GIS 1 - Lab 4: Vector Geoprocessing

Goal/Objectives

Enable the user to choose and apply different vector geoprocessing tools as described in our GIS 1 course. The final output should determine suitable habitats for bears in the Marquette County, Michigan.

1. To determine the land use types where black bears are found in central Marquette County, Michigan based on GPS locations of black bears.

2. To determine bear occurrence in proximity to streams.

3. To find suitable bear habitat based on two criteria.

4. To find all areas of suitable bear habitat within areas managed by the Michigan DNR.

5. To eliminate areas near urban or built up lands.

6. Generate cartographic output and a model of the procedures used to determine suitable bear habitat in Marquette County, MI.

Tools and Skills Utilized

• Model Builder

• Select by Location

• Buffer

• Dissolve

• Select by Attributes

Download Data Sources

Download data from Michigan DNR and ESRI from Lab4Data folder

Methods

Determine Bear Habitat Landcover

Add bear_management_area personal geodatabase feature dataset

Streams (PGDB feature class)

Landcover (PGDB feature class)

Study_area (PGDB feature class)

Bear_locations (PGDB feature class)

After they are imported to a new data frame, use select by location to generate a new feature class which has the ID number of the bear and the land cover type in which it was found in the attribute table. Name the new feature class bear_cover.

Target layer: bear_locations

Source layer: landcover

Spatial selection method: intersect the source layer feature

Create new feature class from selected landcover areas named bear_cover

Use select by location again to find out how many bears were found within each land cover type (use the Minor Type field).

• a. Habitat 1: Deciduous forest land (68 bears)

• b. Habitat 2: Mixed forest land (67 bears)

• c. Habitat 3: Evergreen forest land (61 bears)

Stream and Habitat Proximity

Determine how many bears were found near (500m) a stream when GPS location was collected.

Select by location

Target layer: bear_locations

Source layer: streams

Spatial selection method: within a distance of the source layer feature within 500 meters

Create new feature class called bearswithin500Mstream

Find Suitable Habitat Based on Suitable Land Cover Types and Within 500 meters of a Stream

Create buffer feature class with the streams feature class and a buffer of 500m to find suitable stream habitat.

Dissolve by all can remove internal boundaries of stream buffers

Then use the intersect tool to find areas where streams_Buffer and Suitable_landover_types    share

Then buffer the streams_bufer_intersect feature class by 0M and dissolve type to all

Save as streams_buffer_intersect_buffer

Bear Habitat on DNR Management Lands

Find all areas with suitable habitat landcover, are within 500 meters of a stream, and are within DNR management areas.

Add dnr_mgmt feature class from the Political_boundaries feature dataset

Intersect dnr_mgmt class with suitable habitat layer

Bear Habitat Away from Urban and Built up Land

Bear management areas should probably not be near people. Find all areas outside a 5 km buffer zone around all Urban or Built up land.

Select by attributes on landcover feature class layer

Select by major_type = urban or built up lands

Create feature class from selection as Urban_built_lands

Buffer urban_built_lands with 5km unit

Dissolve type all

Select by location

Target: habitatwithinDNRMgmtland

Source: urban_built_lands_Buffer

Within the source layer feature

Then select inverse to create new BearMGMTAreas_5kmAway feature class

Making the Map

Display findings with a map that includes bear_location, streams, all suitable habitats within study area, areas over 5km from urban or built areas, a legend, and a small locator map for visual geographic context. (see image 1)

Model Builder

Use model builder to reflect all steps, tools, datasets used in this process from all sections between the ‘Find Suitable Habitat Based on Suitable Land Cover Types and Within 500 meters of a Stream’ section and the ‘Bear Habitat Away from Urban and Built up Land’ section. (see image 2 below)

Results

(Image 1) Finalized map showing the limited bear habitat and management locations of Marquette County, Michigan.

(Image 2) Complete Model Builder model that shows progression, steps, and tools used to achieve the final results.

Analysis of Results

Upon completing the mapping portion of this lab, the user can clearly see how small the suitable areas for safe bear management as well as how disconnected the protected/monitored areas are. As image 1 shows, the parts highlighted in yellow are the designated bear management areas. The different variables that determine appropriate conservation can significantly reduce the availability for wildlife to thrive as they did once before humans arrived.

Source

Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and ESRI.