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| Finished map product with All suitable Habitat for bears, bear locations, and DNR bear management zones. Also including a map of the study location |
Goal
The
goal of this lab was to use new learned tools/skills on ArcGIS and ArcCatalog
to come up with the best location of where bears would be in
Marquette County, Michigan. These tools include: buffer, intersect,
dissolve, erase, and queries. Also another goal was to create a data flow
model to show what tools I used in finding the best location of
bears.
Background
The purpose of this lab is to make a map that represents the best locations of where bears would be located in Marquette County. It was found that bears are most likely located near streams because of the important resources that are found in them like water and fish. The scenario also included habitat types that bears are most likely to be found. Part of our researched also included making recommendation to the Michigan DNR for where to manage bears. Areas of bears where located in DNR management zones had to be found excluding urban areas. All of these factors where used in creating the most accurate map of where bears are most likely to be located.
Methods
-First a geodatabase was created in order to store any data created in the lab. The next step involved going into ArcCatalog and adding the excel file containing the coordinates of bear locations to ArcMap. This process was done by adding the coordinates as an event theme. In ArcMap the File button was clicked followed but "Add Data" and "Add XY Data". After these steps were done a new box appeared, inputting the correct data and saving it to the geodatabase were done to complete the step. These points now contained the correct XY coordinates to be placed onto a map.
-The next steps involved using many tools to come up with the best location of bears. First all of the bear management feature classes were added to the map. Next to find out what type of land covers bears are located in I performed a spatial join of Bear locations and Land Cover. Then to summarizing the Minor Type Field and selecting the top 3 types of bear locations. They included: Mixed Forest Lands, Forested Wetlands, and Evergreen Forest Land. These 3 types were selected and a new feature class was created for future use.
-With biologist indicating that bears are most often found near streams, the streams in the area were buffered to capture an area of 500 meters within the streams. Then the streams were dissolved to eliminate the existing boundaries to make a cleaner map. Next, the streams and top 3 land covers were intersected and dissolved to find the best areas of where bears could be located (Bear_Hab).
-The next step of the lab involved creating a recommendations for the Michigan DNR for a bear management plan. The DNR area shape file was added to the map and was intersected with Bear_Hab and then dissolved to get rid of any internal boundaries. This intersecting produced a map of the best bear locations with the DNR study zone areas.
-It was then decided that bear management areas should stay away from urban areas. In order to create a new map excluding urban areas three steps were performed. First, urban areas were selected and a new shape file was created. From there the urban areas were buffered and dissolved to capture areas within 5 kilometers. The new buffered urban areas were then erased with the DNR areas to get rid of the urban areas.
-After all of these steps were finished the map was complete only adding a legend, title, and other amenities were needed to be completed. After the finished product a Data Flow model, which can be seen below, was created to show all of the tools and steps I used to come up with my map.
Results
You can view the results of my competed map at the top of this page. The DNR zones are very limited to which areas they can manage bears, but this map gives the best possible locations to mange them. The results from all suitable bear habitat in comparison to actual bear locations are very accurate. Most of the bears lie inside the area of suitable habitat making it easy to track, study, or manage the bears
Sources
All of the data were downloaded from the Michigan Center for Geographic Information
-Land cover is from USGS NLCD http://www.mcgi.state.mi.us/mgdl/nlcd/metadata/nlcdshp.html
-DNR management units http://www.dnr.state.mi.us/spatialdatalibrary/metadata/wildlife_mgmt_units.htm
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