Andy Fink's Geography Portfolio

For the final project in GEOB 270, our class was asked to use the ArcGIS knowledge we had acquired over the term and apply it to produce a map and report that answered any question. The final project was completed in groups of four, and the question we chose to try and answer was, “In the event of a high magnitude earthquake in close proximity to Vancouver, which areas are most at risk of building collapse and economic loss ?”

This was a difficult question to address as there were a number of steps we needed to complete before we even began producing our map. The first problem we were faced with was how to define earthquake risk. There are many factors that contribute to the hazard associated with an earthquake and it was quite difficult to choose which of these factors had the greatest influence on overall risk. Thus we needed to conduct research to find out how we would index risk for our maps.

After some deliberation, our group decided to focus on three major factors when assessing risk: soil type, building height, and building cost. These were chosen in part due to the lack of available data when considering other factors like building age and individual building’s earthquake preparedness.

We learned and applied many interesting GIS analysis tools when creating our map. I found it particularly satisfying to use the raster to surface tool to create a usable layer when analyzing the soil data. Additionally, it was very satisfying to be able to recognize that the layers were incorrectly projected due to discrepancies in their source coordinate systems and subsequently fix them using the project tool.

Our group also discovered the challenges that arise from dealing with large data sets between multiple people. There were a few instances were we had made progress on one of the maps only to lose it due to incorrectly saving or sorting our data. This final project helped show the importance of maintaining and organizing data to prevent wasting time.

Overall, this final project taught me many important aspects of GIS work that I had not previously considered including organizing group members, referencing data models to correctly project data in ArcMap and how to deal with challenges associated with the lack of available public data for some factors.

Attached below is the final project.

GEOB270Final

For the final lab in the course, I was asked to produce a map that analyzed the viability of a proposed new ski area between Whistler and Vancouver at Brohm Ridge. I was asked to then comment on the map in the form of a memo that responded to the following prompt:

“You are a natural resource planner who has been retained by the British Columbia Snowmobile Federation (BCSF), who was initially opposed to the proposed project. Your task is to examine the Environmental Assessment’s recommendations and Whistler’s criticism to evaluate whether there is sufficient evidence to continue to oppose the project, or whether the concerns can be addressed as part of the project. The BCSF has requested you present your results in the form of a map, a series of answers to pointed questions and a memo that summarizes your results.”

This was a difficult lab for me to complete, as personally I would love for there to be another large ski resort near the Vancouver area. This lab helped further teach me the importance of being unbiased in reporting. The fact that I personally want the ski area to be built did not at all influence my ability to produce what was asked of me. I can now better appreciate the fact that if I pursue a career in GIS I will likely be asked to work on projects that I am ethically opposed to.

Below are the maps and memo:

To the British Columbia Snowmobile Federation,

The following memo addresses the viability of the proposed Brohm Ridge Ski Area, specifically relating to the concerns addressed by the Resort Municipality of Whistler and the BC Environmental Assessment Office’s 2010 report. Based on the data collected, the following conclusions have been determined:

• ~32% of the proposed project area is below 600m

In order to calculate this value, the total area of points below 600m was compared to the total project area. Elevation data is was provided in a Digital Elevation Model of the project area collected by the BC Government.

• ~54% of the proposed project area is in environmentally protected areas

This value represents the union of all of the environmentally protected areas in the project boundary, which were gathered using ungulate winter range data, old growth management area data, and river data all of which were provided by the BC Government. The environmentally protected areas include:

• Areas including red-listed species (24.81%)
• Areas including Old Growth Forests (6.78%)
• Areas that are also in the Ungulate Winter Range  (7.89%)
• Areas that are within fish bearing stream buffer zones (28.44%)

Recommendations:

I recommend that The BCSF continues to oppose the project until the following steps to mitigate the two largest environmental concerns facing the proposed Brohm Ridge Ski Area are addressed. The first issue that needs to be addressed is the large area (~32%) that is below 600m. These areas cannot reliably support enough snow to justify constructing skiing terrain. As such, they should be abandoned and newer, higher elevation areas should be proposed to replace this area. The only other way to make these areas viable is to have constant use of manmade snow which will prove to be inefficient in both cost and water resources. This very large issue cannot easily be mitigated and thus the project should continue to be opposed.

The next issue that must be addressed is the large area of the project boundary that is in environmentally protected areas (~54%). Proponents for the ski area will need to provide ways in which they will mitigate the impact of the ski area on the native species in the area. I suggest that the BCSF opposes any skiing terrain that is to be built in environmentally protected areas until ways to mitigate its impact are addressed.

Regards,

Andrew Fink

The above map shows the disparity in affordable housing between Ottawa and Vancouver. For reference, affordable housing in Canada is defined as households that cost three times less of than the median household income and severely unaffordable houses are those that cost five times more than the median household income. Median is used as it is a clear indicator of average household income due to the fact that it is less resistant to outliers than the mean. These definitions were taken from the 12th Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey:2016, a collection of research and terms that are extensively used internationally to analyze housing costs in relation to income. Overall, affordability is a good indicator of a city’s livability as one of the most essential things needed for a city to be livable is available shelter and affordability shows that while housing may be available it is not always affordable.

Different methods of data classification can be used to emphasize different features within a map. For example, in the map provided above, the housing affordability for the cities of Ottawa and Vancouver are compared. There are many different ways in which to define the breaks between intervals of affordability, but this map uses manual breaks to show the lack of affordable houses in Vancouver compared to Ottawa. If the breaks were defined using a different method such as standard deviation, the map would not effectively communicate the alarming scarcity of affordable houses in Vancouver, as the data distribution would be normalized.

The following post refers to this map

The overall tsunami risk for Vancouver can be assessed by calculating the total area of at risk zones in the city. This can be done in ArcMap by opening the attribute table of the layer that is a clip of Vancouver’s land use data and a 1 km shoreline buffer. Within the data table, taking the sum of values in the column with the polygon area will yield the total area of at risk zones in the city, which in this case was 1944.37 hectares. The area of Vancouver is 13102.06 hectares and thus the percentage of Vancouver that has tsunami risk is:

(1944.37/13102.06)*100 = 14.84%

It is also important to denote two areas of special consideration when assessing tsunami risk: schools and healthcare facilities. There are 8 schools and 4 healthcare facilities within the at risk areas of Vancouver, and these were found by selecting all of the Vancouver Health and Vancouver Education features within the at-risk area layer.

Misaligned and improperly referenced spatial data can be a significant issue when trying to accurately create map projections. In order to fix misaligned and improperly referenced data, one should use the following steps:

1. Open ArcCatalog within ArcMap and find the folder containing the Data being used
2. Note the coordinate system, data, and linear units used by each spatial data layer
3. Check the official coordinate system used for the region and data type you are collecting
4. Observe any discrepancies or differences between layers
5. Open ArcToolbox from the Toolbar and select Data Management Tools > Projections and Transformations > Project
6. Change the input dataset to the misaligned layer and output dataset and coordinate system to the desired correctly aligned form
7. Ensure the spatial data layer is displayed accurately in the map projection

Following these steps should solve any minor misalignment issues occurring between layers in ArcMap.

There are many advantages to using remotely sensed Landsat data for geographical analysis. Landsat data collected can be used to influence decisions on land use as it is collected constantly and thus can be used to describe land use change over time. Additionally, Landsat collects data for many remote areas that would be difficult to access otherwise. Landsat has a multitude of different uses, most of which take advantage of Landsat’s strength in viewing how land changes over time.