ESCI 441/541: GIS & ENVIRONMENTAL MODELING

WINTER QUARTER, 2005

 

 

Instructor: Dr. David Wallin; Office: ES 435; Phone: 650-7526; e-mail: wallin@cc.wwu.edu
Optional Text: GIS and Environmental Modeling by K.C. Clarke, B.O. Parks and M.P. Crane (copy on reserve in the Main Library), Plus Selected Readings from the Primary Literature on reserve in a folder in the Huxley College Library.
Lecture F 12:00-12:50, ES345; Lab Meeting: MW 12:00-1:50, AH16
Discussion Section (Graduate Students only) W 1:00-1:50, ES345 (Optional)
Number of Credits: 3; CRN 13750 (ENVR 441), CRN 13751 (ENVR 541)
Office Hours: MW 2:00-3:00, TTh 10:00-11:00 (sign-up on office door) and by appointment.

Teaching Assistant: Adam Wells; ES430; email: adamwells26@hotmail.com
Office Hours for the Teaching Assistant: MW 2:00-3:00 and by appointment


Grades:  1. Lab Reports, 60%    (Graduate Students 40%)
                2. Class Participation 5% 
                3. Projects: Undergraduates 35%; Graduate Students  55%. 
                (Click here for more information about these student projects)

Late Assignments: grades reduced by 5%/day if turned in late without a valid excuse (illness, family crisis, etc.)

Grading: A =93; A- 90-92; B+ 88-89; B 83-87; B- 80-82; C+ 78-79; C 73-77; C- 70-72; D+ 68-69; D 63-67 D- 60-62; F 0-59

Prerequisite: one statistics class at the 300 level or above AND one class in ecology or natural resources management AND one GIS class.

OBJECTIVES: This is a projects-oriented course that is intended to explore the use of a variety of modeling approaches to address applied problems in ecology and natural resources management. Students will be will gain experience with a variety of stochastic and deterministic simulation models and statistical models that are based on a variety of multivariate techniques. Geographical Information Systems are used for the development of input for these models and for the display and analysis of model output. A solid background in statistics and GIS is REQUIRED for this course. Each student will be required to complete an original project that is developed in consultation with the instructor. The results of this project will be presented as a web page.

REQUIRED LAB MATERIAL: Iomega Zip disks. These are magnetic disks that are used for storing computer files. They are a slightly different physical size than the 3.5" diskettes you are probably familiar with. Standard 3.5" diskettes have a storage capacity of about 1.4 Mbytes. Zip diskettes have a storage capacity of 250 Mbytes.  The image files we will be working with are huge and it is not practical to use standard 3.5" diskettes. Zip disks are available in the bookstore and in a variety of other computer stores in town (Northwest Computer Supply or Costco). Expect to pay about $10-12 each. The last time I checked, Costco had the best price, but only if you buy a 10-pack for about $99. You will need at least one or two disk, possibly more.

LAB REPORTS: Each student will be required to complete four-six short (about 3-4 page) lab summaries. Some of the lab exercises may take more than a single week to complete. Most labs will require some work on your own in the lab outside our regularly scheduled lab periods. See the Spatial Analysis Lab schedule to find open time slots. (Click here for Guidelines on the preparation of Lab Summaries)

TENTATIVE SCHEDULE:
This schedule will be revised and updated from time to time as the term progresses. You should check this web page periodically for updates. This page was last updated on 1/14/2005.

 

 

LECTURE TOPIC

READINGS

See Reference List below for full citations and possible online links

LAB EXERCISE

Week 1:
Jan. 4–7

Course Overview

A review of models

King and Kraemer 1993

Lubchenco 1998

 

No Lab this week.

Week 2:
Jan. 10-14

Describing Landscape Patterns

Project topic selection complete by 1/14 ; Click here for details of what I expect at this point

 

 Introduction to Landscape Metrics; "Indices of Landscape Pattern" by D. Urban, Duke Univ.

( CLICK ON THIS LINK TO SAVE EXCEL FILE CONTAINING DATA TO YOUR MACHINE)

Week 3:
Jan. 17-21

Analysis of the Rates and Patterns of Landscape Change

Introduction to Simulation Models: Deterministic Models of Landscape Change

 

 

Wallin et al. 1994, Wallin et al. 1996b, Spies et al. 1994

Cushman and Wallin 2000

Landscape pattern change under shifting management regimes; The CASCADE Model

(See McGarigal and Marks 1995 below for link to an online FRAGSTATS manual)

cascadeclassdata.xls

Week 4:
Jan. 24-28

Project outlines due by 1/28; Click here for details of what I expect at this point; this is worth 5% of your final grade

Hansen et al. 1993

Rule-based models of animal habitat.

habitatclassdata.xls

Week 5:
Jan 31-Feb. 4

Markov Models: Statistical Models of Landscape Change

Readings from Dean Urban’s web page:

Reading 1: Simple models of landscape change

Reading 2: Extending models of landscape change

Paper copies are also available in the Huxley library.

Prediction of landscape change with a first-order Markov Model

(After clicking on the link above, see the “lab instructions in PDF form.”  We will follow these instructions but also see my supplement to Dean Urban's instructions for a few additions.)

Week 6:
Feb. 7-11

(Data layer development completed by 2/11; Click here for details of what I expect at this point; this is worth 5% of your final grade

 

 

Week 7:
Feb. 14-18

Multivariate Classification: Application of Statistical Models to Map Potential Wildlife Habitat

 

 

 Murrelets From Space

Week 8:
Feb. 21-25

(Draft of project is due 2/25; Click here for details of what I expect; this is worth 5% of your final grade

 

  The PATCH Model (lab under development)

Week 9:
Feb 28 -March 4

Modeling Ecosystem Processes

 

 

 The LANDCARB Model (Wallin et al. 1996a) (lab under development)

(Click here for lab instructions)

Week 10:
March 7-11

GIS Overlays: GAP Analysis

(Final projects due the last day of classes)

 

 (lab under development)

Finals week March 14-18

No Final

 

 

 

Selected References (check for updates):

Cohen, W.B., D.O. Wallin, M.E. Harmon and M. Fiorella. 1996. Estimated carbon flux between 1972 and 1991 from forests of the pacific northwest region of the United States. Bioscience 46(11):836- 844.

Cohen, W.B., T.A. Spies, F.J. Swanson and D.O. Wallin. 1995. Land cover on the western slopes of the central Oregon Cascade Range. International Journal of Remote Sensing 16:595-596.

Cushman, S.A. and D.O. Wallin.  2000.  Rates and patterns of landscape change in the central Sikhote-alin Mountains, Russian far east.  Landscape Ecology 15(7):643-659.  (Click here to view MS Word file)

Hansen, A.J., S.L. Garman, B. Marks and D.L. Urban. 1993. An approach for managing vertebrate diversity across multiple-use landscapes. Ecological Applications 3:481-496. (Available online through Jstors. Click here to view the article Note: If this link doesn't work, go the libraries online resources and look up the article in Jstors.)

King, J.L. and K.L. Kraemer.  1993.  Models, facts and the policy process: the political ecology of estimated truth.  Pages 353-360 In:  Goodchild, M.F., B.O. Parks and L.T. Steyaert (Editors), Environmental Modeling With GIS by Oxford Univ. Press, New York.  (available in the notebook in the Huxley Library)

Lubchenco, J. 1998.  Entering the century of the environment: a new social contract for science. Science 279:491-497. (available in the notebook in the Huxley Library and available for free online through Proquest)  (Click here to view and print this document through Proquest) This link fixed 1/5; 4:30pm

McGarigal, K., and Marks, B.J., 1995. FRAGSTATS: Spatial pattern analysis program for quantifying landscape structure. Pacific Northwest Research Station, U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service, General Technical Report, PNW-GTR-351, Portland, Oregon. 123 pages. (Click here for an online version of this document) NOTE: This document is rather long! (100+ pages!) Please think carefully before you choose to print it out!
(Click here for information on how to obtain FRAGSTATS version 2.0 (FREE) or FRAGSTATS version 2.03 (commercial))

McGarigal, K. and W.C. McComb. 1995. Relationships between landscape structure and breeding birds in the Oregon Coast Range. Ecological Monographs 65:235-260.

McKelvey, K., B.R. Noon and R.H. Lamberson. 1993. Conservation planning for species occupying fragmented landscape: the case of the northern spotted owl. Pages 424-450 In: P.M. Kareiva, J.G. Kingsolver and R.B. Huey (editors). Biotic interations and global change. Sinauer, Sunderland, Massachusetts, USA.

Schumaker, N.H. 1996. Using landscape indicies to predict habitat connectivity. Ecology 77:1210-1225.

Schumaker, N. 1998. Online Users guide to the Program to Assist Tracking Critical Habitat. (The PATCH Model). Environmental Protection Agency, Corvallis, OR.

Spies, T.A., W.J. Ripple and G.A. Bradshaw.  1994.  Dynamics and pattern of a managed coniferous forest landscape in Oregon.  Ecological Applications 4(3):555-568.

Wallin, D.O., Harmon, M.E., Cohen, W.B., Fiorella, M. and Ferrell, W.K. 1996a. Use of remote sensing to model land use effects on carbon flux in forests of the Pacific Northwest, USA. -- Pages 219-237 In: Gholz, H.L., Nakane, K. and Shimoda, H. (eds). The use of remote sensing in the modeling of forest productivity at scales from the stand to the globe. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, The Netherlands. ISBN 0- 7923-4278-X

Wallin, D.O., F.J. Swanson, B. Marks, J. Kertis and J. Cissel. 1996b. Comparison of managed and pre-settlement landscape dynamics in forests of the Pacific Northwest, U.S.A.. Forest Ecology and Management 85:291- 310. (Copy of paper available in the Huxley library; I’ll try to make one available online as well.  Not sure that I can.)

Wallin, D.O., F.J. Swanson and B. Marks. 1994. Landscape pattern response to changes in the pattern-generation rules: land-use legacies in forestry. Ecological Applications 4(3):569-580.

Zheng, D., D.O. Wallin and Z. Hao. 1997. Use of remote sensing to detect rates and patterns of landscape change in the Changbai Mountain area of China and Korea: 1972-1988. Landscape Ecology 12(4): 241-254.

 

Projects

 



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