GEOB 270 2017 Term 2
Lab 5: Environmental Assessment
Lab Objectives
During this lab you will:
- Learn how to independently acquire spatial datasets online
- Parse and filter data based on your analytical objectives
- Evaluate and use different spatial analysis tools, based on what you want to achieve
- Further develop your cartographic and written communication skills by producing a map and short memo summarizing your results for a non-technical audience
Seven Stages of Data Visualization
Effectively acquiring, manipulation and visualizing digital data is an essential tool for any geographer. By this point in the course, you have been exposed to some of the elements needed to do this. Ben Fry’s (2005) book Visualizing Data summarized this process into seven steps:
1. Acquire – obtain the data
2. Parse – provide some structure and order for the data
3. Filter – remove all but the data of interest
4. Mine – apply methods to discern patterns or context (ArcGIS analysis tools)
5. Represent – choose a basic visual model
6. Refine – improve the basic representation to make it clearer and more visually engaging
7. Interact – manipulate the data or control what features are visible
Ben Fry’s complete book can be found here:
Chapter 1 discusses the 7 steps to data visualization.
Not all of these steps are followed in this order every time data is visualized and sometimes steps are skipped. Ideally, these stages should be completed by the same person, or team of people in close communication, in order to minimize errors between steps.
In this lab, you will be applying the first five steps of this process, from data acquisition to representation, to produce a map and make interpretations on a contentious development project near Squamish, BC that is currently under Environmental Assessment review to assess its potential environmental and economic impacts.
Lab Background
The Garibaldi at Squamish project is a proposed year-round destination mountain resort on Brohm Ridge, 15 km north of Squamish on Highway 99. It is 80 km north of Vancouver and 45 km south of Whistler (Fig. 1). A year ago, the project was approved, tentatively, with 40 conditions and includes 124 ski trails and 21 lifts, plus resort accommodation and commercial developments. It estimates that it would provide 900 construction jobs to build the project and 2500 jobs during operation – and will take 20 years to build. There are many articles and news reports on this proposed project (tying into google Garibaldi at Squamish).
The project proponents (Northland Properties and Aquilini Investment Group of Vancouver) initially submitted an application for a Project Approval Certificate under the Environmental Assessment Act in 1997. Following a series of addendums, the BC Environmental Assessment Office released its report in 2010, stating that the project lacked information on the potential effects on vegetation and fish and wildlife habitat, and recommended a series of measures to prevent or reduce any significant environmental, social, economic, heritage and health effects. In April 2015, the project proponents filed a supplemental application that they claimed addressed these issues.
During the subsequent two month-long community consultation process in May and June 2015, the Resort Municipality of Whistler submitted a 14–page letter opposing the project. In addition to its concerns over the economic viability and impact of the project, Whistler cited a 1974 report stating that “climatological considerations rule out reliable skiing on the lower 555m of vertical.”Given evidence of climate change over the last 40 years since this report, this value is probably higher in 2016, estimate 600m.
Scenario A (Wes’ Labs)
You are a natural resource planner who has been retained by the project proponents. Your task is to evaluate the above criticisms and make recommendations to the proponents as to what the priorities are in order to proceed with their proposal (i.e. which issues need to be addressed and which are relatively minor). They have requested you present your results in the form of a map, a series of answers to pointed questions and a memo that summarizes your results.
Scenario B (Tobias’ Labs)
You are a natural resource planner who has been retained by the British Columbia Snowmobile Federation (BCSF), who was initially opposed to the proposed project. Your task is to examine the Environmental Assessment’s recommendations and Whistler’s criticism to evaluate whether there is sufficient evidence to continue to oppose the project, or whether the concerns can be addressed as part of the project. The BCSF has requested you present your results in the form of a map, a series of answers to pointed questions and a memo that summarizes your results.
Figure 1: Project location (yellow star) in relation to Vancouver and Whistler
Lab Objectives
Part 1 – Acquiring Data
a) Become familiar with how to search DataBC for data
b) Download two data layers from DataBC
c) Acquire data from the G:Drive
d) Become familiar with BC Government TRIM data (natural resource data captured at a scale of 1:20,0000)
Part 2 – Parsing Data
a) Create a geodatabase to organize your data in
b) Rename and organize your data
Part 3 – Filtering Data
a) Clip vector and raster data layers to the project boundary
Part 4 – Mining Data
a) Calculate areas of polygons
b) Reclassify a DEM based on elevation and convert it to a polygon
c) Merge polygons
d) Build a multi-field query using the Select by Attribute tool
e) Create a buffer of varying widths
Part 5 – Representing Data
a) Produce a map displaying data produced in the lab
b) Write a brief memo outlining your objectives, methods, results and recommendations
Due: This is a two-week lab, due at the beginning of your lab time in two weeks. Any labs submitted after the start of your lab time will be marked late. You will submit the map as a .jpg and the question answers and memos as separate .pdf via the course website:
Part 1 Acquiring data
An important part of GIScience is being able to find and acquire the right data quickly. This can also be frustrating and complicated. In this lab, you will have to find and use two datasets from DataBC using the search terms given to you. These files will have confusing names, fields and attributes. All of the other data in this lab will be given to you with simplified attributes (so we have downloaded data, and ‘fixed it up’ for you). Keep in mind that for your final project, you will need to acquire, parse and filter all of your own data.
Table 1 has all of the data layers you will need for this lab, including file names, brief descriptions, where you will get them from and any applicable search terms. You will download two of these layers from DataBC and rename them UWR (Ungulate Winter Range, Ungulates are a category of mammals, like deer) and OGMA (old growth management area – old growth forests that are protected). The rest of the data we have downloaded, and parsed and filtered for you and are available on the G:Drive.
Before you download any data, set up a workspace on the C:Drive (c:\temp\lab5). As you acquire data (downloaded from DataBC or from the G:Drive), save it in this workspace. After acquiring all your data, you will be creating a geodatabase and importing all your layers into it. (If you are unsure about creating and saving data, please review this document on File Management with ArcGIS including FAQs.
Table 1: List of data layers you will be using in the lab, including the original filenames before any analysis
Filename / Description / Data Source / G:Drive folder pathway / Search TermsUser Created (UWR) / Ungulate Winter Range / DataBC / N/A / Ungulate Winter Range
User Created (OGMA) / Old Growth Management Areas / DataBC / N/A / Old Growth Management Areas (legal)
Project_Boundary.shp / Project Boundary / G:Drive and on the website / G:\courses\g270\Lab5_2015 / N/A
TEM.shp / Terrestrial Ecosystem Mapping / G:Drive / G:\courses\g270\Lab5_2015 / N/A
DEM_92g14 / Digital Elevation Model (BC 1L250,000 scale) / G:Drive / G:\courses\g270\Lab5_2015 / N/A
Park_Boundaries / Parks and Protected Areas Boundary / G:Drive / G:\courses\g270\Lab5_2015 / N/A
TRIM_tctrl / 20 m contours / G:Drive / G:\courses\g270\Lab5_2015\TRIM / N/A
TRIM_troad / Roads / G:Drive / G:\courses\g270\Lab5_2015\TRIM / N/A
TRIM_trivr / Rivers / G:Drive / G:\courses\g270\Lab5_2015\TRIM / N/A
DataBC data layers
DataBC is a central spatial warehouse for data, applications and geographic services in British Columbia. Both of the files you will be downloading can be found on this site. This section includes a description of how to download the data from DataBC and provides an example for one of the two data layers you will need to download.
To search their catalog for the appropriate shapefiles, enter in the suggested search terms into the “Search the BC Data Catalogue” space. Your search will produce a list of different datasets. Pick the one that most closely relates to the data that you need and covers your project area. An example is provided on the next page for acquiring the Ungulate Winter Range data.
For each data layer you download from DataBC, make sure to limit your download before hitting Submit Order. To do this, use “Area of Interest = Enter Mapsheet” and enter the 1:250 000-scale National Topographic System (NTS) mapsheet for your study area. For this lab, the entire study area is the 1:250 000-scale mapsheet 92G (Fig. 3). For the final project, you will have to find which mapsheets you will need using the Natural Resources Canada National Topographic System’s index map for BC, which can be found below in the link below. For example, if your area was in both 92O and 92P, you would need to download data from both map sheets.
scroll down and look at the download for the image and you can see which map sheet you need for your area.
Figure 2: National Topographic System for BC, showing the 1:1,000,000 (e.g. "92"), 1:250,000 (e.g. "92G") and 1:50,000 (e.g. “92G14”) zones. For this lab, your study area is entirely within 92G14.
You can also select the projection for each file you download from DataBC (the project area boundary is in NAD 83 UTM Zone 10). This will ensure that all the data you acquire is in the same projection. The default Format (ArcView Shape) is an ArcGIS-supported shapefile.
You will need to enter in an email address, accept the Terms and Conditions, and click Submit Order. An email will be sent confirming that your order has been submitted, followed by a second email shortly after with a link to your assembled order. The data will be delivered in a zipped (.zip) format with a complex file name. You will be downloading two different datasets, so be sure to keep your data orders organized as it can be difficult to determine which .zip folders have which datasets. Note that files in zipped folders cannot be opened in ArcMAP directly, and will need to be extracted or moved before using them.
DataBC Acquisition Example
To determine the amount of wildlife habitat in the proposed area, we need the provincial Ungulate Winter Range (UWR) polygon shapefile. The following steps guide you through this process:
1) Go to DataBC and enter Ungulate Winter Range in the search bar.
2) You will see close to 50 results for UWR, some of which are drafts or proposed and others that are specific to certain regions (e.g. Cariboo or Skeena Region). Unfortunately, none of these regional datasets are in our area, so we have to choose the provincial-wide dataset simply called “Ungulate Winter Range”.
3) Clicking on this title brings you to a new page with a link to download the data (under Data and Resources) and a Google Map window. You can use this window to see if the layer you have selected has data in your area. Use the map to navigate to the Squamish area. If you do not see any polygons, zoom in further. The polygons should appear when the zoom scroll bar is half way or higher.
4) Click on the Ungulate Winter Range – Custom Download link. This brings you to the Data Distribution Service. To limit the size of the files you are downloading, update the Area of Interest (enter mapsheet “92G”) and projection as suggested above. If you click Re-CalcOrder, make sure the projection is still correct before submitting. Enter your email address, agree to the Terms and Conditions and submit your order. (Note: you can also use the red Find/Add More Products button to add multiple datasets into the same email order. However, this can be confusing as the .zip file may not clearly show which dataset is which).
5) Check your email. You will notice an initial email saying that your order has been submitted. A few minutes later (it can take longer for larger datasets, another reason to limit the size of your download) you will get another email with a link to your assembled order. Clicking the link will take you back to the Data Distribution Service with yet another link to their FTP site. Following that link will give you access to a .zip folder with the requested data.
6) Save the data to c:\temp\lab5, extract the data from the .zip fileand alter the path to extract the data to lab5, not in the zip folder, and use ArcCatalog to rename the data layer to “UWR”.
7) Repeat the process with the Old Growth Management Areas dataset, rename the data layer to “OGMA”.
G:Drive data layers
The other layers you will need for the data analysis (or data mining) and representation parts of this lab can be found on the G:Drive at:
g:\course\g270\Lab5_data
These data have been acquired and processed to only have a few fields. All of these files originally had much more complicated attribute tables (Fig. 3) and have been simplified for your use in this lab.
Figure 3: Part of a typical attribute table for original TRIM data. The TRIM data in this lab will have simplified fields, but you will be dealing with more complex data for your Final Project
TRIM (Terrestrial Resource Information Management) data
This dataset was initially created by the BC Government in the 1990s. It consists of 1:20,000-scale vector shapefiles of major features such as roads, railways, rivers, waterbodies, topographic contours and many other types of data that are useful for maps and for spatial analyses. These data are not free for the public, but are available to you through the UBC Library upon request. For this lab, all the TRIM data are available on the G:Drive at:
g:\course\g270\Lab5_data\TRIM
Copy/download the TRIM data to c:\temp\lab5 from the G:Drivebefore using it.
A geodatabase with the 1:1 000 000, 1:250 000, 1:50 000 and 1:20 000-scale NTS mapsheet indices is zipped in the same folder as the TRIM data (“TRIMindex.zip”) for your reference.
For this lab, we have already extracted and Merged (joined multiple map sheet tiles of the same layer of data) the TRIM line shapefiles from the two 1:20 000-scale TRIM mapsheets that are needed to have coverage of your project area (92G.85 and 92G.75). Only the TRIM layers that you will need for your analysis (20 m contours, roads, rivers and lakes) have been included. TRIM data typically contain many other shapefiles that have not been included in this lab’s dataset. The TRIM file names are abbreviations and are, in some cases, intuitive (e.g. “_troads” contains roads). For those that are not, there is an excel file in the Lab 5_data\TRIM folder (“TRIMFeatures_Lab5”) with general descriptions of what types of data these files contain. For your Final Project, you will have to use the TRIM index mentioned above to locate the data you need and do the Merge (line files) or Union (polygon files) yourself.
The TRIM data is in Albers, the other data in UTM. You may at some point in your analysis later in the lab set the TRIM layers data source to the dataBC layers (eg. UGM_clip).
Part 2 Parsing data
Parsing data means to structure or categorize your data to keep it organized. This can involve simple steps such as establishing consistent file paths and file naming conventions, or more complex steps such as using tags or indices to format individual fields. This part of the lab explores some ways of organizing your data, followed by an example using some of the TRIM data.
Create Geodatabase
Create a geodatabase, as in Lab 4, and import all of the layers you downloaded and copied from g:drive in Part 1.
Set up a geodatabase called Lab5