Spatial Allocation of Animal Welfare Resources on University Campuses: A Problem of Locating Facilities with Spatial Constraints

The presence of dogs in university environments is a recurring reality in several higher education institutions and imposes challenges related to animal welfare, the organization of space and the definition of appropriate management strategies. In this context, this work proposes an optimization approach to support the location of canine feeding and hydration stations on a university campus, modeling the problem as a problem of location of facilities with spatial constraints. The proposal seeks to determine efficient installation configurations that reduce the displacement of animals to resources, while respecting criteria of accessibility, operational capacity and physical feasibility of the places considered.
The study was developed at the Sumé campus of the Federal University of Campina Grande. For the construction of the real instance of the problem, complementary stages of spatial survey, characterization of the animals and treatment of georeferenced data were carried out. Initially, the structural mapping of the campus was carried out with the support of the QGIS software, allowing the delimitation of the study area, identifying physical barriers and defining a discretized set of candidate points for the installation of feeders and drinkers. Then, a complementary stage of field evaluation was conducted to select the effectively viable points, considering aspects such as accessibility for maintenance, safety and adequate shading conditions to preserve the quality of water and food throughout the day