Northern Rockies ALR Final Project

For our final project, our group’s goal was to assess the validity of the ALR of the Northern Rockies region in BC. It was our desire to determine how much of the proclaimed reserve was actually suitable for farming purposes and to inform the public of possible misuses of the land.

Teamwork was critical for the completion of this project as we broke up the workload into specific tasks at the beginning and I think that everyone played a key role in putting the final report together. James and MC both worked on the actual processing and collecting of the crucial data for our analyses, I worked at representing our maps in an informative and easy to understand manner while Patricia collected everything into a cohesive report that highlighted our findings. While everyone had their own roles to fill, it was really more of a collaborative effort as we all helped each other. There were many instance where we all worked together, often times informing one another about what we wanted to display and show in the final report. It was this cooperation that I believe helped us create a report that effectively showed the inaccuracy of the ALR.

In the process of working on the Northern Rockies ALR I learned some interesting details about the project and GIS in general. I learned the importance of proper data management, proper communication with my group members and how difficult it is to find a good way of representing our maps. There were a number of occasions where as we were all working on our individual parts from the same shared data drive and as a result of improper data handling procedures we ended up working on the same geodatabase and then when we moved them back we ended up erasing someones progress and lost some crucial layers. This led to a lot of retracing of steps and wasted time as we worked to fix the issues. Proper communication was also a big factor as keeping informative workflow notes helped to stop confusion when putting the final project together. Having the role of cartographer and mapping such a small area I understood just how difficult it can be in deciding what areas need highlighting, what symbology would best display our information without distracting readers and how to best highlight the area’s features. It was also important to find a way to use inset maps effectively to show the full range of our region as it was spread out across a wide area within a limited size page.

This project combined all of the skills we had learned to use in GIS by working as a team to analyze the Northern Rockies region and evaluate the accuracy of the ALR. Our communication and presentational skills were showcased as we combined our findings and maps of the area in a final report that would be published to the public.

Through more experience with the GIS software and its various programs I was able to further build upon my existing knowledge base with accomplishments with the program.

4. Used different categorizing systems to classify the affordability of Vancouver housing data in various ways to reflect how the data would be interpreted by the reader.

5. Constructed an environmental assessment map to evaluate the validity of a ski resort being proposed in the Garibaldi area by using knowledge in the GIS program to process and analyze a number of data sources.

To the Northland Properties and Aquilini Investment Group of Vancouver,

         The Garibaldi at Squamish projects is a proposed ski resort in the Brohm Ridge, which is 45km south of Whistler and 80km north of Vancouver. This environmental assessment reviews the proposed project’s merits and surveys possible locations for the site, taking into account the snowfall and the projects affects on vegetation, fish and wildlife habitat in the area. This assessment outlines the priorities the proponents need to focus on in order to proceed with the proposal. To analyze the data we gathered data from DataBC that mapped the Ungulate Winter Ranges as well as the Old Growth Management Areas. This information is crucial in identifying the key hotspots in the project area that require considerable environmental care. Additional data used in this assessment includes the project boundary, the Terrestrial Ecosystem Mapping data, Digital Elevation Model, Protected Parks, the roads and the rivers. Before analyzing, some of these layers require a change in projection to ensure that all of our data properly lined up with one another. These datasets were first cropped and narrowed down to the specific project boundary to analyze the project’s direct affects. Elevation was simplified into above and below 555m elevation categories to assess areas that would require equipment to produce snow. From the Terrestrial Ecosystem Mapping layer we selected the top species threatened in the area and created a map of the red-listed areas. Combining the elevation range along with the river layers we isolated the parts of the rivers that are below 555m of elevation. These areas are considered to be more likely to be fish bearing and should be given a higher priority when considering conservatory measures. To demonstrate the riparian areas that are essential for these fishing communities, buffer zones were made around these rivers. The above 555m elevation rivers were buffered by 50m on either side while below 555m elevation rivers were buffered with 100m on either side. These different layers provide a representation of the environmental areas of concern for the project. It was calculated that the combined percentage of the project area that consists of red-listed ecosystems (24.8%), ungulate habitat (.8%), old growth forests (6.8%) and fish habitats (30.1%) equaled 55.6%.

In our opinion, the two greatest environmental concerns to project development would be selecting a suitable area to build both the resort and the ski slopes. Ideally, the resort would be built along an already established road, but would not interfere with the ungulate habitats or old growth forests. Additionally the resort should avoid the riparian zones as runoff and pollution may be an issue. Ski slopes should also be located in areas that don’t interfere with the rivers and should receive lots of snow. Although a large percentage of the area represents the different sections for concern is important to consider that a large percentage of these hotspots fall below the 555m elevation level, with large areas of open land available at higher elevations. These areas would be well suited for the slopes and the resort. They would receive plenty of snow, and focusing on constructing in this area would mitigate any affects to the environment. With careful planning and consideration of the key environmental habitats, a ski resort can be constructed that has minimal affects on the environment, meets conditions for proper slopes and be easily accessible to the general public.

When evaluating the above project proposal that was drafted with the goal of supporting the Ski Resort in mind, I realized that my own personal views conflicted with what I was tasked with. While I do agree that another ski resort would be great for our economy and for local snowboarders and skiers, I feel that I don’t have the knowledge to fully support what was written in the memo. While it is evident that a large portion of the project area is at a high enough elevation to receive sufficient snowfall I’m not confident that there is enough open space in the area for construction of the slopes to occur without some damage occurring to the local environment.

As represented in this map, which displays the affordability of housing in Vancouver, affordability factors in not just the actual cost of the house but the income of the household. This index gives a better measure of affordability as it takes into account the percentage of their wages and shows whether or not they are able to pay the cost of the house with the money they have.

The affordability categories are broken into manual categories of specific values as designated by our lab coordinators. This representation was chosen to best represent the affordability of housing in Vancouver. While another ranking system would be best used to illustrate Montreal’s housing affordability it is better to show the comparison between the two cities and to highlight how much more expensive Vancouver is.

It is my personal opinion that affordability does not accurately show livability as there are many different indicators that factor into how livable a city is and not just the cost of house. This includes the community of people that live in the area, the environment and weather conditions that all play a role in how people live their day to day lives.

In the 3 labs on GIS we have currently completed I have accomplished a number things that reflect the skills I have learned through different analyses scenarios.

1. Used remotely sensed landsat data in the geographic analysis of the Mt. St. Helen’s volcano eruption to create a model that shows the event’s effects and the current recovery process.
2. Constructed a complex tsunami risks map for the city of Vancouver by using and combining a wide array of datasets to identify specific points of interest to focus relief efforts on.
3. Learned the various tools of GIS to modify data and create layers to project a map that takes a broad set of data and focuses them towards expressing a common goal. The end result is the ability to create a map that is easily understood and tells the audience of the goals of the project.

In our third lab about constructing a map that informs the danger zones of a possible tsunami in Vancouver. In my findings I determined that 11.35% of Vancouver’s total area is under danger as show in this map of Vancouver’s tsunami danger zone.

With the data for the lab here is how I was able to calculate that total area in danger percentage:

First I looked at the total area of Vancouver by opening an attribute table for the Vancouvermask layer and looking at the Shape_Area value. Then I added a new field to the table and changed the field calculator to get the area from m^2 to km^2 to simplify the numbers. I summarized the different landuse types that might be affected by a tsunami by categories and looked at each land use’s total area, also after converting it into km^2 from m^2.

Lastly I used the statistics tool in the attributes table to determine the total area of the land that may be affected by a tsunami and divided that by the area of Vancouver found in the previous question.

With the new map I had constructed I was able to identify the following health and education facilities in risk of being devastated by a tsunami.

To get this list I went and used the Select by Location tool to find the health and education facilities in Vancouver that were found in the tsunami danger zone. From there I exported the selected facilities data into new layers called Education_Danger and Health_Danger. I found the specific entries by looking at the attribute table.

As I had learned in our second lab, when using GIS data there can be misalignments and errors in the display of the information. As a result of more accurate methods of surveying the landscape we have older data that is not adjusted to these newer models. Often times when constructing maps we need to take data from a variety of sources and in doing so some of the data will not be in the same projection. This is where we start to see some data which becomes misaligned or improperly referenced. To fix the issue we must go through the metadata to look at the properties of the data and change the projection to a consistent type. Having a common projection allows the data to work seamlessly and using the metadata informs us of which projection will best represent the desired outcome.

One of the most important tool we learned about during our lab was the use of Remotely Sensed Landsat data. I saw first hand how it gave us the advantage of creating snapshots at different time intervals of an area that we can use to compare and show the changes in the environment. Landsat data has great potentials including mapping how an area restores itself after a devastation, how large scale development projects can affect the surrounding ecosystem and the effects of global climate change. All of these applications can help us make decisions about future conservation efforts, construction projects and recognizing areas that can have dangerous living conditions.

Collected in this blog are some examples of the labs where we have received hands on experience using the GIS computer programs. We’ve learned about using GIS to create maps, how to properly use and display relevant data and various other ways to utilize and apply the tools provided for real world projects.

In our labs we have taken GIS training guidelines and have received our GIS Certificate.