geomentor_projectThis semester I have had the opportunity to mentor a senior from a local high school.  He is interning in our planning and construction office.  Part of his time here we have been working on a project using GIS.  The task assigned was to find a suitable location for a shelter.  From that simple task we developed some criteria and defined the processes to give us our desired results.

A trace of the contours was done from as-built drawings.  And from that trace and an aerial photo the project was completed.

Here is an outline for performing a shelter site suitability analysis. We strayed a little as needed to work with the data we had, but this will give an idea of what was done.

Criteria

  • Open Space
  • Maximum Sunlight (Southern Facing Slopes, 112.5-247.5)
  • Slope (< 5%)

Process

  1. Georefference Contour Trace
  2. Create Data
    • Contours (Polylines)
    • Parking Lot (Polygons)
    • Trees (Polygons)
  3. Process Data
    • Convert Contours to Surface
    • Create Open Space Raster
    • Aspect (Slope Direction)
    • Slope
  4. Perform Analysis
    • Reclassifcation Tool
    • Raster Calculator Tool

Presentation

  1. Criteria Map Layouts
    • Open Space
    • Sunlight
    • Slope
  2. Result Map Layouts

Overall he did a great job.  The project introduced the basics of a GIS project including project management, data creation, analysis, and presentation.