Caleb Stevens
Lab 3 Answers
- The DEM layer shows the elevation of the area in shades (Darker shades being low elevation, lighter shade being higher elevation). The cell size is 32.798 x 32.798 Pixels. This is given in the Layer Properties window under the Source tab.
- Re-Classifying the water in this way is important because this will be telling the Cost-Distance analysis that water should be “impossible”, or extremely costly to travel through, and will treat it more like a barrier than a surface that is travelable for the mushroom picker.
- Other data that could be used in this analysis is vegetation cover of the area. With the more heavily vegetated areas making it more difficult to travel through, it would add a higher cost-surface to said areas. I think slope/ water are definitely important in terms of gaining a somewhat accurate representation of the cost-surface, but without knowing the vegetation cover, somewhere with no water and a shallow slope could be covered in briars, making it extremely costly to travel through.
4.The attribute table of the Observer Points is essentially telling me what pixels are representing what is visible from Lookout 1, 2, and both (Each row in the attributes table represents lookout 1, 2 and the third row represents areas visible by both). Along with this attribute table, I can deduce which colors represent which lookout by the hillshade surrounding the lookouts. (Hillshade and slopes opposite the lookout that would be hidden by other peaks and slopes facing the lookout are in fact not colored.
5. I would recommend lookout 1 to the Forest Service because of its areas of visibility in respect to the path the mushroom picker may have taken. There is more area nearer the Least Cost Path than lookout 2, and therefore, would be a better option in terms of chances of seeing smoke signals/ SOS signals being made by the hunter.
5. The overview map gives a nice representation of the elevation and terrain with the hillshade. I would focus mainly on the valleys around the starting point, and the destination point. Because the hunter probably wasn’t focusing on scaling any high elevation hillsides. But if he was lost, it may be in our best interest to search some peaks in case he/she wanted to get a better view of his/her surroundings. With the Cost Distance Map, elevation and water were taken into account to calculate the cost of traveling across the land. This doesn’t take into account the vegetation characteristics of the land, and therefore might not give a clear representation of the actual path the hunter took. That being said, elevation would play a big factor in the route the hunter took and is a good basis to go off of. The Viewpoint map leave a bit to be desired. There are not a lot of places that are visible from either lookout that are near the least cost path. Although Lookout 1 is definitely superior, it may be the lesser of two evils. If we are using a peak to have a lookout, we might as well choose a peak more centrally located in respect to the hunters supposed route.
Basemap/ Overview Map
Cost Dist. Map
Viewpoints Map