Week 11 - Vector Analysis 2

This week in GIS4043 we wrapped up a two part series on working with vector data. Our deliverable for this week is a map of potential campsites. These potential areas were located using the following modeling tools: buffer analysis, union, and erase. The final map product needed to show the result from applying the modeling tools, using these parameters:

• must be within 300 meters from a road
• must be within 150 meters from a lake or 500 meters from a river
• must not be within a conservation area

View of potential camping areas, as derived from applying various overlay tools.

 Technical Details

The potential camping area polygon is the result of several overlays. First, a buffer analysis was run on the roads and the water layers (300 meters for the roads, and between 150 meters for the lakes and 500 meters for the rivers within the water layer). Once I had my buffer zones identified, I then merged the data together using the union tool. From this I was then able to remove the conservation area locations from the union output by using the erase tool. The result of all this data processing is what you see above.

Within the lab we also ran an additional tool to separate out the polygons - specially, the multipart to singlepart tool. For analysis of each individual area it would be helpful to have the camping area polygons split up within the attribute table, but for visualization purposes I found it more useful to use the multipart polygons. I suppose I could have displayed the singlepart data, but just changed the outline of the polygon to none in order to present a seamless appearance.

The basemap above is ultimately from USGS, as provided via the ESRI basemap service. It's not the best basemap ever as it has labels I don't necessarily want, as well as its own roads and water layers - but it does show a nice hillshade effect and gives a general sense of where the forest is in relation to non-forest land. The basemap I had wanted to use from USGS came in a geo.pdf format, and at this point in time I do not know how to convert that for use within ArcMap (if such a thing is possible) - it's main selling point was that it came with contours. Perhaps for next time...