the data. In order to add the bear locations as an X, Y event theme, you go the File menu in ArcMap, then click Add Data, Add XY Data and then fill out the correct fields for the data wanted and the coordinate system that is needed (along with the X and Y fields as well). Once this step was done, the bear locations appeared on the blank map as points. Next step is to export the data and save the created event them into the lab geodatabase.

                The next part of the lab is objective two, where the first step involved adding all of the feature classes within the bear management area feature dataset to the data frame. After this, it was necessary to change the symbology for the landcover layer by creating a unique color map for the “minor type” field. After this, the next step was to perform a spatial operation tool to generate a new feature class that would be called bear_cover. The tool used was a spatial join. The target features are bear_locations, and then this was joined with landcover features. The join operation for this join is one to one. In order to complete the join, it first needed to be saved into the lab 3 folder and named bear_cover. A second operation needed to be performed in order to find out how many bears were found in each habitat type, using the minor type field. The top three habitat types are Evergreen Forest Land, Forested Wetlands, and Mixed Forest Land. There were 31 bears found in Mixed Forest Land, 14 found in the Evergreen Forest, and 17 found in the Forest Wetlands (queries in order to find the most common habitat types and the number of bears found in each).                 

                In objective three, the first step was to determine how many bears were found near (within 500 meters) of a stream when their GPS location was collected. In order to figure this out, a buffer must be performed. The input feature for the buffer was bear_locations, and the output feature class was the Marquette bear study geodatabase. The linear unit for the buffer was set to 500 meters, and the dissolve type was set to all and it was named streambuf. An intersect was then used to figure out the number of bears within 500 meters of a stream is higher than 30% (actual of 72) and therefore this indicates that this is a suitable area for bears to live.

                In objective 4 and 5, the goal was to find suitable areas of bear habitat based on the research that has already been done. The two criteria that this step is based off of is the suitable land cover types and the number of bears within 500 meters of a stream. The first step was to dissolve the DNR management areas, the new feature class was titled dnrdissolved.  In order to find separate the out the suitable land from the non-habitable, a query was done to get the top three habitats separated into a new feature class that is titled suitable land. Next, a clip was performed from DNR data to the study area. After this, an intersect was performed with the clipped DNR land and the suitable land feature classes (and named dnrandsuitableint). The first step in objective 6 was to exclude all areas that are within 5 kilometers from Urban and Built up lands. First, a query was performed to identify entries were urban or built-up land. The expression used was “MAJOR_TYPE = ‘Urban or Built-up Land’. Then, a layer was created from the selected features and named urbanandbuiltup. Next, a 5 kilometer buffer was run on this feature class. After re-arranging the feature classes so everything is visible on the map, the next step is to use the erase tool between the dnrsuitableintersect and the dissolved 5 km buffer feature class.  After doing the erase, the next step was to make a cartographically pleasing map with the data and research completed within the map in order to show suitable habitat land for bears in Marquette County, Michigan. My final map is show below.

                The last step of this lab was to work with the python application that is within ArcMap. Once in python, what needed to be done was typing out lines of computer code in order to perform tasks in ArcMap. During this step, it was necessary to do a buffer analysis, and intersect anlaysis, and an erase analysis using the research and data that was collected during this lab. The final result of the python coding is shown below.

     > import arcpy

>>> Arcpy.Buffer_analysis("streams","streams_buf", "1 kilometer", "FULL", "ROUND", "ALL")

>>> arcpy.Intersect_analysis(["streams_buf", "suit_land"], "land_stream")

>>> arcpy.Erase_analysis ("urbanandbuiltup" from "suit_land")            

I also created a data flow model to correlate with the steps taken throughout the lab. my data flow model is shown below. The source for all of the data used in this assignment is from the State of Michigan Open GIS data. (http://gis.michigan.opendata.arcgis.com/) Landcover data was 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. Stream data was from: http://www.mcgi.state.mi.us/mgdl/framework/metadata/Marquette.html.