Lab 2: Project Management Nature Centres

1. Lab 2:Project Management Nature Centres Jessica Carvalho Cory Gasparotto Elmer Lara-Palacios Michael Carroll

2. Purpose By creating buffers around selected areas and using overlay tools, we can determine how space is needed between valued nature centers and features of day to day life (Roads and Town Services etc.). A Nature Centre is an organization that is used to educate people about nature and the environment. It often includes a museum-like aspect as well as being intrinsically located in a natural setting. mike

3. Process • Recognize the dominant features of the map in terms of which would need spatial buffer zones. • Estimate the appropriate space around each feature to create the buffer. • Create all selected layers into buffers. • Use overlay union to combine the buffers into one complete layer • Upon realization that the buffer files are too large to overlay union, dissolve the buffers so that the files wouldn’t be as dense. mike

4. jess

5. Buffer Distance Stay Away From: Airport – 1 Km Hospital – 2 Km Primary & Secondary Schools – 250 m EMS, Fire, Police – 1 Km Wetlands – 120 m Road York – 50 m Highways – 2 Km Stay Close To: Trails – 500 m Forestry – 100m River & Water Bodies – 100m Unusable Land Usable Land Water mike

6. Buffer Distance Con’t Stay Away From: Locations with larger buffer distances are such because of the noise issue. The smaller buffer distances indicate locations that should not be built on, but it can be near. Stay Close To: These are locations that the Nature Centres would be ideally placed. Places such as Water Bodies and Trails are great for a Nature Centre and should necessarily be built on top of, but very closely. mike

7. Scenarios The following slides will show the deliberation taken to find the right size buffer in different scenarios. Examples shown will be wetlands, forests, highways, airports, and slopes. mike

8. Wetlands Black buffer: 120m Pink buffer: 500m Red buffer: 1Km The black buffer was the one chosen for wetlands. At 120m, it ensures that the nature centre will incorporate the wetland areas, but keep visitors safe. The pink buffer was not a bad choice at 500m, but a 500m walk to get to such a pristine location might seem like a lot. The red buffer is 1Km and much too large of a buffer for a wetland. Wetlands are natural areas and should be seen within a nature centre. jess

9. Forests Black buffer: 100m Pink buffer: 250m Red buffer: 1km A nature centre should be within natural scenery and it is necessary that forests be around it. The Black buffer at 100m was the one that was chosen. Being directly in the forest is not necessary, as there will be a building for the nature centre and avoiding clear cutting an area for that would be best. The Pink buffer is 250m, but that is too far to be away from the forests. With that being said, it is then obvious that the red 1Km buffer is much too large. jess

10. Highways Orange Buffer: 1km Black Buffer: 2kmGrey Buffer: 15km Highway noise would be disruptive to the nature centre. As a result, these three scenarios demonstrate some possibilities. A 15km buffer would be a good distance from any highways but upon completion the map is completely covered leaving a small portion of the York Region available. Covering a much smaller distance of 1km gives more room for potential sites but may be too close to the highways. 15Km Buffer elmer

11. Airports Orange Buffer: 0.5km Black Buffer: 1km Grey Buffer: 5km Landing airplanes onto airports are known to be loud and as a result, planes flying over nature centre’s are undesirable. Using the Runway’s that are available to select airports, one airport south of York Region revealed two runways larger than the other runways. One limitation to this approach is that the direction of the runways are not considered. This would create a “buffer” being more stretched out depending on the runways as it will be more louder than standing a few kilometres to the side of the runways elmer

12. Justification The black buffers on the previous maps are the desired buffers for both highway and airports and have been erased. Although it is important for a Nature Centre to locate away from highways and roads, there is not enough space to create total silence. Some locations of other Nature Centre's within Ontario are not very far from highways. As Nature Centre’s are found within forested area, this tree cover can potentially reduce the sound. The reason why Airports also have a small buffer is because nearly all airports and their runways utilize small planes. As a result, these planes may not take off or land frequently and are also not strong noise pollutants. elmer

13. Slopes Slope – 1.2 % Description A low slope allows for easier traversal of the nature centre. However, if only looking for areas that have extremely gentle slopes then most of the York Region is covered by unusable land (where there is slope data). There needs to be less restriction. cory

14. Slopes Slope - 13% Description This is a too generous viewing of slopes. 13% was chosen to show more land that could be used, however, in reality, 13% is too much. Accessibility could be limited for some, and the overall goal is to incorporate all at the Nature Centres. cory

15. Slopes Slope - 5.5 % Description Avoiding land that has a slope of 5.5% or greater is an ideal choice since it avoids the problems the other two layers had. There is still plenty of land that is not too steep while the slopes that are useable are genuinely useable. A slope of 5.5% can be somewhat difficult to traverse for those with physical disabilities, which is bad, for a nature centre’s purpose is to educate and provide an escape from developed areas; that is to say, recreation. cory

16. Overlay Issues • When trying to use overlay union to combine layers (in this case the buffers made) the tool may fail if the files are too large. To work around this the individual layers can be dissolved to shrink their sizes. Elmer

17. Overlay Methods • Overlay is a GIS process that combines the features of one layer with features of another layer to create a third layer according to a set of rules. • Overlay Intersect - Where features of one layer are combined from the features of the other layer that share the same space. • Overlay Union – Combines all of the features from on layer with all of the feature from the other layer. • Overlay Erase – Subtracting unwanted features to create a new layer. Jess

18. Potential Site Locations The first map shows all the preferable land. This layer was made of Forests, Rivers, Water Bodies, and Trails, dissolved and then overlay union was used to create the one layer. Some of the layer was Erased from Lake Simcoe so the islands could be seen. Here, the unusable land layer is added on top of the preferable land layer (Simultaneous Map Display). It can be seen that unusable land layer covers some of the preferable land layer. Cory

19. Preferable Land Using Erase, the pink layer was made by subtracting the preferable land layer that was overlapping with the unusable land layer. This created a layer that indicates preferable land that is also usable. This is the end result using the Erase tool on the overlay union preferable land layer. Anywhere within the pink would be acceptable land for placing a Nature Centre. cory

20. Findings • Many of the appropriate areas of land needed for valued nature centres are located in the North part of York Region. • Large portions of the land are virtually unusable. • To overlay union all layers into one layer would take much too long (if not create an error altogether), therefore a proper Erase could not be preformed as one layer. elmer

21. Conclusion The reason the map above is the preferred map for Nature Centre allocation is due to the amount of space that was left after the overlaying processes. It is showing preferred land that can also be used. The map to the right is useful, however it only shows where the Nature Centres cannot be built. The open spaces shown do not necessarily mean that that is where Nature Centres should be built. Jess