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GEOS 9016
Kerwin Ferrer (z3444817) Jayson Bausa (z3429936)
Executive summary
This Consultancy report was done for the University of New South Wales to help in the identification of a suitable site for the expansion of the Cowan Field Station. GIS analysis was used to identify a suitable site that has the following considerations: minimal risk of pollution (erosion), minimal risk from fire hazard, minimal effect on conservation and minimal building cost. Four models were generated for each of the considerations. The erosion model considered how much erosion is expected to happen in each area per annum. The fire model considered the vegetation cover and how much fire intensity is expected for each area. The conservation model considers the surrounding creeks, mangroves and threatened flora and fauna. Lastly, the building model analysed the suitability of areas depending on their distance from the roads and power supplies. An analysis was done by combining the output of the different models. After the analysis, it was found out that Site 1 (Figure 1), situated at the eastern side of the fire trails is the best site in terms of area at 14800 sq m, it also has a small risk of erosion, moderate fire and solar values and having the best view. The distance from the main road and power supply lines is also around 2 km. Site inspection is suggested to further explore the suitability of Site 1. The other sites, Site 2 and 3 can also be inspected to compare with Site 1.
Figure 1: Proposed Sites for the expansion of the Cowan Field Station
Table of Contents
Executive summary..................................................................................................................... i 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 1 1.1 Aim .................................................................................................................................. 1 1.2 Location ........................................................................................................................... 1 2. Key data sets .......................................................................................................................... 2 2. 1 The Digital Elevation model (ANUDEM) ...................................................................... 2 2. 2 Accuracy of the firetrails ................................................................................................ 2 3. Analysis.................................................................................................................................. 4 3.1 Erosion model .................................................................................................................. 4 3.2 Fire model ........................................................................................................................ 7 3.3 Conservation model ......................................................................................................... 9 3.4 Building model............................................................................................................... 13 3.5 Combined model ............................................................................................................ 17 3.6 Ranking of Sites ............................................................................................................. 20 4. Recommendations ................................................................................................................ 22 References ................................................................................................................................ 23
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List of Figures
Figure 1: Proposed Sites for the expansion of the Cowan Field Station .................................... i Figure 2: Location Map of Cowan where the new field station will be built. ........................... 2 Figure 3: Erosion factors that were used in the generation of the Erosion model ..................... 5 Figure 4: Soil Erosion model for Cowan Area .......................................................................... 6 Figure 5: Fire model for Cowan Area ........................................................................................ 8 Figure 6: Fuzzy logic used in the conservation model .............................................................. 9 Figure 7: High Conservation model ......................................................................................... 11 Figure 8: Low Conservation model ......................................................................................... 12 Figure 9: Fuzzy logic used in the building model for each factor. .......................................... 14 Figure 10: High Cost Building Model generated by combining the four factors .................... 15 Figure 11: Low Cost building model generated by combining the four factors ...................... 16 Figure 12: Result of combining the four models ..................................................................... 18 Figure 13: Result of combining the models and limiting results ............................................. 19 Figure 14: Viewshed analysis for each site. Higher visible area is better ............................... 21 Figure 15: Proposed site (Site 1) for the expansion of the Cowan Field Station ..................... 21
List of Tables
Table 1: Core data sets that were used in the analyses .............................................................. 3 Table 2: Fuzzy membership limits for the Low Conservation model ..................................... 10 Table 3: Fuzzy membership limits for the High Conservation model ..................................... 10 Table 4: Fuzzy membership values for Building model .......................................................... 14 Table 5: Ranking of the three suitable sites ............................................................................. 20
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1. Introduction
1.1 Aim
The aim of this report is the identification of a suitable site for the expansion of the Cowan Field Station of the University of New South Wales. The University of New South Wales paid the Meta GIS Inc. to do a consultancy report on the selection of a new site for the expansion which shall primarily be used for accommodation. Different aspects such as fire, erosion, conservation and building shall be taken into consideration in the selection process. The erosion model will identify sites that are not prone to erosion thereby decreasing the probability of a release of pollutants from septic tanks that will also be part of the building project. The fire model will assess the risk of bush fires in the area by taking into consideration the vegetation cover. By this, we will be able to identify a location where fire hazard is at a minimum. The conservation model shall take into consideration the various species of flora and fauna in the area and also the surrounding creek and the mangrove areas, so that each of these species/sites will not be affected by the construction/expansion. The building model will take into consideration the cost of the project by considering sites that are near the road/fire trails and also near the power supply lines. If possible, the site should also have a nice view and at the same time a high amount of solar radiation. The minimum area for the expansion site is 5000 m2. Geographic Information Systems was used in the analysis of the sites. Four models were created namely erosion model, fire model, conservation model and building model. The software ARCGIS v 10.1 by ESRI was used in the analyses.
1.2 Location
The town of Cowan lies approximately 40 kilometres north of Sydney, New South Wales in Australia (Figure 2). It is bounded by Berowra Creek, Muogamarra Reserve, Pacific Highway and towns of Berowra Heights. The Cowan Field Station is a reserve site owned by the University of New South Wales which is usually used for scientific research.
Figure 2: Location Map of Cowan where the new field station will be built.
error is then calculated by getting the mean of the squares of the near distance values for each firetrail point and then taking the square root of the answer. The RMSE was calculated as 38 m.
Table 1: Core data sets that were used in the analyses
Data Threatened Flora Threatened Fauna Mangroves Creeks River Fire trails Contours Spot heights Cowan2013waypoints Infrastructure Vegetation k_pred_2013 d_infinity F_surf_2013 F_Bark_2013 F_elev_2013 NDVI Study area
Data type Shape file feature class Shape file feature class Shape file feature class Coverage feature class Shape file feature class Shape file feature class Shape file feature class Shape file feature class Shape file feature class Shape file feature class Shape file feature class Raster Raster Raster Raster Raster Raster Shape file feature class
Geometry Point Point Polygon Arc (Feature) Polygon Line Line Point Point Line Polygon
Polygon
3. Analysis
Four models were created to be used in the selection of a suitable site for the Cowan field station expansion namely erosion, fire, conservation and building. Fuzzy logic was employed on the models to be able to account for other possible locations that may not necessarily fit our selection criteria but in a certain degree may be allowed. Fuzzy logic is a type of logic that does not depend on simple true and false, it recognizes other values not normally considered in models. (Tarunamulia 2008, p. 23). With the use of fuzzy logic we can give partial memberships to points depending on their similarity to a certain criteria (Hatzinikolaou et al. 2003). Membership values range from 0 to 1, where 1 refers to full membership. The use of fuzzy logic in our analyses will help us in giving intermediate values to sites that may not fit our ideal criteria but maybe close to it.
. 0896
The slope length factor (L) is computed by using the formula below, where the flow accumulation was derived from the d-infinity algorithm of Tarboton (1997)
22.13
0.4
Figure 3: Erosion factors that were used in the generation of the Erosion model
The cropping factor (C) takes into consideration the effect of vegetation on the resistance of the soil to erosion by looking at the current land cover, the history on how the soil was used and the physical properties of the soil (Rosewell 1993). The value for this is usually 5
determined by long term data collection, however, we can estimate this by using Table D3 and D4 of Rosewell (1993). The practise factor (P) considers the effect of soil erosion management practises in the area. A value of 1 was used which accounts for land areas where the cultivation practise is to plant crops along the slope. After calculating all the factors, the product of all of these will then give us our soil erosion model (Figure 4).
In the formula, F is the fire danger index; D is the drought factor (10); T is the air temperature (37.2C); H is the relative humidity (15%) and V is the mean wind velocity at a height of 10 m (40 km/hr). Sirakoff (1985) showed that the value for drought factor should not exceed 10 because it usually results in an overestimation of the rate of spread. After getting the value of F, we can now compute for the Rate of forward spread on level ground (R) which has a formula (Noble et al 1980): = 0.0012 The value of R for forest after using this formula is 0.0802W, where W is the fuel weight or also known as fuel load. For the grassland, the formula for F (Noble et al) is: = 3.35 This can be simplified as = 6.23 Since = 0.13 , we can get the value of rate of forward spread for grassland as 0.801W. The value of R calculated above is only applicable to flat surfaces, therefore we will modify the value by using slope data from the Digital Elevation Model using the formula: = exp (.069 ) After getting the Rslope for both forest and grassland, the fuel weight or fuel load was calculated by getting the sum of the surface fuel component (f_surf_2013), bark component (f_bark_2013) and elevated fuel component (f_elev_2013 layers). Fuel Load, is the quantity of flammable material in a particular area describe by fire management authorities (Australian Emergency Management 2011). These components were the result of processing the survey data gathered by students of UNSW last 24 March 2013 and correlated to topographic and satellite data. The data from the survey done by the students and those from topographic and satellite were all based from the Overall Fuel Hazard guide by McCarthy et al. (1999). If we were to make a more accurate fire model, we must do a comprehensive fuel load survey on the whole area and employ experts in that field. After getting the fuel load, we can then use the final formula to get the fire intensity model: 7
.0897 11.04+0.0403 40
= 18600 Rslope 3600 10 The constant 18600 is the energy that a eucalypt fire will burn (joules), this value can still be altered by using different values for each vegetation cover, but in this analysis, we will use this default value. The last two constants converts the final answer to m/s and kg/m2 from km/hr and t/ha. After using this formula, we will be able to generate our fire model (Figure 5). It must be noted that the fire model that we generated is based from empirical or statistical data and does not take into consideration other physical components that contribute to fire behaviour (Perry 1998). This means that the fire equations used here may not be applicable to other places.
1000
After applying the fuzzy membership to each of the four factors, four raster layers were produced. The conservation model can then be generated by combining the four factors by overlaying them and getting the maximum value for each cell. This is done twice to produce the High Conservation model (Figure 7) and the Low conservation model (Figure 8). The High Conservation Model accounts for higher conservation areas which results from a bigger radius of conservation given to the four factors. These conservation models show us sites where construction is not allowed. It should be noted that the Berowra creek was not included in the conservation model analysis particularly because it is already far away from the fire trails.
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11
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High Cost Ideal values Conditional values 30 m to 300 m 20 to 30 m 300 m to 400 m 0 to 10 > 300 m 10 to 15 300 to 250 m from powerline 2500 to 3000 m
Low Cost Ideal values Conditional values 20 m to 150 m 15 to 20 m 150 m to 200 m 0 to 10 > 300 m 10 to 15 300 to 250 m from powerline 1000 to 1500 m
0 m to 2500 m
0 to 1000 m
Figure 9: Fuzzy logic used in the building model for each factor.
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After getting the four factors, the building models can then be generated by combining the relevant factors. The High Cost factors for power supply and roads will be combined with the slope factor and powerline factor by getting the minimum value for each cell to generate the High Cost building model (Figure 10). The same will be done to produce the Low Cost building model but this time the Low Cost factors for road and power supply will be used (Figure 11).
Figure 10: High Cost Building Model generated by combining the four factors
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Figure 11: Low Cost building model generated by combining the four factors
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Criteria Area (m2) Erosion (t/ha/yr) Fire (kW/m) Conservation Building Solar (kW/m2) View (m2) Distance from freeway (m)
Values Site 1 14800 2.5 1470 0.2 0.8 Site 2 10500 4 1490 0.2 0.95 Site 3 6500 4 1280 0.2 0.9 Site 1 1 1 2 1 3 2 1 2 1.625
617600 618100 606800 70000 2300 45000 2500 55000 900 Mean
After evaluating each with the use of several criteria, it was found out that Site 1, which is situated at the east part of the fire trails, is the best site for the expansion of the Cowan Field Station (Figure 15). Even though it was lowest ranked in terms of building, it was the site with the biggest area, smallest erosion value, and the one with the best view (in terms of area).
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Figure 14: Viewshed analysis for each site. Higher visible area is better
Figure 15: Proposed site (Site 1) for the expansion of the Cowan Field Station
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4. Recommendations
After using the four models in our analysis, it was found out that Site 1 (Figure 15) was the most preferable site for the Expansion of the Cowan Field Station. In terms of cost, it has a building model value of .8 which is the lowest among the three considered sites, however it is the biggest in terms of area, has the least erosion value, a moderate fire and solar value and it has the best view. The distance of Site 1 from the main road and the power supply is still acceptable. Further site inspection can also be done to confirm the suitability of Site 1 and the other sites can also be inspected to compare them with Site 1.
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References
Australian Emergency Management 2011. National Bushfire Fuel Classification System [Online]. Accessed 20 May 2013, http://www.em.gov.au/Fundinginitiatives/NationalEmergencyManagementProjects/N ationalEmergencyManagementProjects20102011/Pages/NationalBushfireFuelClassifi cationSystem.aspx. Bessie, W & Johnson, E 1995. 'The relative importance of fuels and weather on fire behavior in subalpine forests'. Ecology, vol. 76, pp 747-762. Hatzinikolaou, E, Hatzichristos, T, Siolas, A & Mantzourani, E 2003. 'Predicting archaeological site locations using GIS and fuzzy logic'. The digital heritage of archaeology, vol., pp 169-177. Kroll, M, Swanson, J, Vincent, T & Draper, G 2010. 'Childhood cancer and magnetic fields from high-voltage power lines in England and Wales: a casecontrol study'. British journal of cancer, vol. 103, pp 1122-1127. McCarthy, GJ, Tolhurst, KG & Chatto, K 1999. Overall Fuel Hazard Guide, 3rd edition, Victorian Department of Natural Resources and Environment, Fire Management Research Report 47. Moore, ID & Burch, GJ 1986. 'Physical basis of the length-slope factor in the Universal Soil Loss Equation'. Soil Science Society of America Journal, vol. 50, pp 1294-1298. Noble, IR, Gill, AM & Bary, GAV 1980. 'McArthur's firedanger meters expressed as equations'. Australian Journal of Ecology, vol. 5, pp 201-203. Perry, G 1998. 'Current approaches to modelling the spread of wildland fire: a review'. Progress in Physical Geography, vol. 22, pp 222-245. Rosewell, CJ 1993. SOILOSS: A program to assist in the selection of management practices to reduce erosion, Soil Conservation Service of New South Wales, Department of Conservation and Land Management. Selby, MJ 1993. Hillslope materials and processes, 2nd edition., Oxford, Oxford University Press. Sirakoff, C 1985. 'A correction to the equations describing the McArthur forest fire danger meter'. Australian journal of ecology, vol. 10, pp 481-481. Tarboton, DG 1997. 'A new method for the determination of flow directions and upslope areas in grid digital elevation models'. Water resources research, vol. 33, pp 309-319. Tarunamulia. 2008. Application of fuzzy logic, GIS and remote sensing to the assessment of environmental factors for extensive brackishwater aquaculture in Indonesia. UNSW.
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