Projections Part II Lab

I had a lot of problems with this lab, hence how late it is.  I must have started over half a dozen times and spent over 20 hours on the lab.  Finally, after working late Sunday evening I erased everything after the last time it didn't work.  Monday, I reread all the previous assignments and I started totally fresh again.  The first thing I realized was that I was having problems with my layers and did a simple change in color and all the aerials and vectors lined up. I think I had gotten so confused trying to make it work that my reprojections were all wrong.  Once I had the aerials and vector layers set, I saved the .mxd and tackled the x,y coordinates.  I started from scratch with the excel file and I realized my mistake, I had the xcoord and ycoord in the wrong location.  I flipped them from what I had previously and voila...it worked! I then proceeded to finish the map and like how it came out but wish I hadn't lost so much time.

 

















Process Summary:

1)     Part 1 Practice – Downloading Data and Defining Projections

1.     Followed instructions , choosing DOQQ from Labins.org and downloading the raster and spatial reference files.

2.     Recorded the information above for files, projection, datum and units

3.     Selected the spatial reference: Projected Coordinate Systems – State Systems – NAD 1983 HARN Florida GDL Albers (Meters).prj for all 4 files.

4.     Checked the scale, units and compared to basemap

2)     Step 4 from Labins.org, selected DRG, State Plane – NAD83-Tiff-Collars Removed – Pace Quad

1.     Recorded the information above for files, projection, datum and units

2.     Selected the spatial reference – Projected Coordinate System – State Plane – NAD 1983 US Feet – NAD 1983 StatePlane Florida North FIPS 0903 USFeet.Prj

3.     Added to ArcMap and said yes to creating pyramids

4.     Checked scale, units and compared to basemap

3)     Step 5 from FTP.PGDL.org, downloaded cntbnd_jun11.zip

1.     In ArcCatalog, for cntbnd_jun11.shp, recorded name, projection, linear unit, geographic coordinate system and datum above.

4)     Part 2 Practice – Creating XY tabular data

1.     Created excel file table as instructed from original latitude and longitude data

2.     Used formula to come up with decimal degrees

3.     Saved file as S:\Projections_PartII.xls

4.     Added XY Data to ArcMap, selected Sheet1$ and added.

5.     Specified the ‘xfield’ and’ yfield’ as ‘xcoord’ and ‘ycoord’

6.     Edited coordinate system to ‘Geographic Coordinate System’ – ‘World’ – ‘WGS1984.prj’

7.     Created a shapefileby selected ‘export data’ and named S:\ProjectionsPartII\EagleNest.shp

5)     Part 3: Projection Assignment

1.     Downloaded aerials from DOQQs

2.     Selected 2004 RGB StatePlane – Untis:FT MrSID

3.     Created layers and reprojected all to output coordinate system = NAD_1983 StatePlane Florida_North_FIPS_0903_Feet

1.     aerials

2.     Major roads

3.     County boundaries

4.     Quad index

4.     Added ExcambiaSTCM.xls from R:drive

5.     Calculated the decimal degrees  Latitude = (L2+(M2/60)+(N2/3600)) and Longitude =-(O2+(P2/60)+(Q2/3600))

6.     Reprojected using ‘NAD_1983_to_WGS_1984_5’

7.     I redid the previous steps over and over again. I realized that I was making 3 major mistakes. The first mistake I figured out was that I had misunderstood the directions and had the reference system for reprojecting for the previous practice assignments.  Then I finally realized that the xy data was wrong when I specified the fields, I had the XCOORD and YCOORD backwards.  Finally, I realized that the problem with the quad layer had to do with the selection of the symbol so that it covered over the rest of the map images.  It took me several hours over a couple days more work to realize these were the mistakes.  I found that I understood the concepts but was misunderstanding the specifics of the data.

8.     Once I got the layers correct, I added the usual essential information and saved it as ProjectionsAssignmentqrctanks.mxd and exported it as ProjectionsAssignmentqrctanks.jpg to my S:drive and H:drive.

Projections Part 1 Lab

This week's lab worked with map projections in ArcGIS, along with creating the three different projection maps of the square mile area of Florida counties, we also modified the projections in ArcCatalog.

Here is my map with the three projections and relevant information.

 

















Process Summary:

1. We started with working with ArcToolox by expanding the 'Data Management Toolbox' and the 'Projections and Transformations' toolset, selecting the 'Feature' toolset and the 'Project' tool.
2. Once we had the 'Project' tool open, we set 'cntbnd' as the 'Input Dataset', 'cntbnd_utm16' as the 'Output Dataset' and then moving on to creating the new dataset by opening the 'Output Coordinate System' and then selecting 'NAD 183 UTM Zone 16N' under the Projected Coordinate System .
3. Back in the 'Project' tool window, we selected 'NAD_1983_To_Harn_Florida'
4. 'cntbnd_utm16' was added as a layer although the Geographic Coordinate System Warning did not appear even though I backed up the steps and tried it again.
5. Inserted new data frames and named these layers "Albers", "UTM" and "State Plane N." and moved the 'cntbnd_utm16' layer into the 'UTM' frame, removing it from 'Albers'.
6. Created a new layer and named it "cntbnd_stateplanen" using the Florida State Plane North projection.
7. For all the layers, a new field called "area" was created, using the 'calculate geometry' box to add the data to the new field.  I was having a bit of problems with this process, as were a couple of my classmates, but I finally got it to work.
8. Once that was accomplished it was time to put the map together, selecting the Alachua, Escambia, Polk and Miami-Date counties and add their information to the map along with the other essential data.
9. The combined layers with information on the map were saved and exported as "projections_cmb1.jpg" to my H:drive and S:drive.
10. Proceeded on to the Raster projection step.

Queensland Flooding Event

I found this article very interesting, more about policy and how the impact of devegetation made the situation worse how development on the flood plain is a big issue.

http://www.wildlife.org.au/news/2011/flooding5.html

Environmental Impact of Floods - February 2011

Dirty water reaches northern part of Moreton island. Photo ©Healthy Waterways While the massive-clean up is well underway in Queensland, the full environmental impact of the floods is still being assessed. The recent floods have devastated much of the Queensland landscape. Only time will tell how our ecosystems will bounce back from this natural disaster. Floods are a natural part of the Queensland environment but the widespread and intense nature of the current floods affecting around 80% of the state is unprecedented. It is too early to tell the full extent of the impact; the reality is we may never know. We do know that while some species will thrive others may have been killed or forcibly relocated to higher ground. Scientists suggest that ground dwelling fauna such as small mammals and reptiles may be the worst hit. The health of our waterways has been impacted significantly as many rivers and creeks were eroded, contaminated and littered with debris. Large numbers of fish have died left stranded as waters receded. The erosion of river banks is of particular concern for freshwater turtles such as the Mary River and Fitzroy River turtles. Exotic species such as carp, tilapia and red slider turtles may have spread with the floodwaters. Many riparian zones were damaged from rapid flowing water which striped away vegetation and exposed soils making them more prone to rapid erosion from future rains. The foolishness of clearing riverine vegetation has now been exposed.   Soils and waterways may have been contaminated by chemicals from nearby industrial and commercial premises – this is of particular for food producers. During the floods only 15% of the states 57 coal mines were fully operational. The coal industry lobbied the Government to temporarily drop environmental regulations and allow 44 mines to pump out millions of litres of contaminated floodwater into creeks and rivers. A large number of permits were issued. One can only contemplate the impact of such a huge release of highly toxic materials on our waterways. The current approval process and assessment criteria have clearly failed to stop environmental harm from occurring. The Government must review the current regulations. The floods should be a wake-up call to the Government about its attitude to development approvals. The Government has been warned repeatedly about approving development in flood plains but still it is allowed to happen. It is the public and ordinary folk in the high-risk areas who carry the burden of these poor planning decisions. No doubt Governments will continue this practice, if so they must lift the standards of design and enforce enhanced regulation. The flow on effects of high volumes of fresh water, sediments, nutrients, pesticides and other contaminants in waterways poses a huge threat to marine environments such as Moreton Bay, the Great Sandy and Great Barrier Reef marine parks. Mangrove habitats are particularly susceptible as they act as a net catching sediment and all sorts of debris often causing damage to their root systems. Toxic flood plumes are expected to have a significant impact on seagrass beds, corals and wetlands. Excessive silt and sediments will smother corals and seagrasses. The widespread nature of the plume will also limit the ability of species such as dugong and sea turtles to find alternative food and could cause malnutrition and death. High sediment and nutrient loads can result in algal blooms and increased disease and mortality of many marine species. Excessive scouring of riverbeds could expose acid sulphate soils which wash into the marine environment. The toxic flood plume covering much of the coast poses a threat to the Queensland seafood industry with species like prawns expected to be heavily impacted. In Moreton Bay, voluntary halts on fishing continued for weeks after the flooding event. The Government is currently evaluating and assessing the environmental impacts of the floods. It is inevitable that the environment will suffer significant short and long term impacts. There will be numerous flow-on effects as we start to see many environmental programs cut back as dollars are directed to rebuilding the state. The Gillard Government has already proposed cuts to climate change programs in order to fund flood recovery. The flood recovery must be a green recovery and cutting greenhouse gas reduction programs to fund it is not a smart solution. While no single extreme weather event can be directly attributed to climate change, the recent floods are consistent with what climate scientists have been warning for decades. If we cut carbon pollution we can reduce the severity of extreme weather events and help protect our people and our economy. Calling for the building of new dams is not the solution. We must look at ways to redevelop our cities smarter, greener and more resilient to the impacts of extreme weather events such as this. Reassessing design and development regulations must be part of the solution. Traditional catchment management has concentrated on preventing floods. We need to look at alternatives by focusing on minimising the damage rather than the occurrence. There is a need to identify ways of living and working in flood prone areas, while protecting high value assets. People living in flood prone areas should be helped to be ‘flood ready’, similar to people living in bushfire risk areas. If we can learn to accept that floods are a part of the natural cycle in the Australian climate, we can become better equipped to deal with them when they occur. I found this mapping information to be pretty good, very simple and easy to find the rainfall amounts per day.

GIS Cartography

This week's maps were a lot of fun to work with.  We are working with Spatial Data Modeling now and the first two maps used vector data like we have been but we were able to add and delete certain data from our layers to create the map we needed and presented the information well.  We also created a topo map using raster data which was pretty interesting.

This Mexican States map was great to work with, I liked learning how to create and add different layers.

This map of Mexico with specific major features like roads, rivers and cities named by certain population values was a little challenging.  Getting the information to show on the map and not look too cluttered took a bit of adjustment and introducing the city names gave me some issues until I figured out what I was doing wrong. This was a good map to learn from.

This topo map uses raster data and was not too challenging but paying attention to detail about color and information needed (or not needed) for the legend and such was important.

Working on the same map while interchanging layers and data was pretty neat, I learned a lot playing around with it while following the instructions.  Hopefully I ended up with what we were supposed to show!

Process Summary:

Map 1

1. Extracted R:drive Intro2GIS/GISCartography to S:drive Week4_GISCartography_cmb.zip

2. Opened ArcCatalog, right clicked 'folder connections', chose GISCartography, looked at the 'mex_elev' raster file in preview, zoomed in on DEM but no box appeared asking about 'building pyramids'

3. Followed the instructions exploring ArcCatalog properties and answering questions. 4. Opened ArcMap and drag and dropped the 'World_Countries' shapefile from ArcCatalog to ArcMap.  My pointer did not change as the instructions suggested it would.

5. Added the 'Mex_boundary' and 'Americas_Admin' layers

6. Created the new 'Mex_states' layer from the 'Select by Attributes' and SQL query menu and exported it to my S:drive Week4_GISCartography_cmb folder as a shapefile. I didn't understand Q3 about how many administrative divisions were selected.

7. Turned off the "America_Admin' layer since we didn't need that information cluttering the map anymore.

8. Changed the symbol properties and added color gradient by population so that the states were coded by population density.

9. Added the names of the states to the map, added the essential elements with metadata, scale, title, legend and other map information.

10. exported as GISCarto_map1_cmb.jpg to h:drive assignment 4 folder and to S:drive

11. saved as GISCarto_map1_cmb.mxd to S:drive before starting to map

Map 2

1. Added layers 'mex_rails', 'mex_rivers', 'mex_roads' and 'mex_urban' and turned off 'mex_states' layer.

2. In the symbology properties for the four new layers, selected only the attributes I wanted to show, only the two primary waterbodies and major rivers, only the federal major roads, etc.  Changed the symbols so they were more clearly identifyable on the map.

3. With the 'mex_urban' layer, we chose to only show the names for the cities with over a million in population, I followed the instructions to change the class features and method but was having a difficult time with all the cities becoming active on the map. I deleted the layer and started again and it worked fine.

4. I changed the font color, type and size of the city names after converting them to annotation. Finding a font style and size that worked on the very busy map was challenging.  I found that I needed to go back and change the size of the rivers and waterways so they were not so bold and looked clearer.

5. Created the new inset map in the new data frame.

6. Changed and added to the essential elements of the map.

7. Exported map as GISCarto_map2_cmb.jpg to S:drive and H:drive assignment 4 folder.

8. saved a copy of the mxd as GISCarto_map2_cmb.mxd to the S:drive

Map 3

1. Removed all the layers except the 'world_countries' from map.

2. Added 'mex_elev' raster layer and explored the stretched and classified symbol properties.

3.  Chose a color ramp and reworked the other essential elements of the map.

4. Exported map as GISCarto_map3_cmb.jpg to S:drive and H:drive assignment 4 folder.

Learning ArcGIS Desktop (ESRI)

This week we worked within the ESRI website on some map projects. I really enjoyed working on the maps but I am having major computer problems that really slowed me down so it took some of the joy out of this week's labs and made it a race to finish. I hope to get those issues fixed and continue to learn and have fun with these maps!

Module 1: Exploring a GIS Map
Exercise: Planning a Trip to San Diego
1. Opened ArcMap, under existing maps and browse for more, opened "tourism.mxd"
2. Zoomed to 'whole page'
3. Clicked 'United States' in Table of Contents and activated
4. Right clicked 'San Diego' in Table of Contents and activated
5. zoomed map to 1:50,000
6. bookmarked to 'San Diego City'
7. changed to 'Data View' from View menu
8. checked Hotels in Table of Contents to activate layer
9. selected 'Elements Tool' to see hotel 'map tip'
10. right clicked hotels and selected 'Label Features'
11. clicked Find to see "Marriott" in hotels
12. right clicked 'Mariott Suites' and chose 'Flash'
13. in Find box, righ clicked 'Marriott Hotels and Marina' and chose 'identify' to see phone number
14. in Find box, right clicked and chose 'select'
15. in Table of Contents, right clicked 'Hotels' and selected 'Label Features' to turn off
16. in Table of Contents, checked 'Major Attractions', chose 'Open Attribute Table', right clicked 'Name' chose 'Sort Ascending' and selected 'Seaport Village' - closed table
17. zoomed in to Marriott and Seaport Village
18. selected 'Measure Tool' and chose 'Miles' under 'Choose Units' and 'Distance', measured distance from hotel to Sea Port .33 miles, measured distance from hotel to Trolley 0.14 miles.
19. 'Clear Features' selected
20. Chose 'San Diego City' from bookmarks to return to original setting and unchecked 'Major Roads'
21. Chose 'Label Features' from 'Major Attractions'
22. found Qualcomm Stadium and clicked 'Identify' tool for the Trolley stop nearby, chose 'Trolley Stops' and identified name "Stadium"
22. found San Diego zoo and selected the hyperlink and found directions indicating the trolley line not a good option
23. saved map to h:drive
24. changed to 'layout view' and made expanded San Diego map
25. unselected labels because it made the map very hard to read
25. changed hotel and attractions symbols
26. changed color of backgrounds, changed fonts to CaliforniaFB and all to color navy
27. looked up Data Sources: SAN DAG ESRI 2004
28. added text with name, title, data source, date, etc
29. exported: SanDiego_Tourism.jpg to S:drive and H:drive

Module 1: Using GIS to Solve Problems
Exercise: Find Potential Sites for a Youth Center

1. Opened 'youth_center.mxd'
2. in Table of Contents, right clicked 'Census Blocks 2000', chose 'Attributes Table', scrolled to 'age_15_17', then closed
3. opened 'Attribute Table' for 'Youth Population' layer, scrolled to 'age_15_17', closed
4. in Table of Contents turned off 'Youth Population', turned on 'City Zones' and chose 'Zoom to Layer'
5. Opened the attribute table in City zone', scrolled to 'LU_ABV' filed, then closed
6. turned on "Census Blocks 2000', zoomed to center of map
7. turned off 'Census Blocks 2000' and alternated on/off for Youth Population layer.
8. in Geoprocessing menu, chose 'Union', then chose 'City Zones' from Input Features and then 'Census Blocks 2000' from same.
9. Clicked 'browse' and chose 'Youth Center.gdb', named "zones_union" and saved
10. in Table of Contents, clicked on 'zones_union' and zoomed to layer, right clicked 'zones_union' and chose 'open attribute table' then scrolled to 'LU_ABV' and 'AG_5_17' fields then closed
11. under Selection menu, chose 'Select by Attributes', chose 'zones_union' under Layer, then chose 'create a new selection' under Method
12. scrolled to 'LU_ABV' in list of attribute field names, selected and clicked =, clicked 'Get Unique Values' and selected 'RES', clicked 'apply'
13. in Table of Contents right clicked 'zones_union' selection and zoomed to selected features
14. chose ' select from the current selection' from 'Method' in 'Select by Attributes' box, highlighted previous expression and deleted
15. scrolled and selected 'Age_5_17' under field names and clicked >= then typed "75", clicked apply, closed dialog box and clicked 'full extent'
16. chose select by location from 'selection menu', available buildings layer, zones_union layer and checked 'use selected features' box - List by Selection in Table of Contents
17. selected 'Drawing Order', turned off 'zone_union' layer and saved
18. right clicked 'available buildings', export data under 'data' and browsed for 'YouthCenter.gdb', selected and names "selected_buildings" and saved as shapefile and added the data as layers to the map as asked.
19. turned off 'available buildings' layer, changed selected buildings symbol to size 6
20. right clicked ; selected buildings' and chose select features
21. right clicked 'selected building' and chose 'zoom to layer'
22. changed colors and sizes and fonts
23. added metadata info, title, legend, north arrow and scale
24. exported as "youthcenter_cmb88.jpeg" to H:drive and S:drive