Final Project

Identifying Priority Conservation Areas in Centre County

 
Our final project involved identifying lands within Centre County that met a set of specific criteria for species richness, buffered road area as a percentage of a set of study sites, study sites with high habitat potential, on publicly owned lands that were forested with less than a 15% slope.  We were provided data for the study sites, Centre County's roads, habitat quality, land ownership, county boundaries, bird and mammal species richness values, and land use values.

The first step taken was to calculate a total bird and animal richness value of greater than 75 and then join that data to the polygons for the study sites.  This is shown in Figure 1 below.  The attribute data table was joined to the speciesrich table based upon the common variable BLOCK_ID into a new data layer richsites.

Figure 1:  Species Rich Study Sites

 

The next step in the process proved to be the most challenging to me, that of arriving at a set of study sites that contained less than 10% of their area in roads.  The roads layer was 'intersected' with the richsites layer to eliminate all roads outside the richsites.  The resulting roads were then 'buffered' based upon the type of road found.  A union was then performed on the resulting buffered roads and the richsites layers, then queried for the non-road portion of the richsites and the results of that query saved to a new layer, sel_stdysites.  Three new fields were then added: Total New Area (TotNewArea), Road Area (RoadArea), and Percent Road Area (PcntRdArea).  Using a Visual Basic Script (VBS) the total new area was computed.  This result was then used to compute the RoadArea values, being the difference between the original site area less the total new area; and, the PcntRdArea was computed as the RoadArea divided by the richsite Area multiplied by 100 to get a percent value.  Figure 2 below shows the resulting data table for the sel_stdysites layer.

Figure 2:  Study Sites with Less Than 10% Road Area

 

The sel_stdysites layer was then converted to a grid (cell size of 50 meters by 50 meters) and saved as a new layer, RC_selsites.  In addition, grids were created with cell sizes of 50 meters by 50 meters for areas with high habitat potential, rc_highhab; public land, rc_public; forested lands, rc_forest, and from the elevation data provided, a slope of less than 15% was computed and saved as a grid, rc_slope.  Figure 3 below shows the resulting selected study sites laid out against a backdrop of the Centre County borders.

 

Figure 3:  Projected Study Sites Relative to County Borders

 

Figures 4 through 8 display the candidate conservation areas laid out against a backdrop of forested lands (Figure 4), public land (Figure 5), high habitat potential (Figure 6), areas meeting the slope criterion (Figure 7), and the study sites that meet the road and species richness criteria (Figure 8).  To help orient the reader, the roads layer has been added to the map features as reference information.

Figure 4:  Candidate Area with Forrest Coverage Criterion

 
 

Figure 5:  Candidate Sites with Public Land Criterion
 

Figure 6:  Candidate Sites with High Habitat Potential Criterion
 

Figure 7:  Candidate Sites with Slope Criterion
 

Figure 8:  Candidate Sites with Candidate Study Sites Criterion

 
Figure 9 is a close-up of the State College area with the candidate study sites, public lands, and land use (forest) criteria shown as partially transparent layers.

Figure 9:  State College Area Candidate Site with Study Sites, Forrest and Public Lands Criteria Layers Shown

 
Finally, Figure 10 shows the candidate reserve areas in layout view with the Centre County roads and boundaries shown.

Figure 10:  Centre County Conservation Reserve Area Candidate Sites

 
Figure 11 shows the same candidate sites on a hillshade layout that was computed from the Elevation grid provided for this exercise.  The hillshade values were computed using the default values of a 315 degree azimuth (northwest), or angular direction of the sun measured clockwise from 0 degrees (north); and an altitude of 45 degrees.  The color map for the hillshade was modified to better show the candidate conservation sites.

Figure 11:  Centre County Conservation Reserve Area Candidate Sites with Hillshade