Abstract

Keeping Score of Where: Novel Tools for Exploring Raster Data
Track: Analysis
Authors: Angela Sakrison

When it comes to making environmental planning and resource management decisions, the best decision often depends on where. The goal of this project was to make a collection of easy to use, free, open source 'Scoregrid' tools for Esri's ArcGIS10.x software package that perform novel geoprocessing expansion and ranking functions on raster suitability grids. The Scoregrid Toolkit includes two data prep tools, three tools that find the most suitable pixels within specified areas and report their rank, and three migration tools that identify the most suitable, adjacent pixels for a specified raster zone. The Python based tools incorporate Numerical Python (NumPy) arrays to speed up the geoprocessing operations and allow for pixel-by-pixel analysis. As a primary application of the Scoregrid Toolkit, the migration and ranking functions were used to identify lands where wetlands were most likely to migrate inland in response to sea level rise in South New Jersey.