Identifying Habitat Zone using GeoTech
Updated: Mar 1, 2022
This is the second blog post of mine pertaining to 'location identification / selection' problem statement. The first one - Mapping for Businesses - 'Location Selection' was suitable for commercial organizations, in particular, and involved analyzing 'geo-economic' datasets predominantly.
The unique aspect about this case is that we analyse various 'geo-spatial datasets' to solve this case's problem statement - 'Identifying potential habitat for Cougars (large wild cats) in the Study Area located in Oregon, USA.' The approach we have used is called 'Suitability Analysis' - this involves the use of multiple parameters / criteria to qualify, compare and rank the attributes within geospatial datasets. While this may sound complicated to those who are not familiar with this method, however, the video below will take you through the process in an easy to understand way. Above all, I think you'd appreciate the value of doing such analysis for multiple important problem statements affecting our real lives every day.
Sharing the case background first -
Wildlife Officials want to study the increase in Cougar (Large Wild Cat) population in National Forest in Oregon, USA. Adjacent to the National Forest is a State Park frequented by tourists for hiking purposes. Cougar sightings by these hiking tourists have increased recently, although no untoward incidents have occurred, thankfully. The purpose of this study, therefore, is two-fold - a) to identify the habitat where the ever increasing cougar population resides within a study area and b) to set up a tourist alarm / notification system so as to mitigate the risk of Cougar attacks at locations where the tourist hiking spots and potential cougar habitats collide.
(The 3 minute video is best viewed in Youtube's HD setting either on PC or on Landscape mode in Mobile Phone. You can reduce / increase the play speed as per your viewing preferences.)
I hope you found the video to be informative and the application of the technique to be useful. We can even continue doing more advanced spatial analysis on the final output. For example, if the parameters in itself (of the two models) differed from each other, we could have even compared the output using spatial analysis to answer questions such as - What are the common areas and uncommon areas between the two models ?, Which areas have a greater likelihood of cougar habitat (basis previous sighting reports) ? etc.
You can actually see and compare the two results on a shareable mapping interface (ArcGIS StoryMap) from this URL - https://arcg.is/1fbj0m. Try it out!
Model 2 Output: DFW Parameters
A key thing to note is that the quality of geodata is of supreme importance. Without suitable datasets, the output would not hold any significant value. The powerful location analytics platform only facilitates the problem solving, to that extent.
Update 19th Oct 2020: Wondering why is it important to map wildlife habitat? This just happened a few days ago on a hiking route within Utah itself!...
Scary!
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Article Update: 01st March 2022
Below is a video prepared by Mapmyops Intern - Tanisha Jain - which demonstrates how Geographic Information System is useful to site the location of a new hospital.
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Are you impressed by the technology potential? Would you like to see how it can be used to good effect at your organization? Do you have a problem statement in mind?
Intelloc Mapping Services | Mapmyops.com is engaged in selling products which capture geo-data (Drones), process geo-data (Geographic Information System) as well as services (PoI Datasets & Satellite Imagery). Together, these help organizations to benefit from Geo-Intelligence for purposes such as operations improvement, project management and digital enabled growth.
Write to us on projects@mapmyops.com. Download our one-page profile here. Request a demo.
Regards,
Arpit
(The case has been analysed using Esri's ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS StoryMap module. Much thanks to LearnArcGIS. For informative purposes only).