Problems, Errors and Uncertainty: |
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The material being created and studied in this website is not the truth about the world. It is merely a stylized representation of how the author tried to model environmental phenomena. Although great care was taken to minimize errors, many have occurred in this analysis. The following is a summary of the errors and mistakes that could not be avoided. |
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Problems With Latitude and Longitude data: The First problem arose when trying to plot the weather bouys in ArcGIS using their latitude and longitude coordinates. In reality all the bouys are floating on the water, but when they were plotted using the Lat/Long that was given, several of the points actually ended up on land. I attempted, along with the help of two Teachers Assistants, to remedy the problem. The conclusion was made that the Latitude and Longitude coordinates given, were inaccurate GPS coordinates and there was nothing we could do fix it. This is of course a problem because exact values of cells in relation to their location will be incorrect. However, because the surface on all the maps is interpolated and estimated then this can be considered a minor technicality. As was mentioned earlier this model was developed to enhance my understanding of the processes, but if I was going to do this again next time I would locate the bouys on a map and just digitize them in myself. This would have had more accuracy. |
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Incomplete Data: Although the NOAA weather bouys provided most of the information that was used in the surface interpolation module, there were some gaps in the data. In order for the ArcGIS program to perform the surface operation on all the factors, those gaps had to be estimated and filled by me. To the best of my ability, I estimated some of the values for water temperature, and also a few of the wave height values. The bouys that did not contain this were those that are located in south Puget Sound. The region of the highest accuracy and most complete data were those bouys located off the west coast of Washington, and at the northwest tip of Clallum County. |
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Contradictions in results of the MCE high risk zones vs Actual Deaths: The zones of high risk that were identified in the MCE make sense from an environmental stand point. The open ocean, and the area around the northwest point would logically have the highest wind (more fetch) and the biggest waves. However, the data from 1998-2004 would appear to tell a different story. Why have most kayak related deaths occurred off the waters of Skagit and Snohomish counties? Once again, the answer may then be that more accidents occur where there is more boat traffic. This does not detract from the validity of the environmental model, but next time I would like to find a way to combine these data together and come up with an even more robust conclusion of risk. |
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