Using GIS to Determine Native Felid Habitat in Urbanizing Areas and its Link to Human and Domestic Cat Conflicts

GIS Concepts


Buffer: A zone around a map feature measured in units of distance or time. A buffer is useful for proximity analysis.

Clip: Extracts input features that overlay the input features.

Datum: The reference specifications of a measurement system, usually a system of coordinate positions on a surface (a horizontal datum) or heights above or below a surface (a vertical datum).

Geodatabase: A database or file structure used primarily to store, query, and manipulate spatial data.  Feature classes and feature datasets are located within a geodatabase.

Geographic Coordinate System: A reference system that uses latitude and longitude to define the locations of points on the surface of a sphere.  A geographic coordinate system definition includes a datum, prime meridian, and angular unit.

Projection: The method used to portray the 3-dimensional surface of the earth on a 2-dimensional planar surface.

Projected Coordinate System: A reference system used to locate x, y, and z positions of point, line, and area features in two or three dimensions.  A projected coordinate system is defined by a geographic coordinate system, a map projection, any parameters needed by the map projection, and a linear unit of measure.

Raster: A dataset that represents geographic features which are portrayed as square or rectangular grid cells.  Each grid cell corresponds with an associated value representing unique characteristics.

Reclassify: Changes the values in a raster.

Union: Computes the geometric intersection of two polygon coverages.

UTM: Universal Transverse Mercator is a projected coordinate system that splits the earth up into zones.

Spatial Analyst: An ArcGIS tool that allows for spatial modeling and analysis.

Analysis mask: Identifies those cells within the analysis extent that will be considered when performing an operation or a function. Setting an analysis mask means that processing will only occur on selected locations and that all other locations will be assigned values of NoData.

Extent: The minimum bounding rectangle (xmin, ymin and xmax, ymax) defined by coordinate pairs of a data source. All coordinates for the data source fall within this boundary.

Raster Calculator: A spatial analyst tool used to perform mathematical calculations and queries.

Wildlife Biology Concepts

Exurban: Low-density development, such as ranchette development

Home range: Tool used to determine the boundaries of a desired watershed.  To simulate home ranges, we buffered our private land parcels with the average radius (taken from the literature)

Habitat Suitability: Habitat features that can sustain or "are suitable" for an animal species.  In our case we use vegetation type as a proxy for suitable habitat for bobcat and mountain lion because these two species focus on vegetation for cover and for food.  We also used three levels of habitat suitability: low (1), medium (2), and high (3).  Please see GIS ANALYSES page for a description of habitat types included in each suitability level.

Source: Environmental Systems Research Institute. 2006. GIS Dictionary. Environmental Systems Research Institute Inc., Redlands, CA. ESRI Glossary