In 2009, the Los Angeles County Station Fire ignited in the Angeles National Forest on August 26 and burned until October 16. The total area burned covered 160,577 acres and 209 structures were destroyed, including 89 homes.
To do my own analysis of the Station Fire and surrounding area, I first went to the USGS National Map Seamless Server and downloaded a DEM for the region. Next I went to the U.S. Forest Service website to download vegetation cover data. Lastly, from the Los Angeles County Enterprise GIS website I downloaded a shapefile of the Station Fire's perimeter. Next I loaded all of this data into ArcMap to begin my spatial analysis.
I first used the Surface Analysis tool to create a raster showing hillshade from the DEM. I then made a map of the Station Fire area's elevation and hillshade, also adding in a layer of major roads and highways to help the viewer orient themselves. I had wanted to create a layer showing the slope in percent as I did in the Modeling the Wildland/Urban Interface exercise, however, when I tried the values I got just did not seem right (they were very high), which is why I decided not to include this layer in my final map.
For the second part of my map, I took the vegetation cover shapefile of California and used the editor to clip the shapefile to only show my focus area. Then I converted this feature to a raster, classified by land cover type. To make my third map, I used the table from the Modeling the Wildland/Urban Interface exercise showing the NFPA classes for fuel types to reclassify my land cover raster, creating a new fuel grid. Finally, I used the raster calculator to add the fuel risk to the elevation, making my fourth map of the risk for fire in the area--as the value increases, so does the risk.
In regards to the debate over the expansion of a landfill in California's Central Valley, spatial analysis techniques used in this lab would be useful in determining the proper location for the potential expansion.Like in the lab, the proximity of the landfill to water sources (i.e. streams and rivers) was a concern, thus one would need to map out the existing bodies of water and then create buffers around these waterways.The distance to these waterways would most likely be one of the criteria for selecting the proper site for expansion. Soil drainage is another important factor in determining where to build a landfill. When building a landfill it is important that any waste, especially toxic waste which is what the Kettleman County landfill holds, cannot seep out and contaminate the surrounding land and groundwater. Thus mapping out the type of soil is important for it is a key factor in choosing the proper expansion site.
Slope and elevation are also important things to consider in determining the best site for not only a landfill, but any sort of building.If the gradient is too steep, then it might not be a practical site to build upon. Existing land cover is another crucial factor.One would have to weigh out the importance of surrounding vegetation types, their abundance or scarcity, and the cost to alter the land type. This, however, can be arbitrary to the one creating the map.Like in the lab, it was up to the one performing the analysis to choose which vegetation types were more important to preserve and which ones were expendable.As in any sort of suitability analysis, there is always the potential for different opinions and interpretation which can influence the outcome of the analysis.
In the article they also discuss the safety of the community’s drinking water and an attempt to secure funding for a new water treatment plant.Again this would be a situation for using GIS to perform spatial analysis to determine the best location for a new plant.One could map the distance to existing water treatment plants, the distance to bodies of water, slope of potential sites, existing land cover, etc. Then, like in the lab, by reclassifying the data using a scale from the greatest to least suitability, one can determine the best locations for a new plant.
Concerning the issue of birth defects in Kettleman County which was repeatedly brought up in the article, GIS analysis could be used to provide another perspective on whether or not these defects are in fact random as claimed by state health officials, or if proximity to the hazardous landfill could potentially be a contributing factor.One could map out the number of cases of birth defects in Kettleman County and perform spatial anaylsis on the distance to the landfill.From the results, one could infer whether or not there were more instances of birth defects for those living nearest the plant as opposed to farther away. Of course the cases of birth defects in the area could be coincidental, however, it is still something to consider in deciding if it is safe for the surrounding community for the landfill to be expanded.
Ultimately if the state does follow through on plans to expand the toxic waste landfill in Kettleman County, suitability analysis will be a useful and necessary tool in determining the best and safest location for the plant.With many things to consider, from logistical factors such as slope and soil types, to those factors which will affect the safety of the community, such as soil drainage and proximity to waterways, the expansion of the landfill will require diligent and accurate analysis. As I mentioned before, the results of suiltablity analysis can easily be influenced and skewed.Not only in choosing the data to be considered, but in determining its importance can affect the outcome.I hope that if they do expand this landfill that analysis is done carefully as to protect not only the surrounding community from any potential harm, but the environment as well.
