Susan Williams

GEOG 586
November 2013

Project 5: Surface Analysis

Introduction
To explore Surface Analysis, we experimented with data from Centre County, PA. As
one of the fastest growing counties in the state, school enrollment is burgeoning
and a new high school needs to be appropriately sited to serve the four school
districts. To do this, we had to analyze existing raster datasets to determine a
potential location for the new school.

Allocation Based on Straight Line Distance

The first step is to run the Spatial Analyst tool for a straight line distance analysis.
This tool used the locations of the four existing Centre County high schools and
allocated cells based on their least distance from each high school. For example, in
Figure 1 below, every cell that is colored bright lime green (Zone 2) is closer to the
school in that eastern zone than to any of the other three schools. This is the raster
equivalent
of a
proximity
polygon
(OSullivan,
2014).
Figure 1:
Euclidean
Allocation of
the four high
schools in
Centre
County, PA.
Each colored
zone
represents
areas of the
county that
correspond
most closely
distance-wise to the high school within that zone.

For comparison, I also ran a Straight Line Distance Analysis of the area (see Figure
2). The Straight Line tool calculates the distance from every cell to each school,
measured as the crow flies, and then assigns the shortest distance to the raster.
The Allocation Tool is clearly based on the straight line distance calculations.
Figure 2:
Straight
Line
Distance
Analysis of
the four
high
schools in
Centre
County,
PA. The
distances
to each
high
school are

determined in a straight line or as the crow flies.

One example to note from comparing these two different methods is a student who
may be living between the two schools near the center of the county. In Figure 2,
we see an overlap in the light gold coloration, indicating that the student could be
within the attendance zone of either school. Figure 1, however, provides a clearer
picture in this particular instance as to which school the student should attend (why,
the one with the best science program, of course!)
In reality, straight line distances are not always useful. When we drive to school,
unless we have some type of futuristic hovercar, chances are we are making
multiple turns as we follow various roadways or political or topographical features.
A political boundary example may be a student living near a county border. The
student may technically be closer to a school in the next county but as this school
is not within their county of residence, this sort of distance allocation would be
inaccurate. We need to combine multiple analyses to determine a more ideal
2

output that takes all these variables into account. One option for this would be to
create an individual analysis for each school and then add these four analysis
grids together with the raster calculator.

Distance Analysis Over Roads (Part 1)

To begin an effective analysis of determining a suitable school site, we must first
create a raster of the road network. As mentioned previously, distances are not
generally traveled in a straight line but depend quite a bit on roads and other
factors. Therefore we clearly need to take the road network into account for this
analysis to have any meaning. In order to do that, we must convert each set of
roads (Major and Local) into separate raster layers (MajorRds and LocalRds) using
the Feature to Raster conversion tool. The next step was to reclassify these
rasters with major roads being given a value of 1, local roads being given a value
of 2, and all remaining non-road areas being given a value of 100. (Because, as
much fun as it would be, neither bus drivers nor parents are going to want to go offroad in order to get students to school, though student drivers themselves may be
another matter!)
Then I combined these two rasters and opted to use the values for the Major roads
where any intersections occurred, as I assume that such intersections will have at
least some of the attributes of a major road in that particular location. I set the nonroad areas to display as NoData so the original DEM can be seen underneath in nonroad areas (see Figure 3).

Figure 3: The new Roads raster layer with major roads shown in red and minor roads shown
in yellow.

Distance Analysis Over Roads (Part 2)

Now that our roads are weighted in terms of ease of travel, with major roads
being quicker to travel on than minor roads, we can repeat the previous distance
analysis but this time taking the weighted roads into account. The result clearly

differs from the Allocation created in Figure 1.

Figure 4: New Euclidean Allocation of the four high schools in Centre County, PA based on
the weighted roads layer. Each colored zone represents areas of the county that correspond
most closely distance-wise to the high school within that zone after accounting for travel
time on the road network. The thick black lines represent the official school district
boundaries and the thin black lines represent civil boundaries.

This is certainly a more realistic allocation, but does not seem to account for all the
inconsistencies between the straight-line distance allocation and the actual school
districts. Rather, it appears that school district boundaries tend to fall along civil
4

boundaries, resulting in some allocated districts that do not align well with actual
school districts.

Allocation Based on Road Distances

My next task was to estimate the school-age population within each school district.
This is important information when determining the best location for a new school,
as it would not be very useful to site the school in an area with lower numbers of
students.
By creating a raster representation and using Zonal Statistics, I calculated the
number of school-age children per civil division in Centre County as shown in Figure
5. This map shows that the State College Area School District is the most populous

district.
Figure 5: The density of school-age children (ages 5 to 17) per census block in Centre
County, PA. Classified by Natural Breaks (Jenks) with darker shades representing a higher
number of school-aged children.

A map of the student population by school district rather than census block
confirms this assessment (see Figure 6).

Figure 6: The density of school-age children (ages 5 to 17) per school district in Centre
County, PA. Classified by Natural Breaks (Jenks) with darker shades representing a higher
number of school-aged children.

The Zonal Statistics By Table tool displays the population of each school district:

Its interesting to note that the State College Area School District has more than
twice the number of students than the next most-populous district, Bellefonte Area
School District. I think it makes it fairly obvious, then, the general vicinity in which a
new high school should be sited.

A map displaying student population according the Euclidean Allocated zones which
were weighted according to the road network serves to reinforce that assumption
(see Figure 7).

Figure 7: Population of school-age children (ages 5 to 17) per school district in Centre
County, PA, with darker areas representing higher numbers of school-aged children.

And so...Where to Put a New School and What Should Be Its District?!
As we reasoned from our previous analysis, the State College Area School District
already has more than twice the number of students than other districts. Ideally, if
we could divide the State College Area District evenly without requiring any other
districts to be redrawn, that would be the easiest and most cost-effective method.
But where shall we place our new school within the State College Area District?
Definitely near some fast-food joints who would appreciate all the lunchtime
business, right? Well, perhaps we should be a bit more specific so I performed a
Kernel Density Estimation (KDE) to determine precisely where the largest
concentrations of school-aged children are located within the county (see Figure 8).

Figure 8: Kernel Density Estimation of school-age children (ages 5 to 17) per school district
and census block in Centre County, PA, with darker areas representing higher densities of
students.

The KDE shows that there a few clusters of students within the State College Area
School District, but the largest concentration seem to be located in the approximate
center of the district (see Figure 9).

Figure 9: A zoomed-in view of the Kernel Density Estimation of school-age children (ages 5
to 17) in the State College Area School District.

By drawing a new district along census block lines, we can site the new school to
take a lot of pressure off the existing school a sum of about 4,710 students, or
approximately half of the districts current 9,578 (see Figure 10).

Figure 10: Statistics of the new school district created from select census blocks show that
approximately 4,710 students aged 5 to 17 will be incorporated from the previous State
College Area District. .

Figure 11: Areas highlighted in bright blue represent census blocks that would be appointed
into the new school district. A new school should be sited somewhere in the center of this
new region and close to major roads, such as the spot indicated by the red star.

Conclusion
In previous lessons, we explored how knowledge of underlying patterns and
processes is critical to truly understand the results of an analysis, as is a thorough
understanding of various analysis methods such as interpolation that may affect the
outcome. In a similar vein, this lesson explored how a basic analysis, such as our
initial straight line distance, may tell us something about the data but may not
effectively present the entire picture. By delving deeper into an analysis and
carefully examining any geographic factors such as topography, road networks,
specific populations, and so forth, we are very likely to end up with a more refined
and far more accurate analysis. It is key, however, to know where we are going
(with the data) before we can figure out how to get there.

References

10

O'Sullivan, David. (2014). GEOG 586: Geographic Information Analysis, Lesson 6:

Surface Analysis. The Pennsylvania State University World Campus. Accessed
November 2013 at https://www.e-education.psu.edu/geog586/l7.html
O'Sullivan, D., & Unwin, D. J. (2010). Geographic Information Analysis. (2nd ed.).
Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

11