Behind Colombia, Ecuador is the world's leading exporter of cut roses. In addition, they export numerous other cut flowers. The United States of America is the number one consumer of Ecuadorian roses, and the rose floriculture provides significant economic impact in both Ecuador and the U.S.A. This project's aim is to provide a visual of rose farm concentration in Ecuador and provide market information on the quality of roses as it relates to altitude. A map such as this does not exist, and as such, this map will provide a social service to the rose growers in Ecuador. ExpoFlores, an organization that manages the social and environmental impact and image of the Ecuador's flower farms, provides a list of farms. From this list, I will create my own specific list of rose farms. Luckily, most farms have a website;however, most do not list the address, but the town. Since the exact locations of farms are not always provided, I will use Normalized Digital Vegetation Difference (NDVI) technology through ArcGIS online to locate the farms.
Digital Elevation Models (DEM) will be used to determine the altitude of the farms. Rose growers in Ecuador claim roses grow taller, stronger and straighter with higher altitudes. Once I have the farms location and altitude plotted, I will refer to sights such as FlorEcuador and ExpoFlores to see if the quality of the rose does indeed correspond to the altitude. If the DEM model proves to be too time intensive, I will then plot all flower farms to create a map which models concentration of rose farms compared to other flowers.
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