Data Collection

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Data for this project on the Grand River Basin was provided in the appropriate Idrisi format by the logging company. The company acquired the data from the website for Wilfred Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario (within the Grand River Basin), who had previously conducted surveys which produced the GIS layers used in this analysis.  A link to the project page for that work can be found at: http://www.wlu.ca/~wwwgeog/special/grand/welcome.htm. A few of the layers are in vector and needed to be converted, but most were already in raster. This made the data very easy to work with in Idrisi.  The following layers, with a brief description, were used in this analysis:

• cities.rst (Cities of the Grand River Basin)
• elevate.rst (Elevation Model of the Grand River Basin)
• outline.rst (Outline Raster of the Grand River Basin)
• rivlake1.rst (Major Rivers and Lakes of the Grand River Basin)
• soilcap.rst (Soil Capabilities for Agriculture)
• soildra.rst (Soil Drainage Classes)
• soilslp.rst (Soil Slope Gradient)
• Woodlots.rst (Woodlots of the Grand River Basin)
• roads1.vct (Main roads of the Grand River Basin)
• roads2.vct (Secondary roads of the Grand River Basin)

Images of each of these layers can be seen on the following methodology/spatial analysis page. Detailed metadata is provided with each layer used in the analysis. A sample of metadata for the layers (all pretty much the same) is provided below (in this case the woodlots layer is shown). Metadata for all other layers can be acquired by e-mailing me at stweston@sfu.ca.

The information relating to the best soil characteristics for the specific tree types was derived from the web site Trees of North Carolina at http://wildwnc.org/trees/index.html. The Grand River Basin has comparable tree types to this area as they're both in the Appalachian Mountain zone. Eastern hemlock and eastern white pine are the most comercially-viable species with sugar maple, american beech, white ash, red oak, and various other species being common as well. The minimum distance to water bodies (55 meters) as well the minimum clearcut size (5 acres) were both taken from the Field Guide to Best Management Practices for Timber Harvesting. The 2000 meter buffer around cities, was created as a reasonable distance given viewshed limitations already taken into account. All this data, combined with that derived from various analysis procedures in Idrisi, formed the basis for my GIS analysis and resulted in finding the best possible logging location in the area.

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