Geog 335 Lab Four project

G.I.S 1 Mini Project
“Where to Ice Fishing In Forest County Wisconsin”
Intro:
The purpose of this lab was for the student to create a geographic question that could be solved using the G.I.S skills they acquired over the semester. The question needed to be answered using at least three different special tools a total of four times. The question I choose was where would be the best lake to go ice fishing in Forest County, Wisconsin. The inspiration for this project comes from an ice fishing trip my father and I take every year. The tools used in this project include Clip, Buffer, Intersect and Erase.
Methods:
I based my question on three main criteria. The first of these was that the lake needed to be in Forest County, as that is where I go fishing every year. To map this I took a Wisconsin counties feature class from the Wisconsin DNR geodatabase and performed an attribute query to select Forest County and make a separate layer. I then intersected the county outline with a hydrology feature class obtained from the same database. The result was a feature class showing the outline of the county and all waterbodies within it. My second criteria was that lake should not any smaller than 50,000 square meters. Ice Fishing is very popular in northern Wisconsin and lakes can quickly become over crowed. To determine which lakes were too small I performed an attribute query to isolate them and then performed an erase. My third and final criteria is that the lake should be within a quarter mile walking distance from the nearest road. It is often difficult to get vehicles onto the lake and is not possible when the ice is too thin. To find which lakes were close to roads I took a road feature class for the entire state from the DNR geodatabase and selected all roads within Forest County. I then clipped the selected roads. I performed a buffer of a quarter mile on the roads clip and performed a spatial query to select lakes that intersected the buffer. The remaining lakes were the ones deemed best suitable for ice fishing.
Data Sources and Results:
The data for this map was obtained from the Wisconsin DNR geodatabase. The tools were performed using E.S.R.I ArcMap software. Also included is a Dataflow model of my work showing how I got to my results.

Lab 3 Report

Geography 335 Lab 3 Report

Ian Godin

Objective: The objective of this lab was to use various geoprocessing tools to determine the locations of suitable bear habitat within a study area in Marquette County Michigan. Using data that showed the locations of the bears within the study area, geoprocessing tools were used to narrow down the preferred habitat of the bears and locate bear habitat that is in DNR management areas.

The first objective for this map was to determine what would make suitable bear habitat. Using the locations of bears and a shape file of land cover types, an intersect was performed to show which type of land cover the bears preferred. These include mixed forest land, forested wetlands and evergreen forest land. These layers were selected in a query and a separate layer was made from the selection Based on information that bears prefer to live in habitats within 500 meters of a stream or river, a buffer was performed on the streams feature class. This buffer result was then intersected with the land cover selection to further narrow down bear habitats.

                The second part of the assignment asked to locate suitable bear habitat that was within a DNR management zone and at least five kilometers from urban or built up land. First, an intersect was performed using shape files that contained the boundaries of the study area and of DNR managed lands. The result was a map of DNR managed lands within the study area. This result was intersected again with the previously made feature class showing the best bear habitats to create a map showing the best bear habitats within DNR managed areas. In order to determine which habitats were at least 5 km away from urban and built up areas, an attribute query was performed on the land cover feature class to select urban land. A buffer was then performed on this selection. Finally, an erase was performed on the buffer to remove these areas from the map. The final map is shown below.

   

          

Also shown is a data flow model to outline the steps I took to create this map.

               

  This lab also introduced us to Python coding. Using simple code, I performed a buffer analysis of the streams feature class. The code is shown below.

  Overall I enjoyed this lab due to the way it allowed us to us G.I.S in a real world scenario. While the workbook teaches how to use the different components of G.I.S, this lab had us perform tasks that one would actually perform in a workplace setting.