Montana Large-Landowner Contiguity & Residency Analysis
Episteme Geospatial (aka Episteme Data) performed a focused, one-time spatial analysis for Backcountry Hunters & Anglers examining patterns of large, contiguous landownership across Montana. The project involved the extraction, transformation, and loading of parcel and ownership datasets into an analytical framework capable of identifying contiguous landholdings aggregated by owner entity. A contiguity model was developed to dissolve and group parcels under common ownership while preserving analytical traceability. Core analytical outputs included: - Total acreage of non-residential landowners with contiguous holdings over 2,500 acres. - Total acreage of residential landowners with contiguous holdings over 2,500 acres. - Count of non-residential landowners exceeding 2,500 contiguous acres. - Count of residential landowners exceeding 2,500 contiguous acres. Residency classification logic was applied to ownership records, and spatial contiguity was evaluated through polygon topology and adjacency analysis. - Deliverables were provided as a Microsoft Excel Workbook containing: - A tabular dataset of the analytical results. - A formal metadata sheet documenting data sources, processing steps, assumptions, and methodological limitations. The project required careful data normalization, ownership name cleaning, adjacency modeling, and acreage computation to ensure defensible and replicable results. This engagement highlights expertise in cadastral analysis, ownership aggregation, spatial topology, and production of structured analytical…