Methodological & Operation Problems
Data
In terms of the data collected for this project, the main file, gvrd_landuse, was from the year 2001. This might be an issue because in the 7 years since it was first created, the landuse might be different due to the construction of new residential areas among other developments. We don't know for sure if the land chosen as suitable for golf developement is still available for use. In terms of all the other data collected such as highways and census data, I used the most recent version of the data available. I could have used the 2001 Canadian census data but chose to use the most recent data so as to try to be as up to date as I possibly could for this analysis.
Factors & Constraints
In this project, although there are 2 factors and 11 constraints there could have been more taken into consideration. I took the factors and constraints that I thought were the most relevant to each of the 3 situations and went on with my analysis. I took into consideration most of the main factors that anybody looking to build a golf course would have looked at.
Weights
The weighting system that I gave in my analysis is but only one combination of weights. The Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) weighting option used for my analysis was fairly intimidating at first. Having not used this method to create a MCE before it took some time to master the process. In addition to being difficult having 11 factors to take into consideration only made the learning process. There were many a few times where I had my self confused about how I was weighting each factor.
Area
Using the evidence that I found about golf course size, I created a strict guideline that would determine which areas had sufficient enough size for golf course development. I stated that golf courses should be at least 120 acres. When performing the AREA module on all the suitable land groups, there were some areas that just missed this criteria by 1 or 2 acres (ie. 118-119 acres). Who is to say that these areas that have 1 less acre of land can't sustain a golf course development. This problem excluded a number of regions in each of the 3 situations that could have also been included as potential golf course sites.
Demographic & Financial Information
The information taken from the survey of Michigan golfers might be relevant for that particular case but might not for the Metro Vancouver case. Drawing a comparison between the two areas can be misleading. For all we know the golfing population of Metro Vancouver could be much younger and less wealthy. Although this kind of generalization can tend to lead to misleading results I used this data because it was hard to find demographic and financial data of golf centered on Metro Vancouver.