Projects 1-5:

LAB #1: Introduction to GIS

Part 1: Accomplishment Statements
Acquired knowledge for basic GIS functions in order to construct maps in the future. In order to achieve this, I visited the ArcGIS website, and completed the introduction lesson, through a vigorous two-hour process. With this training program I received a certificate confirming my online training.

LAB #2: Coordinate Systems and Spatial Data Models

Question #1: Review your answers to question 2 and 5 to answer the following: for general audience, describe how to fix misaligned and improperly referenced spatial data, including taking into consideration project properties.
For the general audience, in order to fix misaligned layers, for instance, you can use projecting-on-the-fly, in order to get the coordinate system that is different to the coordinate system on the data frame. When making this transition the other layers added to the map will “project-on-the-fly” in order to match the correct coordinate system. ArcToolbox allows the “unknown units” that appears on the bottom right of the screen, and gives it a value, because it is filled with 700+ tools for spatial analysis, and when using it, it allowed the layer to transform and displayed on the coordinate system it fits on. When considering the projection, as previously seen, the Mercator projection seems to distort the certain areas of the map, for instance Greenland and Africa seem to be the same size, when in fact Africa is much larger. The Peter’s projection is seen to be the most accurate depiction of the world. This projection doesn’t distort the distance, area, or angle of certain areas that seemed to be distorted in the Mercator projection. By simply looking at the map projection you can see which map equally illustrates the size of the continents.

Question #2: Review your answer to question 11 and discuss the advantages to using remotely sensed Landsat data for geographic analysis.
The advantages of Landsat data will be reviewed by using an example of the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan in 2011, resulting in a devastating aftermath. Landsat data can be used for many different instances, and one could be taking a look at land cover before and after a natural hazard takes place, and in this case I will take a look at the affect of a tsunami wave. With Landsat data, there have been images that have been traced, before and after the two incidents occurred. We will look at the aftermath of the tsunami, and what it did to most of the areas near or bordering the ocean. The 9.0 magnitude earthquake followed by the 10-meter-high tsunami led to severely impacted land in japan, (USGS). We can see the land loss, through these images, which illustrates what kinds of affects natural disasters have on the earth’s surface. We can analyze these kinds of images, when measuring how much of land was actually lost, and the impacts the tsunami had, through Landsat images. Landsat imaging can document change over time, which portrays the accuracy of the images taken by the Landsat.

Part 2: Accomplishment Statement
In the duration of this lab, I successfully got to navigate around ArcMap, comprehending the different functions associated in order to create a map. I conducted analyses of map projections, and investigated on the Japanese Earthquake.

LAB #3: Planning for a Tsunami

Question #7: What percentage of the City of Vancouver’s total area is in danger? Explain what method you used.
15.5% of the City of Vancouver’s total area is in danger.
Method used to get this value:

1. We have already created a layer that intersect the Danger and the Vancouver area (from the previous question)
2. Right click onto that layer (named: Danger_landuse) à Open Attribute Table
3. Scroll all the way to the right, and right click onto Shape Area à Summarize
4. The Summarize menu will appear, and you can see that total area that is in danger in Vancouver
5. Then you take the Vancouver layer (without any intersections), à Open Attribute Table
6. With that it will give you the shape of Vancouver’s total area, including and excluding the danger zones
7. Then you take that calculation, which will be divided by the Sum of the area that was discovered in the earlier steps
   1. Calculations: 20314805.889169 Meter²/131033339.950334 Meter² x 100 (to get a percentage)= 15.5%

Question #8: By using the appropriate selection method, create a layer containing the health care and educational facilities within the City of Vancouver danger zone.

Vancouver Health Care:	Vancouver Education:
False Creek Residence	Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design (ECIAD)
Villa Cathay Care Home	Institute of Indigenous Government (IIG)
Coast West Community Home	Henry Hudson Elementary
Broadway Pentecostal Lodge	False Creek Elementary
Yaletown House Society	St. Francis Xavier
	Vancouver Montessori School
	St. John International
	Heritage 3R’s School
	St. Anthony of Padua
	Ecole Rose des Vents

 

Method Used:

1. Because we want to get the education and health facilities within the danger zone in Vancouver, up on the menu bar, click on Selectionà Select by location
2. The Selection Method drop down menu should have Select features from as its option
3. Under the Target layer(s) chart, make sure Vancouver_health and Vancouver_education has been checked (on the left hand box)—this is because we are only interested in these two layers
4. Then in the Source layer drop down menu select Danger_landuse layer, because we are only interested in the Danger zone
5. Then once you click the Apply key, different colored points will appear on the map (the bright blue ones demonstrated in the link besides) Example Map Method
6. Once these appear, the Selection tool now shows us which schools and education facilities are in the Danger zones of Vancouver
7. Right click on the health layer in the TOC (followed by the education layer) à Open Attribute Table, and highlighted in the same light blue color will be the following facilities in the Danger zone
   1. Repeat Step #7 in order to get the education facilities in the zone

Link forFinal Map for Lab #3:
Vancouver Tsunami Danger Zones

Part 2: Accomplishment Statement
I constructed a visual representation of the tsunami danger zones in Vancouver through various data forms, such as landuse, facilities around the affected areas (education and health), and the intersected forms of data, in order to depict  heavily affected tsunami zones. With this information I was able to develop a map that illustrates the danger zones alongside the categories and the eight signages points.

LAB #4: Housing Affordability

Question #1: What is affordability measuring, and why is it a better indicator of housing affordability than housing cost alone?

Affordability is measuring the kinds of incomes that could “afford” certain houses in this case in Vancouver. Measuring affordability can be determined by one’s income, which is a specific measure, and one can alter the housing prices to that value. This is a better indicator, because it distinguishes those you can afford expensive homes versus students for example. When looking at housing prices on the UBC campus, we can see there are a handful of expensive homes that students would not be able to afford, so looking at the affordability measure, you can see how important it is to take into account what buyers can and cannot afford. The housing cost alone, would tell us what the housing markets offer, however, doesn’t account for what the general population can afford.

Question #2: What are the housing affordability rating categories? Who determined them and are they to be ‘trusted’? (You have seen in the previous map how different classification breaks produce very different visual impressions).

The housing rating categories are:

Rating:	Median Multiple:
Severely Unaffordable	5.1 & Over
Seriously Unaffordable	4.1 & 5.0
Moderately Unaffordable	3.1 & 4.0
Affordable	3.0 or Less

These categories were established in the 6^th Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey based on a calculation known as the “Median Multiple.” This calculation is the “median house price divided by gross annual median household income” and its compared to the housing affordability rate in the different regions. That’s what makes these categories quite reliable, because this scale has been used in a variety of places, such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United States, United Kingdom, and Ireland. The categories are represented by the median range, which is taking an average value, which can be “trusted” in this scenario because we are looking at a more global scale, instead of a local scale. However, when constructing the affordability map, we did not use the equal interval classifications, we stuck to the default (for ArcMap), and used manual breaks, which provided us with 5 breaks in the histogram. In ur map case this is good, because we are comparing two datasets, income and housing costs.

Data Source: Housing Affordability Ratings

Question #3: Is affordability a good indicator of a city’s “livability”?

After looking at the various map classifications, you can definitely conclude whether the city is livable or not, based on the affordability. Taking Vancouver’s housing costs for instance, most of Greater Vancouver falls under the severely unaffordable category which means that most people are struggling to be able to live in Vancouver. When comparing this to the affordability map created for Ottawa, we can see that the majority of the city falls under moderately unaffordable and affordable. You can see that the rise in prices happens in the center of most areas, and then starts to decrease as you move farther away.

Question #5 (from lab): Dataclass

Question #6 (from lab): Since you are a journalist putting together maps of housing cost in Vancouver, which classification method would you choose for your audience and why? What if you are a real estate agent preparing a presentation for prospective home buyers near UBC? Are there ethical implications for your choice of classification method?

The classification methods I would use, for comparing and contrasting the average person income and housing costs in Vancouver, I would use the natural breaks classifications. With the natural breaks classification, you can clearly look at the ‘natural breaks’ within the data, and because there are usually divided up in 5 classes, we can see the breaks that appear in the histogram. With the natural breaks classification, it is a part of the default setting in the ArcMap, so maneuvering around this, without having to change the settings is a straightforward step. If I was comparing these statistics in retrospect to two different locations, I would use the manual breaks classification. With this you can clearly distinguish between the two regions, in this case we were looking at Vancouver and Ottawa’s housing prices. Because most of Vancouver’s classifications in terms of the housing prices, are high, the equal interval classification would probably be one of the last classifications I would use, just because breaking the data into high, medium, and low, would be quite pointless for Vancouver.

If I was a real estate agent for potential home buyers near UBC, I would use the definitely start with the manual break classification. Asides from being the default in ArcMap, it would be the first step in getting the 5 classes, and it would be clearly shown in the histogram. There are ethical implications for choosing the manual classifications. For example, figuring out the the which house is the more appropriate for the buyers, based on their income. Because of this it is hard to view the equal intervals (low-medium-high classifications), so the price distinction wouldn’t be as clear. If the default manual classifications were set, the prices for UBC students and higher income families, would be the same, so there would be no difference when classifying who can and cannot afford certain places on UBC campus.

Question #9 (from lab): Affordability

Part 2: Accomplishment Sentence
I took my ArcMap skills to another level, and was able to analyze different data sets of data, and compare housing costs within parts of Canada. With this information, I was then able to construct four maps according to each region, and distinguished the different housing costs based on locations.

Lab #5: Environmental Assessment

Question #7: Environmental Assessment

Question #8: Hillshade of Project Boundary

Question #9:Write a 1-2-page memo (answering all the questions from lab handout).

As the natural resource planner, I am opposed to the proposed project, which is planning out the mountain resort on Brohm Ridge, 15km north of Squamish on Highway 99. The project that has been approved temporarily includes 124 ski trails, 21 lifts, resort accommodation, and commercial developments. My involvement in the project is against the construction of the ski resort, after assessing the Environmental Assessment, alongside Whistler’s criticism. In other words, this project proposal does fall under scenario B (being opposed to the construction of the resort).

There were many steps that were involved when it came to analyze the data downloaded, which was then transformed into two maps. The analysis took place by looking many different layers, that were clipped on to the project boundary, which is the area where ski resort would be built on. Once this process took place, the layers that were created within the the boundary included:

• Old Growth Management Areas
• Ungulate Winter Range
• Red Listed Species (which include)
  • Cat-tail Moss
  • Cladina
  • Falsebox
  • Flat Moss
  • Kinnikinnick
  • Salal
• Elevation (below and above 600m)
• Slope difficulty
  • High = 1921
  • Low = 66

The main goal was to use the clip command (under Arc Toolbox), to clip the data within the boundary, so the map illustrates what runs through this specific boundary, for instance, roads, rivers, the species living there, etc. Once those steps were implemented, a buffer was created for the river. This buffer was created with two different widths 50m for above 600m and 100m for below 600m. The main purpose of the buffer is to identify areas that are protected areas around the rivers.

With these layers, I was able to create a map that illustrates how crucial the environmental risks are if the resort was built. With each step, I was able to conduct a few calculations of what lays in the proposed area, and the following are the results.

The first layer created, determined the areas that lay above 600m and the ones that are below 600m. 31.68% of the project boundary lays beneath 600m. With the second map, a hillshade of the project boundary was created, and with that a 3-dimensional map was created showing the different hillshades within the region. The next area of analysis was the red listed species that would be affected by the project. Cat-tail Moss, Cladina, Falsebox, Flat Moss, Kinnikinnick, Salal, are the 6 listed species that lay within the boundary, and the potential risks that arises for them. Once the layer was clipped to the boundary, the region in which these species are located was determined, and most of them lay in the below 600m region. Overall these species take up 24.83% of the area, which remains to be a significant amount proposing a threat. The next calculation that was implemented was the old growth forests that lay within the area which was 6.78%, which has also been clearly depicted on the map (as a green color code).  The Mule Deer and Mountain Goat that lay in the area take up 7.88% (both species calculations being combined) of the total area, however this was not represented on the map. The final calculation that was applied was the proposed project area that will fall within fish habitat/riparian areas around streams, which is 26.29%.

For the proposed land area to built the resort, there are two environmental concerns that any natural resource planner should take into consideration. Firstly, there is a large population of red listed species that proposes a threat in these regions, if the resort is built. These species bring out essential characteristics in order for the ecosystem to fully function. As a natural resource planner, a lot of work in order to protect these species needs to be put in, and I would need to figure out a way in which these species can be protected alongside with building the resort. Stopping human impact from invading the species’ territory is challenging, however, a technique will have to be introduced in order for this to successfully work. The tearing down of “homes” for these species lead to a devastating loss for them, especially because they fall under the “red listed” category.

Another important and very crucial section in the development sector of this project is the construction of roads and infrastructure. Despite other infrastructure not being specified on my map, the road networks have been, and there is a dense area of construction is supposed fall in the “under 600m” part of the project area, where large networks of rivers are flowing (that contain the fish habitat and riparian areas), and dense population of the red species live. Again the species are important for the ecosystem, and when building roads, it is important to reserve these areas, and not destroy them. Conserving the riparian areas (interface between land and river) is essential because there is there are habitats and different living organisms living in these areas, it’s as important to protect these areas too.

Besides the environmental concerns that are mentioned above, there are several others that natural resource planners need to take into consideration while building the resort. One of main concerns that lays in the proposed project area, is the the conservation of the habitat that is currently living there. There could be ways in which these concerns can be mitigated, however, they would not be easily approachable, especially when it comes to the conservation of most species. Not building near these areas is challenging, since the project boundary has been already been predetermined, which makes it challenging to change the area. Minimizing as much human contact is one of the best, yet challenging solutions.

Reflection Question #1: When working on environmental projects, you sometimes become involved in proposals that you do not ethically believe in. Do you personally think the project should be allowed to continue? Does this differ from what you wrote in your memo?
I personally believe that if you are proposing something that goes against what you believe in, then you wouldn’t go to the certain length you would need to in order to make the proposal as strong and worthy to change or maintain. In this case, I believe that the importance of environmental conservation weighs more than the development of a ski resort. Since the development of the resort continues to happen, it is crucial that natural resource planners take into the importance of the ecosystem. From the data collected for this map, it showed 6 red listed species, that all have equal importance to the ecosystem. There is a lot to take into consideration with the project being built on because there are a handful of risks that come up with the environment. Alongside the red listed species that have a potential risk, the old growth management areas within the boundary are an aspect that needs to be taken into consideration. These areas must be conserved and protected, away from development and human contact. Once I had thought about all of these implications, I think the project should be extended for some time, at least until resource planners have come up with concrete plans that will save all parts of the ecosystem that propose a threat. And if that development strategy cannot take sustainability into consideration, they I do strongly believe that this project should not be allowed to continue. This memo does not differ from my previous one, because I fell under scenario B which was being opposed to the project. Once the analysis was conducted, anyone is able to identify the risks that arise, for me, after taking an environment and sustainability course here UBC, you learn how vital the function each organism has, and how the overall ecosystem would be different without these roles. You gain that different perspective, that gives you that critical outlook on projects such as this.

 Part 2: Accomplishment Statement
This challenging lab assignment, enabled me to interpret data with an ongoing project in BC, the development of a ski resort.