Problems with spatial analysis

This spatial analysis has shown that there is not one location that meets 100% of all suitability measures (the suitability scale never did reach 255). In fact, the highest suitability scales ranged from 42 to 199. This means that you will need to be extra careful when landing the ships. Our original plans was to create a cost distance map to show the difficulties that would arrive when traveling away from the landing position and into areas of higher population. We did not feel that basing a cost distance map on elevation would be useful because we would be utilizing human modes of transportation (cars, buses etc.) to travel. We wanted to make a map based on the suitability for landing. It was under the assumption that areas that are good for landing would make for easy travel. However, as you can see from the various MCE maps, the land surfaces were not continuous and it would have been counter intuitive to try to assign values to the cells with 0 value. This is simply because the areas of 0 value are not suitable for landing whatsoever.

Another problem that we encountered is that the data is from 2001. This is almost six years ago and we are well aware that much has changed in the GVRD region. A possible influence on the city has been the bid that won the Vancouver 2010 games. This has increased the land value and also construction activity in Vancouver and possibly increased the population of this area.

Understanding human interaction with aliens was also difficult. We have not been in contact with the other space aliens that have come in contact with humans (The Grays, Kryptonians, Klingons, Vulcans etc.), and as such, we needed to assume certain factors. For example, we assumed that residential areas should be avoided at night, but this may not be as important as we assumed. This is because humans, will for the most part, be sleeping at night, and not out on the streets.