Exercise 1: Geoprocessing & Model Builder

Goals and Objectives

This lab served as a review exercise of Model Builder and standard geoprocessing skills in ArcMap.  Specifically, potential locations for a new ski resort in the Rocky Mountain region were identified.  Locations were deemed suitable if they possessed the following characteristics: 

• high annual snow fall
• low mean temperatures in winter months
• within National Forest land  
• at least 40 miles from a public airport with a tower

Methods

All operations for this exercise were completed within Model Builder (workflow shown in Figure 1). First, to identify ideal ski resort locations, relevant data sets concerning National Forest land, snow fall, mean temperatures, and airports were clipped to the study area (Rocky Mountain region).  Then, the Select tool was used to locate areas where the snow fall was greater than 240 inches and where the mean temperatures were less than 32 degrees Fahrenheit.  After this, the Select tool was used once more to identify airports that were both public and had a tower.  Next, the Buffer tool was utilized to create a 40 mile buffer around the aforementioned airport selection.  Finally, the Intersect tool was used to combine the National Forest land, snow fall, temperature and airport data; the result displayed ideal locations for ski resorts.  After this, the float fields "Area in km² " and "Compactness" were added to evaluate the potential locations based on compactness of their shape.  

Figure 1: Model Builder workflow

Results

The results of the methods are cartographically displayed below (Figure 2). 

Figure 2: Map of suitable areas