GIS Final Project

Introduction:

 For the final project of the semester for GIS I, we were asked to come up with our own question to research. Throughout the semester, we learned a variety of different techniques and tools to facilitate answering spacially oriented questions. Vector analysis and geoprocessing helped us assess and answer these questions. For my project, I wanted to find potential areas in Minnesota my parents could retire too. I created a set of criteria for the location based on my parent’s interests and hobbies. For instance, my father really enjoys playing golf, so that was something I thought would be important to him as he transitions into the next portion of his life. Likewise, my mother likes to get out in nature, so state, and county parks in close proximity to where they may move would be important as well. Along with golf courses and parks, both my parents like boating, so for them it would be nice to live within a short drive of a lake to take the boat out on. The final thing I wanted to keep in mind, was proximity to an urban area with a population > 50,000, so they could do any shopping and have decent access to quality medical care which larger cities tend to offer.

Data Sources:

This project required me to gather data from a variety of sources. I connected to an Esri (2013) database through ArcMap 10.2.2. The data I needed to complete my project could be found inside this database with relative ease. Looking at the data I did have come concerns that I took into account for the final map. Firstly, in the “park. DBO”, included state and county parks, but made no mention of local or other types of parks in the surrounding area. Secondly, since I wanted to find places that were not federally owned in the counties. The public land I did find did not contain land use information. So if I wanted to make a more complete map of actual areas in county land that was for sale and not used for business or agriculture I would have to add those criteria into the mapping process.

Methods:

To begin, I wanted focus my AOI on the counties in Minnesota, I performed a select my attributes to get all the counties, made the selected features a layer, then performed a clip tool for all the feature classes (Cities, Lakes, golf courses, and Federal land). For my first three criteria points (proximity to cities, lakes, and golf courses), I performed a buffer around each for the desired area. After the buffer was completed, I intersected all three layers into one. For the locations were they could move, I used an erase tool on the federal land in the counties to get the areas that were not public land. After the erase on the counties, I used a second intersect tool to combine the (cities, lakes and golf courses) and the counties with federal land erased. This gave me the possible areas in Minnesota that would be suitable for my parents to look for homes to retire in.

Results:

 

 

 

Figure 1: The area in purple represents the possible area my parents my look into buying a home for retirement.

Evaluation:

In the beginning of the semester, this project seemed like a massive undertaking, and would provide quite a few challenges to overcome. As the semester moved on, and I learned a many more skills, I began to piece how to complete an open research project like this. I started realizing the power that GIS and ArcMaps contains. With all the power, comes limitations for someone like myself with partial experience and minimal analysis problems. With that being said, as I looked at the data and began to assess what I might be able to actually achieve, my project started taking shape. When I had all the datasets in ArcMap, my project unfolded in front of my eyes and I was able to take advantage of many of the tools I learned throughout the semester. This project has shown me how far I have progressed from just a few months ago. I can’t wait to see where I’ll be in another years’ time.