Problems and Final Thoughts - West Nile Virus Risk Analysis for the City of Burnaby

Errors and Final Thoughts

I encountered quite a few problems that almost made my analysis unsuccessful. I had lots of ideas in mind about what topics I should work on. I spent a lot of time researching for few other ideas. I eventually ended up doing this West Nile Virus Analysis.

A lot more layers were created from ArcGIS with use of DMTI data and Landuse data. However, they became garbage because I simply cannot get them into Idrisi format. For example, agriculture area, creeks, and so on relevant layers to the risk analysis of West Nile virus could not be transformed into Idrisi raster format. So, my analysis became over generalized that contain not enough information.

The FME program allowed me to create Idrisi vector files. However, again, I could not transform them into raster formats. I spent so much time trying to get around this problem with Rob Fiedler, our TA for GEOG 355, but we ended up importing the shape files directly to Idrisi to create vector images of the shape files and were later on rasterized.

When resolution was applied to the images I imported and rasterized, problems came once again. Some layers became blank. A 500 resolution was applied to each later, and why some layers became blank was unknown. Those 2 layers were abandoned from my analysis.

Some few other layers were successfully transformed into Idrisi raster format. However, when they put together for MCE, they did not align well at all. The shape of Burnaby became a ball like shape. Therefore, I was left with only 6 factors and 1 constraint to work with.

Different software used to generate the analysis may result in differences. For example, I tried to analysis this project using ArcMap and we can see the difference. Please click here to see the maps and differences.

This project became overly too simply when lots of layers cannot be incorporated into the analysis. The agriculture area factor cannot be put into the analysis is a bigger issue since birds and mosquitoes like to live and breed there. Luckily, the wetland is also located near where the agriculture area is in South Burnaby. Therefore, some truth can be accessed.

Refer to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, even the standing water that is under the plant can general breeding habitat for mosquitoes! If my analysis can be further developed, it will show more regions that are in risk of West Nile virus. Also, the banks by the rivers are usually good places for birds and mosquitoes to rest and breed. Furthermore, the areas close by the major roads are always grassland which is, not like the analysis, the area close by major roads actually are also good locations for mosquitoes to breed. There are just so many other factors that can be incorporated into this analysis. Therefore, if we truly want to know how much risk we are facing from the threat of West Nile virus, we will need much more sophisticated analysis.

However, the analysis I did told us some truth about where is more risky in terms of people may get infected by West Nile virus. The wetland in Southwest Burnaby and the Burnaby Mountain area that has lots of trees and Burnaby Lake are areas that are highly possible for someone to get infected with West Nile virus. I proposed at the beginning that areas that are more risky should have insecticide application. Therefore, it is suggested that insecticide should apply to the wetland area of South Burnaby, Burnaby Mountain Area and around Burnaby Lake area.

According to Health Canada, not every type of insecticide is suitable of effective. Therefore, we should choose insecticide careful and apply carefully.

When we are trying to avoid getting infected, government policies that are running may not be useful or may even get anger from the public. According to the October 14, 2003 top story by Global National’s Kevin Newman, the reporting system of West Nile virus is unfair for western provinces. As stated in the top story, overnight over 200 suspected cases in Alberta suddenly became confirmed while the confirmed cases from the suspected cases in Ontario were less than 20 out of over 250 suspected cases. These politicking results often frustrate people. While GISers try their best to show some facts to the government, those good ideas may simply ignored or rejected.