Python Script

 Python is a coding program that allows us to do geoprocessing outside of the ArcMap program. Below is the Python script that was used to reproject land cover, elevation, and cropland rasters to a projection that minimizes distortion for Trempealeau County. Next, the script extracts the 3 rasters by the Trempealeau County boundary. Finally, the script imports the 3 rasters into the Trempealeau County geodatabase.

 

 

The goal of the script below is to select mines that will be using roads to transport sand. To do this we select all of the entries that are active. Out of all the active entries we select all of those that contain the word "mine" in the facility type field. Then we remove selections that contain the word "Rail" in the facility type field. Finally, we remove selections that are within 1.5km of any railroad assuming that these mines will have rail spurs built to the railroad, and therefore will not use roads. This final product is all the active mines that will transport sand on roads.

 

 

 

 

 

     The final python script is designed to create a risk model with weighted variables. In this scenerio I decided that distance from populated areas was the most important risk factor. Therefore, I gave the risk associated with populated areas a a weight of 1.5. This weight gives distance from populated areas a large influence on the overall suitability model. After the weighted raster was created I added up all the risk variables to create a risk model (Figure 1).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 1 Weighted risk model based created using Python.