Final Project: Finding a Suitable Biology Field Retreat Site for UWEC

Introduction:

Pigeon Lake was a biology department field retreat for freshmen biology students as part of the first class in the biology core here at UWEC. It gave freshmen a chance to get to know each other, as well as their professors and got them out into the field surrounded by biology. After 2014 Pigeon Lake was closed, and since then the retreat has been lost to the biology core, and a suitable replacement has been sought in recent years to reintroduce into the biology department. I wanted to run a search of the Forests in Wisconsin that might possibly replace the Pigeon Lake experience. In order to do this I made up a list of criteria for a site to exhibit: it would need to be close to water, as well as reasonably close to campus, be within a forested area and be available for camping/visiting. I intend to analyze the forests around Eau Claire to see if any of them met all these criteria. This data could potentially be used by the Biology department of UWEC in order to assist in the decision making process as well as to potentially discover new sites that may have otherwise been missed. This project is important because the Pigeon lake experience is one that is appreciated by students who have previously gone, and is missed by professors in the biology program. I therefore set out to find the possible sites for a campground that could provide a similar experience to Pigeon Lake.

Methods:

Using the city layer provided with the textbook, I selected the city of Eau Claire, created a new layer which just contained the city of Eau Claire and then executed a multiple ring buffer with 2 sections each with 50 miles in radius (to represent the optimal distance from Eau Claire for the site). I then intersected my layer of county Forests and the Buffer ring in order to gain the county forests that were within the necessary distance. As a byproduct of the two ring buffer, I had now placed forests into two groups, those found within 50 miles of Eau Claire, and those between 50.0001 and 100 miles of Eau Claire.

I searched the Arc.GIS online catalogue to find a shapefile that would display the water and lake features within Wisconsin, and after finding one, input it into the map. I then executed a clip of the river/stream features, removing all the stretches of stream that did not lie directly inside the forest layer. I then ran a buffer on the river features to create a 2 mile buffer zone (the acceptable hiking distance for students to reach the river), I then ran another clip of the Forests layer for those that fell within the boundary of this new buffer zone.

 I then found a layer of where camping is prohibited (using the USGS protected areas database). I  then erased the river features that intersected the protected areas and then proceeded to buffer the new stream/river feature and then to ensure that the forests didn’t fall within the protected zone I did another erase of the buffer layer and the protected land layer. I then finally intersected the county forests and the buffer zone in order to find those that were within the proper distance of a stream and therefore would be a possible camp site.
My methodology is summarized below in Fig 1.

Fig 1: Data Flow Model

Results:

The results of this project can be seen below in Fig 2. In general a large proportion of the forests around Eau Claire are potential campsites to replace Pidgeon Lake. I am particularly happy with the large density of northern campsites all within a 2 hours’ drive of Eau Claire. The map also includes sites divided into those sites within one hour’s drive and those within two hours’ drive.

Fig 2: Final Map

Citation:

Eseri ArcGIS content team (10th edition, 2010-06-30), US Counties Generalized, Provided on disk drive, 5/10/2015

Eseri ArcGIS content team (10th edition, 2010-06-30), US Cities Generalized, Provided on disk drive, 5/10/2015

Klaus Courtney (2013), Forestry Business Services Bureau, Dissolved County Forest (cfrcdw9xx), Accessed from http://gapanalysis.usgs.gov/padus/data/download/ Downloaded 5/13/2015

UW-EauClaire_Geography (2015-02-03), Robinson_Wisconsin_Waters_Service, Accessed through Arc.GIS online, Accessed 5/12/2015

US Geological Survey, Gap Analysis Program (GAP). November 2012. Protected Areas Database of the United States (PADUS), version 1.3 Combined Feature Class. Accessed from http://gapanalysis.usgs.gov/padus/data/download/. Downloaded 5/12/2015.