Geography 291: Geospatial Analysis with Desktop GIS

 – Hello! My name is Pacey Schtucka and I am a freshman at OWU. I am majoring in environmental science with a minor in geography. I am from Wadsworth, OH. Since a young age I have always loved being outdoors. My love for being outside turned into a passion for the environment as I grew older. Now, I want to learn more about the ins and outs of it all

• As I am starting this course, I have a very limited knowledge of what GIS actually is. The reading helped me to get a better grasp of what purpose GIS serves and who it serves. With that being said, I think that it is really awesome how it has so many different means to different groups. This reading showed me that from the beginning of its time, GIS has been extremely diverse and never has had one solid definition. I also found it interesting that now GIS is a computer program, but its origins come before computers were universally usable. One thing I am confused about is how this reading talked about GIS being different from mapping stating that, “it’s differentiated from “mapping” because it generates more information or knowledge than can be gleaned from maps or data alone,” but then goes on to say that some see it as an “extension of mapping” (Schuurman). The reading goes a lot of back and forth stating different viewpoints on GIS so perhaps my confusion may just be coming from interpreting the viewpoints wrong. Furthermore, I was unaware of how incorporated GIS is into everyday life. GIS is something that I first heard about my first semester at OWU. My peers told me how learning GIS would be a useful skill and I took their word for it. This reading by Schuurman is opening my eyes to a whole new perspective in the sense of GIS. Schuurman describes in the reading how almost everything can be brought back to GIS. She gives the example of food; every step from growing the food to how it gets to your plate can be brought back to GIS. It was really interesting to read about Schuurman breaking down every which way GIS is involved in a process that I did not even consider it to be involved in before reading.

 

• One application I find interesting is GIS to study glaciers. Using ChatGPT, I found that GIS is able to map out glaciers and then the mapping is used to show the change and help look into the melting rate. From this I googled GIS glacial change and I found the World Glacier Monitoring Serivce on. WGMS teams with ESRI ArcGIS and allows people to view the glaciers over time.  https://www.antarcticglaciers.org/students-3/resources-for-teachers/exploring-present-day-glaciers-in-a-gis/ 
• Also using Chat GPT I found the GIS is used for disease mapping. GIS is able to be used to map different regions for disease spreading and to see what areas are affected. This made me interested in the use of GIS for COVID-19 mapping. I found this map from ArcGIS at https://www.arcgis.com/apps/dashboards/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6 . This map was last updated on 3/10/23 but until then they used GIS to map the number of COVID-19 cases around the world. 

• I am Annabel Benes, a senior here at OWU, studying Environmental Studies and Business. I was born and raised in Denver, Colorado, I love to ski, hike and go on walks with my family and my dog Boscoe!
• 

• I took this course because I didn’t really use what GIS was and wanted to know more about what GIS is and how people use it around the world. This article was a very good background to the idea of what GIS is and what it can be used for around the world. It was interesting to see the benefits and consequences of GIS especially when it comes to different generational approaches for technology and learning. I didn’t know that GIS has been around since 1960, which seems like it was very before other high end technology. Figure 1, was similar to me because in the fall semester I took soil morphology where we saw a map where we wore specific glasses to have a 3D vision. The maps from Soil Morphology were layered but you could only see the various layers with the specific glasses on which was really cool to see. The layers of figure 1, seemed very similar to the idea of this map in that class. I could visually see all the layers in a different form but still could understand the layout of the picture and what it represented. From this article it seems like GIS is just a big bundle and online version of data points and information from around the world. I found it interesting that you can combine different variables to get the data that you are trying to examine. Like with figure 1.4, seeing the correlation between pumps and cholera cases. I enjoyed reading about this introduction to GIS and I am excited to gain more information and understanding of GIS. I do have questions after reading this: How often is GIS information updated, for instance the layout of the ground, buildings and more? I also would like to know what tools can be used to create this data and if there are faster tools that are being created? 

• One source that I found was wolf tracking and the role of surveillance in the recovery of an endangered species, from ArcGIS. This was really interesting to read about and see the maps for tracking. The article specifically focused on Gray Wolves and their recovery and survival throughout the years after being put on the endangered species list. This article focused on Washington area and attached is the map that they collected from the tracking:
• 
• From another article it stated that in Washington State, “ Washington is home to about 33 packs. Nineteen of these packs have successfully bred. The Department of Fish and Wildlife has enforced laws to manage conflict with people over livestock predation by wolves. Because of these efforts, there are about 200 wolves in Washington.” https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/wolf-population-by-state 
• Another application that I found interesting was using GIS to study rivers. I think it’s really interesting to see where rivers were and where they are now and what changed their path. This was a short article that illustrated the basics of the study. https://serc.carleton.edu/eyesinthesky2/week6/study_rivers_gis.html 
• From this initial search I went deeper into finding maps of rivers in Ohio. From ArcGIS I was able to see rivers, canals and more in Ohio which was really interesting. Attached below is a snippet of the map that I looked at:  
• 

Coleman- Week 6

I also ran into issues with posting and copying images. I found it easier to write it on another document.

Coleman- Week 5

Zip Codes: All zip codes in Delaware County from censuses, tax mailing addresses, and postal scrive websites. 

Recorded Document: Points representing miscellaneous documents in Delaware, Ohio.

School District: School districts in Delaware county from parcel records. 

Mapping Sheet: All of the areas in Delaware county clearly divided and showing each individual map sheet all together. 

Farm Lot: Military service district farm lot boundaries.

Township: Boundaries of 19 different townships in Delaware county. 

Street Centerline: Paved private and public roads.

Annexation: Conforming boundaries dating back to 1853.

Condo:  Condominium polygon boundaries in Delaware.

Subdivision: All subdivisions and condos in Delaware. 

Survey: Surveys represented as points similar to the recorded documents. 

Dedicated ROW: Designated right-of-way lines.

Tax District: Tax districts within Delaware county. 

GPS: GPS monuments between 1991 and 1997.

Original Township: Similar to township data.

Address Points: Central points on homes representing addresses. 

Precinct: Voting from the Delaware County Board of Elections.

Hydrology: Major waterways.

Building Outline 2021: All structures in Delaware County outlined.

Parcel: All cadastral parcel lines within Delaware County. 

PLSS: Public land survey system polygons in military survey districts. 

2022 Leaf-on Imagery: I couldn’t see a map or information on this one. 

Delaware County Contours: Contours showing elevation in Delaware County. 

Delaware County E911 Data: Accident reporting points.

Pois week 6

Same issue as before. Its not allowing me to insert my map photos properly, its either not there or incredibly blurry, so I have just included a pdf of the document I was working on for this content.

Pois Week 5