GIS I: Lab 4- Final Project

Introduction

For my fourth lab and final project I decided to find areas for new golf courses in Minnesota.  I chose this subject because I grew up in Minnesota and I've been golfing with my family for as long as I can remember.  I wanted to choose something that was interesting me and could actually be of some use to someone.  The criteria I chose for this project were that the area had to be within 25 miles of a major road and with 15 miles of a river.  I also wanted the area to be 20 miles away from other courses, but I also left in the areas within 20 miles from current courses just to get another perspective on the map.  My intended audience is for someone who would be interested in opening a new golf course with the same criteria I chose to focus on or someone with similar criteria.  Current golf courses may also want to use this data to see where their competition lies and for other uses I haven't considered as well. 

Data Sources

In order to answer my question, I needed a few different types of data.  I needed data on current golf courses within Minnesota.  It was also vital to know were rivers and major roads were within Minnesota because this is what my criteria was based upon.  A map of Minnesota was also quite important.  I gained all of this information from a database from ESRI.  This database was supplied through the school.  When it came to data concerns, I was worried about coordinate systems.  I had a bit of trouble understanding how to change coordinate systems so they all match up.  So, I was concerned about having to change coordinate systems if I needed to, but all of the coordinate systems were the same when I imported the data to my map, which was very nice to have to worry about anymore.  I was also worried about the river data.  There were only three rivers on my map when I knew there were many more rivers in the state.  I tried to find data with more information about rivers, but I couldn’t find anything more detailed so I chose to stick with the one I had found first.  I also wanted to add lakes to my map, but when I added the lake data there were only two that were pictured.  I found that puzzling because Minnesota has more than 10,000 lakes.  I figured if I did find data with more lakes it may be a bit overwhelming to show on the map.  Therefore, I just chose to leave out the lakes data and to just stick with rivers.

Methods

Beginning to create my map, I started out with data across the whole United States.  I just wanted to focus on Minnesota so I had to use select by attributes and location a number of times in order to get rid of everything outside of Minnesota.  Once I had all of my data narrowed down to Minnesota, I began to use tools in ArcMap in order to get me closer to an end product.  I first started focusing on golf courses.  I first created a buffer 10 miles away from other golf courses.  After seeing that buffer I realized I wanted my area even further from other courses and then changed it to 20 miles away from other courses. After that I moved onto major roads.  I created a buffer 25 miles around major roads.  I then dissolved in order to make it look better and then clipped so that data would stay within the area of Minnesota.  I then moved onto rivers and did almost exactly the same as I did with the major roads layer.  I created a buffer 5 miles around rivers, but then realized that was too little of an area and then created a buffer 15 miles around the rivers.  I didn’t dissolve because none of the buffers around the rivers were overlapping.  I then did a clip so the data was within the Minnesota state boundaries. After doing all of these tools I realized that it was time to intersect the data and finish the map.  I intersected the major roads final layer and the rivers final layer in order to get suitable areas for a new golf course without adding the 20 miles away from courses layer yet.  I still had to use the erase tool in order to get rid of the area that was within 20 miles of other courses.  After doing so I arranged all of the colors and the rest of the map in order to make it look more professional.  After looking over the data and results a few times I realized that I had done it all right and then finished up a couple loose ends regarding the design of the final product.

Figure 1: Data flow model of tools used to create my final project.

Results

The result of this project ended up being quite satisfactory for me.  I had trouble coming up with ideas in the first place and figuring out all of the criteria, but in the end I think it turned out very well and I’m very pleased with the work that I did.  Seeing the end product now I almost wish I would have added one more criteria to it in order to add another aspect, but the finished map displayed below is something I'm very happy with.  The result shows that there isn't a large area with suitable areas for a new golf course within my criteria, but it's still enough land to create new golf courses upon.  I also liked that I kept in the area that was suitable and within 20 miles of other golf courses just because it adds another aspect to the map and makes it more interesting to look at the results.  It allows the audience to compare results.

Figure 2: Golf course suitability final product.

Evaluation

Overall, I really liked this project.  I really learned the tools within ArcMap better than I ever thought I would.  By doing a project like this, it just further interested me into learning more about GIS.  I almost wish I could do another project like this in the class because it was really enjoyable to practice the skills I learned and ultimately show them off in the result of a map I created just about all by myself.  If I were to repeat the project I think I would change my spatial question into something more intriguing than choosing an area for a new golf course.  It was interesting to me, but I know it's not as interesting to everyone else.  I would also like to focus on a bigger area that would give me more varied and informative results.  The only challenges I really faced were trying to figure out with tools to use and why.  I figured it out eventually and I learned from my mistakes, but these were really the only challenges I faced during this project.