I enjoyed Geography 270 mainly for the analysis skills I developed throughout the course, especially considering the fact that they have allowed me to be more critical of maps I examine; I am now more confident about finding errors and biases in mapping. The most interesting part of this class to me were the ethics involved in GIS, and how they can be circumvented with minimal repercussions at a professional level. I would be interested in looking at the theoretical aspect of GIS ethics in subsequent courses, if the UBC Geography department chooses to develop a class based on this subject.
GEOB270: Final Project
Our team proposed developing a map that would allow us to examine potential environmental impacts of the reintroduction of the Vancouver Island E&N Railway, which was decommissioned in 2011. Specifically, we chose surrounding bird colonies and ungulate habitats as subjects of concern, by looking at their proximity to the tracks, and determining that a 2km buffer would be in the most sensitive area, in terms of noise pollution. I had originally thought about mapping the effect of noise on surrounding housing prices, but because determining accurate price fluctuations was outside of our scope of knowledge, we decided to look at ecological impacts. There were no issues in terms of privately owned data: all the data was acquired from DataBC, or the UBC Geography server. It is possible that we may have had a more complete dataset if we had bought privately owned data, such as the possibility of building a more complete list of surrounding bird colonies, as the layer we were able to acquire only included coastal birds. The main task division was as follows: Jonathan Zajonc and Dexter Everett took the lead for the creation of the map, whilst Jonte Woods developed the flowchart. I did a large part of the writing, including the abstract, description, error and uncertainty, further research and recommendations, as well as part of the methodology, table of dataset, and analysis. We helped each other in contributing ideas and suggestions for every section, and I think that we worked well together overall. The use of a single account on the UBC Geography laboratory computers to map the project, as well as writing in shared Google Drive documents made the work more efficient, and mitigated possible errors that could have occurred through confusion and mismanagement of data. It also made looking at our progress much easier. Though our research was largely inconclusive, the error and uncertainty and further research sections were my favourite to work on, and got me to consider other important factors that need to be taken into account if this train were to resume service.
GEOB270 Lab 5: Environmental Impact Assessment
- Errors in 3D DEM (failure of transformation to 3D)
- Housing development limited
- Further congestion of the Sea to Sky highway
- Limited construction area on the proposed ski hill
- Costs to build while avoiding sensitive areas would be high
- High risk of protected areas being trespassed
I encountered several errors during this lab. There was a failure in the translation of the original map to the 3D modeling, which made it harder to recognize the elevation in relation to the snowline. My results showed that 63.6% of the ski area is suitable for development (including below the snowline set at 600m), though because of a breakup in the protected areas, possible ski runs are limited in their size. The proposition includes over 120 pistes, though the lack of mention about their size must imply that they are shorter than the average. Further analysis of the project should include the economic preparedness of the community by estimating the amount of tourism generated by this ski hill, as well as possible chemical runoff to Howe Sound. Additionally, the impact of climate change is already being seen and felt in Whistler over the winter, with the ski season starting later than the average and finishing earlier on, altering the economy of the resort.
GEOB270 Lab 4: Housing Affordability Part 4
Affordability measuring considers many factors in order to build a more applicable representation of the cost of living. In this lab, housing affordability included average income, and the housing cost. This allows the potential homebuyer to compare where they are most likely to buy a house, in terms of financial means. House cost is relative to the region in which the house is in. Vancouver is a much more expensive city to live in than Montreal, so considering other factors apart from simply the housing price is important to form a more rounded understanding of how much it costs to live in a certain area. Affordability is thus an important indicator of a city’s livability, but it is one that must be considered with caution, because it is a determinant that can be influenced by several factors: income, family size, lifestyle, spending habits, job type, government taxation, and time spent travelling, among others.
The housing affordability rating categories as determined by Demographia were: 0-3 (affordable), 3.1-4 (moderately unaffordable), 4.1-5 (seriously unaffordable), 5.1+ (severely unaffordable). The median multiple used is determined by the median house price divided by median household income. It is hard to determine differences in affordability, from seriously to severely unaffordable- if both are unaffordable, there is a blurring of lines in terms of the differences between both categories, in a real-world setting. This system is efficient, but can only be employed in areas that have a population of over 1,000,000. This system is also exclusively targeted towards homeowners, though it may not include rental prices, which are subject to much different pricing systems.
GEOB270 Lab 4: Housing Affordability Part 3
In this lab, shelter cost solely reflected the price of buying a home. Vancouver has a high traffic of residents, and rental prices are a real issue, because of assets being placed into properties that remain vacant. Looking at housing should include rental pricing, in order to make a more fair representation of the housing climate. Since Vancouver has a large proportion of social housing, largely found in the Downtown East Side, a large part of it was removed from analysis. Parts of the surrounding area are not considered Crown Land, and are instead Indigenous land. This fact also contributed to the No Data area, which was a large swath of Vancouver. The census data was sourced from Statistics Canada and the University of Toronto provided the shelter and income data. Because of how quickly the housing situation in Vancouver changes, using data from 2016 makes the project inaccurate and out of date.
GEOB270 Lab 4: Housing Affordability Part 2
The “No Data” census area gaps were found on the maps because of data uncertainty pertaining to what types of dwellings are found within those areas.
- Social housing
Social housing is found especially in the Downtown East Side, which is a contributing factor as to why the areas with social housing cannot be recorded; it does not have a shelter cost because it is a form of government assistance. The prices of social housing are artificially set and are relatively unrelated to average housing prices of surrounding areas. This type of housing is government-owned, and cannot be purchased by individuals.
- Indigenous territory
Indigenous territory cannot be monitored by the government, since it is not Crown Land. Areas like Stanley Park and land near UBC are Musqueam territory, and are not subject to recording by census.
- Heterogeneous socioeconomic climate
Areas such as the Downtown East Side, the poorest neighbourhood in Canada, may be subject to this rule imposed upon by Statistics Canada in delineating census tract boundaries. While upscale businesses can be found in this area, the variation in income can range from these to abundant homelessness.
GEOB270 Lab 4: Housing Affordability Part 1
As I learnt from this lab, different methods of data classification influence the interpretation of data on maps, by highlighting different aspects the cartographer may be trying to reflect in their project. Though every map has to compromise certain aspects, it is important to understand why different versions may be used.
Natural Breaks/Jenks: Minimizing variability in the map, the Jenks method is a truer representation of the housing market, though the divisions are not equal, and may be confusing if trying to compare
Equal Intervals: As the name implies, the classes are divided equally. In this map, the intervals were of $720,000. This was reflected in a higher proportion of lower-priced classifications appearing on the map, though this might be deceptive in that there is no distinction between housing size and type.
Manual Breaks: This type of map is easier for a layperson to read, since the breaks are round numbers, which may make it easier to search for housing within budgetary confinements.
Standard Deviation: A classification method that incorporates the mean of data to become its own class. It is harder to understand for the layperson, but is one of the better methods of data representation.
Unfortunately, none of these classification methods incorporate housing affordability, a more substantial indicator of housing prices relative to income.
GEOB270 Lab 3: Planning for Flooding/Storm Surge
This project looked at data representing the potential for flooding in various areas across Metro Vancouver, due to storm surges. DEM resolution for the Metro Vancouver area was 25 meters. In False Creek, the DEM resolution was of a scale of 1 meter. Since this data is from 2011, there is the possibility of infrastructure having been built or destroyed, altering the accuracy of the map. There were also missing streets, which made the planning of St. Paul’s Hospital more difficult, and which resulted in its approximation of size and placement. The obvious difference in image resolution from 25 meters to 1 meter may account for slight inaccuracies insofar as exactitude of the storm surge in the smaller-scale maps, especially when looking at a large piece of land.