PROJECT DESIGN
My methodology was simple and straightforward, and there are three parts.
Go to: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
Part 1: To find a suitable campsite for Venturers by using MCE: Boolean.
A suitable campsite must obtain the following criterias:
1. In mature forest
There are variety of landuse in Vancouver Island, I do not want a campsite that is too close to urban areas, such as commercial and residential. As the motto of Venturer is challenge, campsite that is located in mature forest is more challenging and required more expedition skills rather than too urbanize in urban areas.
2. Overnight campsite location
Some campsites are not available for staying overnight. I have to make sure all campsites I chose are available for staying overnight.
3. Fish lake
This trip is a lightweight camp. My youth are not allowed to bring lots of food, only limited items and equipment are permitted. In this camp, they will learn a new survival skill which is fish catching. Therefore, a campsite around fish lakes is more convenience.
4. Endanger animals
Safety is an important concern while organizing a trip. There are various wild animals living inside the forest, especially some endanger animals. Obviously, I do not want to "sleep" with them. Campsite locates far away from endanger animals area is very important.
5. Deer & elk range
It is interesting to observe animals behaviour because each animal has its own living style. My youth have decided to write their reports on animal conservation. Deer and elk are the animals that they are interested the most. Campsite near the deer and elk range have a greater possibility to observe their behaviour in more detail.
6. Hunting area
Hunting is an activity with full of challenge and excitement. It is also a valuable skill in terms of survival. Since there are several hunting areas in Vancouver Island, I would take this chance to learn this survival skill.
7. Hiking
How can a survival camping trip without hiking activity? The requirement stated that they have to hike for several hours a day. Generally, there are plenty of trails in Vancouver Island. However, in order to strengthen their hiking ability, trails must be at least in moderate level. Moreover, many spectacular views can only be seen from high elevation. Therefore, campsite in a moderate slope is desired the most.
Setting up these criterias can increase opportunities for me to find a campsite which my youth are able to complete their requirements.
MCE (boolean approach) is the method I will use in the part 1 of spatial analysis. After determined the constraining critierias, I will have seven images that represent criteria to be standardized and aggregated. Then, I will transformed them into Boolean images. MCE can overlay all boolean images to create MCEBOOL. MCEBOOL is the result for Part 1.
Part 2: To find a campsite from MCEBOOL that is close to the major island highway
Although campsites show from MCEBOOL is very suitable, accessibility is also one of my consideration. If a campsite that is not easy to access, it might take a long time to travel. Therefore, campsites located in 150m around island highway is the most ideal.
In this part, I will use buffer to find out the area within 150m around highway. Then overlay the image with MCEBOOL to obtain the final result, which is the most ideal campsites location.
The reason I do not include highway constraint in part 1 is because campsites are always fully booked. If I cannot reserve any of those ideal campsites from Part 2, I still have alternate options from part 1. Although those campsites are not close to highway, they still have obtain all the basic requirements I prefer.
Part 3: To find a suitable campsite for Venturers by using MCE: Weighted Linear Combination.
Weighted Linear Combination (WLC) not allows us to retain the variability from continuous factors, it also gives us the ability to have our factors trade off with each one.
In this part, I standardize all factors to a byte-level range of 0-255, and then proceed them to fuzzy to obtain fuzzy images. New factors will be considered in terms of fuzzy decision rules where suitable and unsuitable areas are continuous measures.
When aggregating weighted factors, the two major constraints were campsite and slope elevation because they are the most important criteria in this trip.