Intro to GIS: Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)
In this assignment, I produced two maps of ecologically sensitive areas (one showing the project area and snow line/high elevation and protected areas and the other showing the same data draped on a 3D Hillshade) from the Proposed Garibaldi at Squamish Ski Hill Project in British Columbia, Canada. I incorporated all the Ben Fry's stages of an effective data visualization to determine areas that must be ecologically protected and undisturbed from the development of the Ski Hill project.
Incorporated all five Ben Fry’s stages (including ‘Acquire’, ‘Parse’, ‘Filter’, ‘Mine’ and ‘Represent’) for an effective data visualization to determine and identify ecologically sensitive areas for a contentious ski resort development project (known as ‘the Proposed Garibaldi at Squamish Ski Hill Project’) in BC, Canada
Maps of environmental impact assessment of the proposed Garibaldi at Squamish Ski Hill Project have been made (also in 3D-Hillshade) – with identifying and assessing the ecologically sensitive areas in the project boundary.
Protected areas including old-growth forest management areas, ungulate habitat areas (both through “clip” tool), riparian fish habitat areas (through “add surface information”, “buffer” and “clip” tools) have been taken into analysis – to calculate the percentage that needs to be protected (with no built-in). Hence, ski resorts could only be built away from these (colored) ecologically sensitive areas, above 600-m snowline and within the project boundary – to minimize (potential) economic and environmental impacts and ensure ecological viability, resulting in 38.53% of the area within boundary under protection (no built-on of ski resorts and hills allowed).
The most important source of error would be the extent of protected areas as some of the environmental issues within the project boundary could be extended to the outside boundary – it is essential to increase the area of extent covered by protected area to minimize the environmental impacts outside boundary – there are transboundary issues which will not be restricted within the boundary – the entire Garibaldi and Squamish areas should be taken into account on the whole to minimize the environmental impacts from the proposed Ski Hill project. Other potential sources of errors include the UWR (Ungulate Winter Range) habitat areas as only winter ranges of certain species (ungulates such as deer, mountain goats) are being taken into account – resulting in incomprehensive understanding of the proposed habitat areas that need to be protected – the species habitats should encompass not only ungulates as there are other animal species such as birds and primates (in the forests) which also require protection and non-disturbance. Since only the winter range of ungulate species is considered, the ranges of species in other seasons or throughout the year should also be considered to fully minimize the ecological impacts to local species and ecosystems. Additionally, the buffer zones of 50 and 100 m from above and below 600 m snowline respectively should increase in width as 50-100 m are not sufficient to fully protect the riparian fish habitats (any slight disturbance on the river banks or riparian areas could significantly impact fish habitat areas and aquatic ecosystems, as well as biodiversity). Steep mountainous area (slope angles) should be identified and colored on the map to prevent any constructions of resort areas on steep slopes – to fully minimize or prevent landslides or undercutting resulted from the ski resorts – unsafe to build the resort on slopes (of steep angles). Finally, impacts on infrastructure (roads) should be minimized by also making larger buffered areas along both sides of roads (e.g. ski runways from the Ski Hill Project will not impact both the roads and vehicles on the roads).
Hence, there are other types of areas or factors that need to be taken into the analysis of the proposed Ski Hill project, apart from those already identified in current maps.