Evelyn Mukherjee

New Jersey is the most densely populated state in the country, leaving it very vulnerable to environmental concerns. Many families decide to settle in New Jersey due to its proximity to the city and good schooling systems. Recently, there have been many debates about the ethics of having children in the midst of the climate crisis. This project takes a look into the safest places for child care centers and possible correlations between the two.

Methodology

Tools Used

• QGIS: QGIS is an open source geospatial mapping software that can be used to create a variety of geographical maps, including heat maps, graduated color maps, as well as terrain maps.
• New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection’s Bureau of GIS: Open data that can be used for data and spatial analysis

New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection’s Bureau of GIS’s website was very easy to navigate and access the files necessary to create the maps in GIS. While there was an initial challenge with getting the files downloaded in the proper format, I ultimately ended up downloading each dataset as a shape file so it could be easily imported into QGIS. 

There were three main layers that had to be formatted and displayed on the map: the childcare centers, the environmental concern sites, and the population density per county. In order to visualize each component without making the map look too crowded, I opted to make the population by county a graduated color scheme as the bottom layer of the map. Next, I made the environmental concern sites into a heat map, and made it slightly transparent in order to see the population. Lastly, the child care centers were placed on top of the heat map using blue dots to contrast with the red from the heat map layer. 

The Outcome

The final map features a heat map of environmental concern sites in NJ, blue points that represent child care centers, and the population density of each county shown through a gray themed scale. Two areas of the map are highlighted, since they are more densely populated with childcare centers and zooming in makes it easier to see the heat map and population density. 

From the map, we can see that population density and environmental concerns are heavily correlated, since the two most densely populated areas on the map have the most red. One thing I found interesting was the number of child care centers in Monmouth county, despite not having many environmental concern sites in its area. This gives me reason to believe that Monmouth county is a safe place to raise your children if you want to steer clear of any environmental concerns while still living in a relatively populated area. 

The counties in the top right corner of the map appear to be the most densely populated in New Jersey, which can explain the large amount of child care centers shown. As someone who has lived in both Hudson and Essex county, it’s not surprising that these areas are the most densely populated due to their ease of access to New York City and good education systems. That being said, many areas in these counties are very industrialized, which could explain the high density of environmental concerns. 

This map can be used as a good resource for families with children looking to settle down but want to be aware of environmental concerns surrounding them and possibly avoid them if possible. 

Reflection

Overall, I am very happy with how the map came out, and the problems I experienced with the program helped me to understand it more. Initially I was just going to have the concern site heat map and the childcare centers, but realized in my analysis that the population density was necessary to show as well since it allowed for deeper insight into the visualization. While creating the print layout of the map, QGIS shut down on me three times without saving my progress which led to some frustration but I persisted! There were a lot of different functions that I had to look up how to do in order to get to my final map, but doing so allowed me to get a deeper understanding of the software and its capabilities.