Interdisciplinary Experience

The interdisciplinary mature of this program makes it very exciting to work on. GIS can have many applications, and one of the main things I was excited about when this project started was seeing how other disciplines would use GIS in their projects. The economics team ended up using GIS the most. While working with them I learned a lot about their project, and I found it to be very fun to help them get the information they needed for their model. They needed the distance from properties to certain lakes so that they can use that as a variable for their model. This was going to be used to see how distance from lakes impacts home value. They want to find out how much more a home is worth if it is near or on the lakefront. They are doing this for Lake Menomin, where algal blooms are notoriously bad during the late summer, as well as for Cumberland and the Chetek chain where algal blooms aren't as bad. The purpose of that is to see if there is a difference in added value if a home is near a dirty lake or near a clean lake, which in turn will result in the value of clean water. The other part of their research consists of analyzing surveys they compiled to find peoples' willingness to pay for a cleaner lake, as well as looking into the economic effects a clean lake has on businesses. It felt good to contribute to someone else's project and I'm excited to see their results.