GIS Methodology Analysis

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Once I had obtained all of my data (as described under Data Collection) I was then able to organize and plan the methodological steps that I would undertake for my first analysis - finding the most suitable areas on Vancouver Island for the proposed hunting and fishing site.

Analysis 1:

First off, constraints had to be determined. Land use, fishing lake and river resources, and game, hunting, and endangered species areas were all deemed to be constraints that limits where development can occur.

1. Land use Constraints
Reclassification and reassignment of the land use data overlays was done in terms of suitability, with additional information pertaining to each land use classification gathered at the source Vancouver Island CORE Land use site. Unfortunately, some of the data classifications were still vague, making suitability determinations harder to make. Subsequently, many decisions were intuitively made.

Starting with the raster layers CORE_LU and LANDUSE, multiple resource crown and private lands and mature and immature forests were all classified as suitable. Agricultural, aquacultural, urban settlement, recreational areas, protected or regionally significant, barren or logged lands, alpine areas, wetlands and estuaries were all deemed unsuitable where lodge sites and hunting and fishing lands cannot be located for obvious reasons. Barren and logged lands are aesthetically unpleasing and lack the forest dwelling game species needed for the sport, and alpine areas are too rugged for hunting, containing slopes that are too steep. Large game animals such as deer and elk prefer lower lying wooded and grass areas than higher mountainous regions. 0 is to be used for all values unsuitable and 1 for all values potentially suitable for development. These values are to be consistent for most of the data reclassifications throughout this project (unless otherwise stated) in order to enable Boolean analysis'. As the vector layer PCON, contained overlapping and supplementing protected area data to that found in the CORE_LU, this layer had to be rasterized so that it could be combined with the layer CORE_LU to create the final constraint image CORELURECON. LANDUSE became LANDCON after reclassification of suitable and unsuitable areas.

2. Fish and Game Resource Constraints
The next set of constraint criteria was to find all of the suitable freshwater fishing sites (i.e.. rivers and lakes) and game and hunting ranges. The lodge site cannot be without fishing and game resources and has to be on designated hunting grounds. Consequently, five vector layers - FISHLAK, FISHCORVI, and FISHRIV for the fish constraints and HUNTING, DEERELK, and ENDANGER - had to be rasterized and reclassified into two new constraint layers FISHBUFFCON and GAMECON.

The vector layer RIVANNO (all major rivers) was not chosen to be used as it was decided that only stocked, recreationally used, and popular fishing lakes and rivers would be considered as suitable - those freshwater bodies that were capable of supporting sport freshwater angling. The RIVANNO data layer showed the same water resources as the three chosen river and lake layers used for the fish constraint, as well as all other rivers that did not have the freshwater fish resources, thus was considered irrelevant and redundant.

The FISHBUFFCON constraint layer showing suitable fish resource areas resulted from overlaying the three reclassed (in terms of un/suitability) fish resource layers, with a 150m buffer placed around each suitable fishing resource. The 150m buffer marks the suitable areas for the potential hunting lodge where a river and lakeshore site is required. Sites farther than 150m are considered too far.

As for the constraint layer GAMECON, I decided to combine the suitable deer and elk winter ranges and hunting areas together with unsuitable areas containing endangered species (mainly Vancouver Island Marmot and Bald Eagle Nesting Habitats) so that the spatial distribution of each area could be visible in relation to each. Layers pertaining to endangered coastal habitats and coastal species were unused as potential sites would be concentrated on inland locations.

Factors pertaining to distances from major highways and BC hydro transmission line right of ways where then assessed using buffers. These buffers are to determine the relative suitabilities of areas near and adjacent to these pieces of island infrastructure.

3. Distance from Highways and Transmission Lines
A 3 km buffer was placed around highways and a 1.5 km buffer placed around hydrolines where unsuitable site areas (0) are within the buffer zones. The reasons for these buffer zones was explained in the Conceptual Outline.

Analysis 2:

After finding the most suitable locations for the potential lodge given the above criteria, I wanted to narrow down the sites using slope and area factors. I decided that suitable areas would have average slopes of 4-8 degrees. The suitable grounds would not be too steep nor too flat, allowing for some level of hiking difficulty to add to the wilderness and hunting experience. As well, slope ranges were assessed so that suitable areas would have a range between 3-20 degrees to guarantee that no areas are completely flat or contain slopes greater than 20 degrees in order to maximize the amount of huntable and hiking land.
Once these factors were analyzed and incorporated as additional criteria in determining potential sites, only 2 suitable areas remained, with both being at least 4km² in size. As the minimum size needed was to be at least 4km², both areas fit as suitable, although the San Juan River site would probably be the best pick given its greater area.

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