Suitability Analysis of Potential Sites for UCLA Satellite Campus

The goal of the this project is to identify suitable sites for the development of a satellite campus of UCLA. THe UCLA campus is planning to enroll more students, and there is a need to accommodate those students in a new facility because the current campus will not be adequate for all future students.

There are a number of factors that affect the suitability analysis. It has to be located within the inland areas of Los Angeles county. The satellite campus should be accessible to the faculty and students, so it should be close to road network such as freeways, but should not be very close to it to minimize noise pollution. In addition, the slope of the land should be mild, because steep slopes are not stable locations for constructing new buildings, so safety may be compromised by steep slopes. The satellite campus should be close to urban areas, so we can take advantage of its well developed amenities and accessibility. The site should be vacant, of possible, other additional asset acquisition costs will apply. Finally, the site should be close to existing colleges and universities to enable interactions with academics at the satellite campus.

Following data is required for analysis of suitable sites. Digital Elevation Model data (DEM) was downloaded from USGS seamless server. In addition, land use shapefile, urbanized area shapefile, freeway shapefile, college and university shapefile was downloaded from the Los Angeles County GIS Portal website. All layers were projected into UTM 11N coordinate system.

Since we are considering sites only in the inland area of Los Angeles county, the explosion geoprocessing tool was used on the Los Angeles shapefile to extract island features from the county feature. In the editor, these island features were selected and deleted. The saved Los Angeles shapefile now has only inland features, and it will be used for analysis.

The DEM raster layer was clipped to the shape of Los Angeles county by using the Extract By Mask geoprocessing tool. Urbanization, freeways, college and landuse shapefiles were also clipped to the shape of inland Los Angeles county using the geoprocessing tool.

Following data

The satellite campus is going to house about 5000 students only, so parcel area need not be large. But for the sake of future expansion, we should look for areas that have greater room for development.

To identify suitable sites with gentle gradient, a slope analysis was performed on the DEM. THe DEM was then reclassified into 10 categories using a geoprocessing tool where class value of 10 represents the best site with milder slopes, and 1 represents steep sites not suitable for development. A map of slope is shown in the document.

Similarly, land use layer was converted into a raster, and then reclassified into types with varying weights assigned to various land uses. Vacant sites have the highest weight and were classified with a value of 10, and existing industrial area have the lowest desirability and were classified with a value of 1. A map of land use shows various landuse types.

The college shapefile was buffered by 3 miles, and then converted to raster. This raster was reclassified with areas inside the buffer zone assigned a class value of 10, and areas outside the buffer zone as 1 representing less desirable sites from this point of view.

The  freeway  features  were  buffered  to  1  mile  and  2  mile.  This  resulted  in  two buffered freeway shapefiles. These two buffer layers were merged using the Merge geoprocessing tool, and then converted into a raster layer. The freeway buffer raster layer was then reclassified using the geoprocessing tool. Areas that were located closer than 1 mile was classified with a value of 1, because this area will be noisy. Areas around 2 miles from the freeway were the best sites and were classified with a value of 10. Other areas were classified as 5 representing areas of intermediate suitability.

Finally, to ensure that the new site is close to urban areas, the urban area was buffered by 5 miles and then converted to raster. This raster was reclassified with areas inside the buffer zone assigned a class value of 10, and areas outside the buffer zone as 1 representing less desirable sites from this point of view.

Thus, we have 5 criteria to use to compute the suitability of areas for a new campus. Slope was considered the most important factor influencing the selection. This was followed by land use type, proximity to road network, urban areas and colleges and universities. The following equation was used with weights assigned to each criteria to compute the suitability of each cell in the raster. A raster calculator was used to calculate the new suitability raster:

Cell Score = 1.0 * slope + (0.7 * land use type) + (0.5 × freeways) + (0.6 × colleges) + (0.5 × urbanized areas)

The resulting suitability raster map shows best and worst sites based on weights selected for the study. It should be noted that selection of different weights will generate a different raster showing different suitability scores for each cell in the raster. The

assignment of weights for each criteria in this study is based on my judgement, and may differ with analysts and other factors involved in decision making.

A general pattern is revealed by the suitability raster computed  using the equation above. The southern part of Los Angeles county is less suited as there is little room for new developments because this area is densely populated. On the other hand, northern areas are less densely populated and offer greater opportunities for new development. This is evident from the green colored cells in the northern areas, and more red colored cells in the southern areas.

I recommend 4 sites for satellite campus development. These areas are shown

in circles. The decision to select a particular site will depend upon factors that are considered important by the university. If the university wants to geographically expand the campus, areas in the northern side are better suited. If the university is more interested in catering to more students, potential sites that are located towards the south of LA county should be selected because they are more densely populated.