Lab 4: Answering a Spatial Question

To begin lab 4 (the final project), the first step is to browse existing GIS data in order to come up with a spatial question. The first thing that needs to be done is to decide what data to use and what the spatial question will be. A new blank File geodatabase was created in the Lab 4 project folder. The next step was to browse the available GIS data that is in the “mgis” data folder on the campus computers. The state that was picked for this project is Oregon. The county that was picked is Harney, Oregon. The spatial question to be answered is; where is the best place to put a new hospital in the selected (Harney) county? In order to answer this question, it must be focused in on the area of interest for the project, which is Harney county in Oregon. When looking at a map of Oregon, it can be seen right away that there are not any hospitals located within Harney county, which had a population in 2000 of 7,609 and a population of 7,281 in 2010. It seems that placing a hospital within Harney county would be beneficial to residents, because there are not any hospitals located close to the county. Harney county is located in the southeast corner of Oregon, which is why it seemed to be a good place to look at when studying county proximity to basic needs like hospitals, airports, schools, etc., because this county is pretty far away from the more urbanized areas of the state. Criteria that will be used to answer this spatial question will include; placing the new hospital nearby the various schools in Harney county, placing the hospital nearby major roads/highways within Harney county, placing the hospital in somewhat close proximity to the nearest airport, and also placing the hospital and close proximity to any parks nearby Harney county, Oregon.

As seen in the map above, Harney county is located somewhat on the outskirts of Oregon, relative to airports, cities , schools, and parks. Because of this, it seems to be a good place to put a new hospital, it would provide new jobs, and easily accessible care to many people within this county who would have otherwise had to drive pretty far away to reach the nearest hospital. By determining how far away Harney county is from essential building structures it will then become much easier to pick the location for the new hospital. I will provide a completed map highlighting where parks, cities, airports, and schools are located within Oregon, and using various tools within ArcGIS, an analysis will be completed to determine the optimal place for a new hospital in Harney County. The completed map will include 4 different data layers, one outlining the optimal hospital location, one showing a locator map of where Oregon is located, and lastly, one showing the slopes of Oregon, and one with the Earth imagery base map. Showing the slopes of Oregon is important when considering where to build a new structure because this way, someone who is not on the site can still determine the optimal location for a new hospital simply using ArcGIS from anywhere (by utilizing the necessary data available). The new hospital will steer clear of any high slopes, which is very common all through Oregon, making it a very important consideration. The Earth imagery base map will help providing an appealing backdrop to the map as well.

The first tool that is used is the spatial join tool. To perform the join, the rail100k feature class was the join feature, and the highways were in the input feature. The spatial join was one to one. Once the join was completed, the new feature class was then saved and titled joinrailroadandhighway in the lab 4 file geodatabase. This join was completed in order to combine the railroad and highways on the map. Once these are combined, this makes is easier to see both of their proximities to where the new hospital will be. The second tool that was used was the dissolve tool. In order to complete this dissolve, the input feature was set to rivers and the dissolve fields was set as select all. The output was saved as dissolved rivers into the lab 4 file geodatabase. This tool was used in order to connect the rivers together and help in seeing the smaller fragmented rivers that are located within Harney county. When looking at the map of Harney county, it can clearly be seen that there are many small fragmented rivers all throughout the county. It will be important to place the hospital in a more central location within the county, so that it will be relatively close to all of the different rivers. Having a hospital nearby when at the beach or on the river would be an important safety consideration to take into account when building a hospital. The next tool to be performed is a buffer around the other hospitals in order to confirm and convey the far distances from Harney county and help in determining where the new and optimal location should be for the hospital. To complete the buffer, the input feature was set as hospitals, the buffer distance was set to 25 kilometers, and the dissolve type was set to all. Once completed, the new feature class was saved in the lab 4 geodatabase as bufferhospital. The color of this buffer was set to yellow as well. The next tool to complete is another buffer. This buffer will be around schools in order to find the optimal distance for the hospital to be from the different schools that are present within Harney county. To complete the buffer, the input features was set to schools, the buffer distance was set to 15 kilometers, and the dissolve type was set to all. Once completed, the buffer was saved in the lab 4 geodatabase and titled schoolsbuffer. The color of this buffer was set to rose pink. Once these tools were al completed, the next step was to choose the best place for the new hospital and create my final map that portrays the results. To complete the final map, it was also necessary to complete the three other data frames and make all of the coordinate systems the same, which was NAD 1983 Oregon Statewide Lambert (Meters). The completed map is shown below. A data flow model of the processes that I went through when using the tools during this lab was created as well. The end product is shown below, underneath the final map.