Map Design and Analysis

White Deer Township Zoning Map

This map was meant to show design choices in both the layout and the different land uses.  I chose to stay with a basic three color scheme, red for commercial and industrial, yellow for residential areas, and green for vegetation.  This map would be used as a tri-fold brochure to be given at meetings and other neighboring county departments.  I created the logo and decided to put a locator map in case people were not familiar with the location of White Deer Township within Union County.  A green to white gradient background was chosen to fit with the county GIS department logo.  Click on the image to open it in a larger view.

Finding Candidate Sites for Biological Habitat Reserves in Centre County, PA

One of my favorite projects was using raster analysis to help narrow down suitable areas for a biological habitat reserve in Centre County, PA.  The project was challenging because it required working with and analyzing several data layers.  The criteria for the project was that:

• Study areas must contain at least 70 species to be suitable areas
  
• At least 90% of the study area must be outside buffers set around different road types in the county
  
• The land must be publicly owned.  
  
• The land must have a high habitat potential as identified by the study.
  
• Land must be classified by the county as forested areas
  
• The slope of the land must be less than 10% 
  

Data used within this project included the actual study areas from the species richness surveys done by a local university, a table of the study results, shapefiles showing land ownership and habitat potential, and raster grids showing land use and elevation data across the county.  Road line data and county boundaries were also provided for the project.