Quality Control

Some public data for the parks could be inaccurate, inconsistent, or incomplete. Therefore, the following process was used to ensure the quality of the data:

1. Each data point was checked against multiple sources where possible.
2. The statistical distributions for each metric for all parks were generated. The outliers were then identified and each of them was validated. Any data deemed to be low quality was replaced by data from other sources or removed from the analysis.
3. Scores were calculated and “reality checks” were performed. The reality check would determine if the park was ranked approximately correctly based on assessed parameters. For example, a park with a large investment and large area should be ranked high on those metrics.