Project 3: Statistics - Prepare Week
Meth Labs per Square Mile - Charleston, WV

GIS 4930

For this weeks lab we began the Prepare Week by getting a basemap together that will be utilized in next weeks lab.  I identified the Charleston, West Virginia area as our Study Area for the project.  For this project we are looking into the socio-economic factors for the distribution of methamphetamine labs.  Utilizing the Census Tracts data from the U.S. Census Bureau and merging that data with education and lab locations my hope is to be able to identify areas that may show a greater likelihood of having an illicit meth laboratory.  

Some of the steps to produce my final basemap included calculating multiple percentages.  I utilized Field Calculator to calculate percent population growth, percent white, percent roommates.  Later in the lab we sped up the process of calculating percentages by using a python script.  This script quickly calculated multiple attribute fields and I was tasked with modifying the script to include percentages for age groups 40-49, 50-64, and above 64 years.  I also wrote script to calculate the male to female ratio and percentage of uneducated individuals in the population.

Utilizing a Spatial Join, I was then able to get a total count of meth labs per census tract.  This in turn allowed for me to calculate the number of labs per square mile for any specific census tract.  I used this data to then show a categorized symbology with a color ramp.  This symbology showed areas where there was meth labs and how abundant they were in that specific tract compared to others in the study area.  My final task was to clean up my attribute table, removing unneeded fields and produce a basemap for this weeks project.