This story map walks you through the analysis workflow for finding potential cougar habitat, as presented in the case study "Which areas are good cougar habitat?"
Scroll down to view the analysis steps.
Cougar Habitat Case Study - Analysis Workflow using ArcGIS for Desktop This story map walks you through the analysis workflow for finding potential cougar habitat, as presented in the case study "Which areas are good cougar habitat?"
Scroll down to view the analysis steps. Identify the area within three miles around the state park. 1 To create the buffer layer use the Buffer tool and specify the distance as 3 miles. Use the default options.
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2 Change the buffer symbol, specifying transparent fill, and a thick green outline. Learn about drawing a layer using a single symbol.
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Create the study area boundary. 1 First, use the Identify tool to get the unique IDs of the three sub-watersheds that comprise the study area. There are several fields with unique values, but the shortest one is the three-digit HUC5_ID field. Learn about identifying features.
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2 Now use Select by Attributes to create a selected set containing the three sub-watersheds, specifying their respective HUC5_ID values. Learn about using Select by Attributes.
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3 Then use the Dissolve tool to erase the boundaries between the selected sub-watersheds, creating a new layer containing the study area boundary (Dissolve works only on the selected features). Skip the Dissolve Fields and Statistics Fields options. Change the symbol of the resulting layer to a transparent fill and a thick, dark gray outline.
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Create a layer of highway features within the study area. 1 Use the Clip tool to create the file containing the clipped features. Specify State highway as the input features layer and specify Study area boundary as the clip features layer.
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Identify the area that are suitable cougar habitat using the criteria defined by the experts from the State Park. There are several ways of identifying the suitable areas using ArcGIS Desktop. The steps presented here more or less replicate the method that the Derive New Locations tool in ArcGIS Online uses. The approach involves creating layer selections for suitable vegetation and steep slopes, creating a layer of the areas within 500 feet of a stream, and creating a layer of the areas more than 1500 feet from the highway. The input layers are then combined to create a layer showing the areas that meet all the criteria.
1 Use Select by Attributes with the Vegetation layer to select the suitable vegetation types. The field is VEG_CODE and the suitable values are 34, 49, and 67.
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2 Use Select by Attributes with the Slope layer to select the steep slopes. Specify SLOPE_CODE = Steep.
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3 Buffer the streams to delineate the areas within 500 feet. Set Dissolve Type to ALL.
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4 Finding the areas more than 1500 feet from the highway is a two-step process. First, create a buffer of 1500 feet around the highway. ![]() Now erase the portion of the study area within this buffer, creating a layer of areas more than 1500 feet from the highway.
5 With the selections in place and the new layers created, use the Intersect tool to combine the input layers: vegetation, slope, stream_buffer_500, and highway_distance_1500. (Intersect inlcudes only the selected vegetation and slope features from the corresponding layers.)
![]() Identify areas that are suitable cougar habitat using the criteria defined by the experts from the Department of Fish and Wildlife. To run the analysis using the criteria from the Department of Fish and Wildlife, you modify the selection for the vegetation layer, create a new stream buffer layer and a new layer of distance from the highway, and run Intersect with the input layers. (Since steep slopes are already selected, you don’t need to do anything with the Slope layer before running Intersect).
1 Modify the selected vegetation types by adding areas having a code of 121. In Select by Attributes, set the selection method to “Add to current selection” and enter the expression “VEG_CODE” = 121.
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2 Buffer the streams to delineate the areas within 2500 feet. Set Dissolve Type to ALL.
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3 To find the areas more than 500 feet from the highway, first create a buffer of 500 feet around the highway.
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Then erase the portion of the study area within this buffer, creating a layer of areas more than 500 feet from the highway.
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4 Use the Intersect tool to combine the input layers: vegetation, slope, stream_buffer_2500, and highway_distance_500.
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