Lab 4 Mini - Final Project

Goal:
Propose a spatial question and then use the geoprocessing skills (vector) you have learned in this class to answer your spatial question.

Objectives:

1. A spatial question.
2. A report which will outline the scope of your project and include a discussion of the question, data sources, methods, results and an evaluation of the project. This will include the data flow model of your methods.
3. A color PDF map with the answer to your spatial question and other pertinent information (locator map).

Introduction:

My research question that I had was where the best location to put a hospital in Washington County, Oregon.  My intended audience was any company wanting to learn where to put another hospital, or the county government wanting to put in another hospital in the county. Washington county has a population of  554,996 people.

Data Sources: 

The data I needed to answer these questions was cities, county, parks, highways, hospitals, and waterbodies.  I was able to get all of these information right off of the ESRI data given for learning Arcmap with the Mastering Arcgis introduction book.  The data concern I have is the viability of how recent the data is because a lot could have changed in the ears since its creation, and there may have been more hospitals created since the data was collected making my map outdated.  I also am worried that some of the data may be different for the water bodies because of the shortage in water that is happening in the United States, although I am not sure if this affects Oregon or not.

Methods:































This figure above shows the data flow model I used to figure out where the best location would be for the new hospitals to be put in, in the county.  I first put a buffer around the Cities, highways, and hospital layers because I wanted my new hospital to within these zones at a certain distance apart. I then intersected them all to create a new layer that shows where they intersect each other.  I also created a union between the parks and water bodies because I wanted to know where people may be getting hurt from.  I then clipped the map with the counties layer and created the map that can be seen below.

Results:

The Results I got where actually what I was expecting.  As shown in the map most of the hospitals are in the eastern part of the county so I was assuming that the areas that would be needed of a map would be in the eastern parts along with some smaller areas that are shown in the purple.  This is my proposed new areas for hospitals to be built based on the criteria that I had. To make my map look well I had to make sure the results were easy to be seen on the larger map, and I wanted to make sure the audience viewing this map understood what part of Oregon I was looking at for this.  I was able to create a legend in the top to show the different products on the map along with the scale bar at the bottom to understand how large the area is.

Evaluation:

My overall impression of the project was that it was very fun, exciting, and was great way to learn how to solve problems.  At first I thought this problem was going to be slightly overwhelming because I have never not had any instructions on how to complete something in this class.  Well in this lab I was able to come up with my own Idea, my way of action, and my own way of styling the map.  I felt like I was finally let lose into the world of GIS to figure out this problem.

My overall impression of the project is very high and I would recommend anyone learning GIS to try this project for themselves because it is what is done in the real world, but the questions are usually proposed by the company.  If I was able to repeat the project I would change the question that I came up with to one closer to home.  I was dealing with Oregon, which is not too far, but I feel like it would have been a lot more fun and understanding to do a project near Eau Claire or just in the State of Wisconsin.   I would have changed it to figuring out where I would want to live in Wisconsin or another city in the area.

The challenges that I faced with this lab was that there was almost not guidance throughout the entire lab.  I was able to get my data-flow model checked off at the beginning when I created it on a piece of paper, but other than that the entire lab was all up to me.  I faced the challenge of some of my ideas not working, and having to improvise and improve the idea.  I also faced the challenge of making it look cartographic pleasing for anyone to view my lab.  The last challenge I faced was making sure the data-flow model worked correctly.  This was a challenge to me because it was my second time using it, and first time by my-self without any help.  I think in the future I would like to try doing this by using only python, but for not I think the data-flow model is going to be my go to way.

This lab has taught me very much in the last week.  Problem solving, making a data-flow model, and using the skills that I have learned in Geography 335 to finish this project.

Lab 3 Vector Analysis with ArcGIS

Goal:

To use various geoprocessing tools for vector analysis in ArcGIS to determine suitable habitat for bears in the study area of Marquette County, Michigan.

Objectives:

1. To map a GPS MS Excel file of black bear locations in the study area, central Marquette County, Michigan
2. To determine the forest types where black bears are found in the study area based on GPS locations of black bears.
3. To determine if bears are found near streams.
4. To find suitable bear habitat based on two criteria.
5. To find all areas of suitable bear habitat within areas managed by the Michigan DNR.
6. To eliminate areas near urban or built up lands.
7. Generate a digital data flow model of the workflow and cartographic output
8. Use some python!

Introduction:

The purpose of this lab was to understand how to use the different geoprocessing tools while accomplishing the goals of finding out the best places to create suitable bear habitat on already managed land by the DNR.  Then I was to create a map showing the results.  I chose to also add in the type of land found in the county to show what type of land would be managed, which can be seen below in the first figure.

Methods:

There were some new methods used in this lab than the previous one that we have learned since then.  These include intersect, dissolve, clip, buffer, and erase.  These tools have really brought to the table a new way of understand how we can manipulate data to solve more complicated problems.  These newly acquired skills on top of the ones previously were used to get to the correct answer for the question, which can be seen in figure 2 showing the flow model.  

            

To start this project I had to learn how to map x-y coordinates from an excel spreadsheet.  I then added the coordinates as an "event theme" and exported them as a feature class to my database.  Next I had to spatially join the bear locations with the cover data sets to determine which land cover the bears would be found in.  The next step was to summarize the dataset to get a count to find out what the top 3 types of land cover types bears preferred.  

Using the buffer tool allowed me to be able to create a feature class that showed areas withing 500 meters of streams, and I also used the buffer tool to create a feature class that showed an area of 5 km around urban land that would not make a good place for suitable bear habitat.  

Then, using the intersect tool  I was able to create a feature class that was using all of the specifications needed before I was able to use the erase tool at the end to get ride of any areas that I did not want to be part of the map.  

I then made a map showing the results I found that would answer the DNR's requests of where to manage the land suitable for bears.  

The last part of this lab was to use some python script inside Arcmap,which can be seen in the figure below. I found this to be extremely interesting and different way to use the tools that we have been using in the program.  I found myself picking up the ability to do the code very quick and even thought that this may be faster than actually going through and doing all of the tools on the program as long as I know all of my tools, what I need to do with each tool, and have it planned out ahead of time.  I look forward to using more of the python in future classes after this one ends.

Results:

The results that came through after figuring out how to solve the problem were really quite interesting.   The map I made shows the best location for the DNR to manage the land for the bears.  It has all of the criteria in the map I created along with showing the forest types it can be found in.

Sources: All of the data were downloaded from the State of Michigan Open GIS Data http://gis.michigan.opendata.arcgis.com/

Lab II: Downloading GIS Data

Goal:The goal of this lab is to learn how to download and map data from the U.S Census Bureau.

Objectives
1. Download 2010 Census data (total population) from the US Census Bureau.
2. Download a shapefile of the 2010 Census boundaries from the US Census Bureau.
3. Join the downloaded data to the Census shapefile.
4. Map the data.
5. Download and map a variable of your choice.
6. Build a layout with both maps.
7. Build a web map with one of the variables.

Introduction:

The purpose of this lab was learning how to download data from online servers like the US Census Bureau.  The data downloaded from here then needed to be changed into a form that I could use with the software.  It also included all of the MAG skills that I have learned up to this point.

The goal at the end up this lab was to understand how to download data, take that data and turn it into usable information with ArcGIS, and produce a working map with it. Being able to do this will help with future projects.  We were then tasked at creating two maps, the first one we all are supposed to create the same where as the second one came as a choice. Another goal of this lab was to learn how to upload a map to ArcGIS online.

Methods:

In creating this map I had to utilize multiple skills that I have learned such as downloaded data from an outside source, using table features inside ArcGIS, which taught me how to join tables together by a common feature, and working on my cartography skills.  Another method I learned in this lab was how to upload and share a map to the cloud, which I was able to share the second map that I created as a webmap online.  While creating the webmap I learned how to configure the popup window for the webmap by controlling the attributes assigned to it, which made it turn into a dynamic map showing different content based on the location of the mouse on screen.

Results:

The Results are shown in the picture below, which are two maps of Wisconsin showing the Counties. The one on the left is the total population by county whereas the one on the right in the percent of Vacant homes out of total homes per county.  Some of the patterns that I noticed was That the higher populated counties of Wisconsin are the areas that are also found to have the highest vacant home percentage per total number of homes.  Especially in the counties that have larger cities like Milwaukee, Madison, La Crosse, and Eau Claire.   

Webmap

Click this link to find my Webmap that was created to show the number of vacant homes vs total homes.

Sources:

US Census Bureau 2010
Esri, HERE, DeLorme, MapmyIndia, © OpenStreetMap contributors, and the GIS user community

Lab 1: Base Data

Goal and Background:

In the spring of 2012 Clear Vision Eau Claire announced a public-private partnership between local developers, UW - Eau Claire and the Eau Claire Regional Arts Center that is developing new construction at the confluence of the Chippewa and Eau Claire rivers in the heart of downtown Eau Claire.  This plan is called the "Confluence Project." The Goal is to develop a new community arts center/university student housing and commercial retail complex in downtown EAu Claire.  It is to start in 2014. The goals of this lab is to:

1.  Explore various datasets for the City and County of Eau Claire.
2. Digitize the Size of the Confluence Project
3. Understand the Public land survey system
4. Create a brief legal description of the two parcels
5. Build a layout with each of the major thematic features classes

Methods:
 The method I used was by reading up on all of the different terminologies that are being used in the lab.  This helped a ton when I came to understanding all of the different steps or questions being asked of me as the lab went on.

Objective 1:

Objective 1 was to become familiar with the information about the Confluence Project.  This was obtained by using data available in the city and County of Eau Claire websites.  These websites were used to provide us with the information also.

Objective 2:

For these objective I had to digitize the site for the confluence project.  This included two building southeast of where the confluence of the Eau Claire and Chippewa river are.  To be able to do this I had to create a New Geodatabase named "ec_confluence" To digitize I had to open up the digitizing tool bar and create nodes of the edges of the building.

Objective 3:

 In this objective I had to learn about the Public Land Survey System.  I had to create to add a basemap to a new data frame and add the feature dataset PLSS_Township from each geodatabase. These helped to teach me what township Eau Claire is part of along with understanding how the Quarter-Quarter system works.

Objective 4:

I had to create a legal description of the proposed site. I had to use the identify tool to do this because I need to find the parcel ID along with the owner of the property and other information given in the attribute system.

Objective 5:

This objective was the most fun because of how interactive it became with putting all of the information together into one exciting 6-part map.  I had to create maps showing the Civil divisions, Census Boundaries, PLSS Features, Eau Claire Parcel Data, zoning, and Voter Districts.

Sources:

City and County of Eau Claire 2013 geodatabases.

Eau Claire Regional Arts Center. Confluence Projected Site Plan. Retrieved from:
http://www.uwec.edu/alumni/confluence.