Todd Mitchell

GEOG-499c

Lab 6: A Project on Suitability

[Int. Maps][Final Map]

Description of the project:

The objective of this project is to look for suitable locations for a new school. Factors considered include:

1. Slope: the flat, the better.

2. Close to recreational places: the closer, the better.

3. Distant from current schools: it is desirable to have schools evenly distributed.

4. Certain landuse types are better for building a school than others and the following is the rank, from the best to the worst.

a. Agriculture...............best

b. Barren land

c. Brush/transitional

d. Forest

e. Build up...................worst

It is also decided that the four types of factors have different influence: certain criteria are more important than others. The below is the weight:

1. Slope: 0.125

2. Distance to recreational places: 0.5

3. Distance to current schools: 0.25

4. Current landuse: 0.125

Requirements:

1. Create a suitability map for the new school. Please include the intermediate analysis results as well.

Project Procedures:

First, I imported the elevation, schools, recreation sites and land use data. A default hillshade was built from the elevation data as well as Slope (in 7 class divisions). Landuse features were labeled and categorized by appropriate color. The first real task was to calculate Euclidean distance to Recreation Sites and distance to Existing Schools. This was done with Spatial Analyst. The units for these distances were set to meters, which for the purpose of the map would be too difficult to convey distance. So I used the raster calculator in Spatial Analyst to convert to distances in miles. Now that all initial criteria was mapped, I needed to reclassify the data to create a mosaic. I reclassified the Landuse data to show the ranking from 1 to 5 (Agriculture to Built Up) ñ Water and Wetlands features were classified as ìNot Used.î Slope was reclassified into a similar ranking (1 being the flattest and 5 being the steepest.) The mile distances to the Existing Schools and to the Recreation Sites were reclassified to show a direct relation to the 5 class divisions of distance already mapped (1 being the closest zone and 5 being the most distant.) A weighted mosaic of the reclassified data could then be made using the following formula in the raster calculator:

[recl_dist_rec] * 0.5 + [recl_dist_school] * 0.25 + [recl_slope] * 0.125 + [recl_landuse] * 0.125

From this mosaic, I could immediately see three favorable locations for a new school. Location #1 looks the most promising, as there are 3 recreation sites, and it is within a convenient distance of the rest of Stowe, VT. Location #3 is a good second choice, with 2 recreation sites, incorporated with Morrisville, VT, but within easy travel to recreation and schools in Stowe.

Model:

Intermediate Maps:

Landuse:

Slope:

Distance to Schools (meters):	Distance to Schools (miles):

Distance to Recreation Sites (meters):	Distance to Recreation Sites (miles):

Reclassification of Landuse:

Reclassification of Slope:

Reclassification of Distance to Schools:

Reclassification of Distance to Recreation Sites:

Mosaic of Reclassified Landuse, Slope, Distance to Schools, and Distance to Rec. Sites by Weight:

Final Map:

Reclassified Suitable Locations for New Schools: