Nicole's Geographic Journal

      To continue the suitability lab, I created the suitability of possible corridors for a pipeline, and then for a wildlife corridor, which is pictured above. Like before, areas that are dark green (6) are rated the most  suitable, and dark red (1) are least suitable. When making these maps, I used two data points as a start and end point, and added factors such as roads, rivers, and elevation. With these rasters, I was able to determine the most suitable area for a wildlife corridor for black bears to travel easily. 

      There will be two blog posts this week associated with this lab. For part 1, I was given a scenario that I am rating the suitability of an area of land for land development. After converting the shape files into euclidean distances, I used the weighted overlay tool to combine and compare the rivers and roads in the area. Areas in green (5) are most suitable for development, while areas in red (2) have been rated least suitable for development, due to their proximity to roads and rivers. As shown above, when just looking at roads and rivers, a developer would have ample space to build on. 

      This week, we  continued our study of hurricane Sandy by tracking the path of the storm, and compare aerial images pre and post Sandy of New Jersey beach towns. These images were used to conduct damage assessment. For the first part of the lab, I created Sandy's track, and included the change in intensity. I really enjoyed this part of the lab because I look at hurricane track maps all the time during hurricane season, so it was exciting to make one myself. For the second part of the lab, I created a questionnaire in ArcGIS Survey123 for citizens to report damage in their neighborhoods.