Module 6 Part I: Suitability Analysis

 During the first part of this week's module, I had the opportunity to conduct a suitability analysis. I began by using the Reclassify tool to convert the original land cover layer into a raster layer is reclassified values. I reclassified the values into suitability classes and assigned ratings to each land cover value. Then, I used the Polygon to Raster tool in order to convert the soil polygon into a raster. I then used the Reclassify tool on the new soil raster to reclassify the soils classes into suitability ratings. After that, I converted the elevation DEM into a slope raster in degrees by using the Slope tool and reclassifying the slope classes into suitable ratings. I then input the river slayer into the Euclidian Distance tool. After that, I assigned suitability values to the distances through the Reclassify tool. I repeated the same process for the highway layer. I then used the Weighted Overlay Tool to combine the five criteria under a similar scale. I then repeated the process, but with varying scales to each criteria. I create a side by side comparison below. 

One of the crucial things that I found was to constantly make sure that the extent in the Environments tab of Spatial Analyst Tools was always set to the extent of the Study Area layer. I wanted to make sure that the outputs I was producing did not come out erroneous.