Geography 291: Geospatial Analysis with Desktop GIS

Hi! My name is Hayden Kelner and I’m a sophomore Environmental Science and Zoology double major. I’m in Chi Phi, the Entertainment Director for CPB (Campus Programming Board), the Secretary of the Rock Climbing Club, I play bass drum in the marching band, and I work as a tour guide and student curator at the campus’s Natural History Museum. I enjoy playing videogames, board games, building Legos and model kits, and embroidering on occasion.

I had heard of GIS from my uncle’s cousin who works for the North East Ohio Regional Sewer District. He works as a field biologist and collects water samples and catches bugs to help determine quality of water as well. However, there is a whole department that works hand and hand with them that uses GIS. Similar to how the chapter mentions uses for GIS, they help by analyzing water runoff and  highlight potential problems areas for other departments to survey. When I had heard that a light went off in my head that this was an important tool to have under my belt for my career ahead. While reading I was surprised to see how many uses GIS has. It’s used in ways I didn’t even know were possible like with epidemiologists. Whether it be with environmentalists, or even sales departments, it seems like GIS has use in every field. It’s uses in graphing, mapping, making models and other tools cover such a wide array of needs that it can really be molded into any way necessary. It was also really cool to read about GIS’s uses in farming. Agriculture is such an overlooked field of work and not many people give it much thought. Seeing the behind the scenes of it in a sense and seeing what processes and issues can be identified and dealt with was really interesting.

This semester I’m taking entomology, so getting to see how GIS is used in that field was interesting. In this article, researchers used GIS to identify how forest dwelling insects have been disturbed over the years in Grand County, Colorado. By using GIS they were able to identify how certain beetles may react to logging and other habitat factors. By using previously gathered data they were able to use that to replicate the effects through GIS.

Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304380017302053

Hello! My name is Gabrielle Plunkett and I am a senior biology major. A fun fact about me is that I have a cat named Finn who lives in my dorm with me.

I had never heard of GIS before coming to college, and if I did I didn’t recognize what it was. It interests me that they refer to GIS as a “scientific approach” due to the many different ways it can be used. It reminds me of when I took my animal behavior class and we discussed how there is no definition for the word behavior. It seems within this article people also define GIS in a myriad of ways. The term “black box” seems very fitting for GIS as many seem unsure about the legitimacy of these programs. However, as they gain more knowledge and the systems become better established people stop questioning the legitimacy. Since I didn’t know anything about GIS I also didn’t know there were different types. GISystems seem to be an identity of GIS while GIScience seems to be the theory that underlies the GISystems while still being its own identity. GIS seems to primarily focus on the system and hardware as a whole. To me, GIS seems to be taking a simple question and then asking it in multiple ways while forming digital entities, models, graphs, etc. so that it can be visualized. It also seems that every step of GIS has been disagreed upon such as the definition of spatial objects. I’ve read about John Snow’s mapping of Cholera before but never realized his map was a form of GIS. Seeing how GIS started from paper and pencil to the development of visualization to now is incredible. It does not surprise me that GIS quickly became widespread. Seeing a visual image of data is easier than just numbers for me, as I am more of a visual learner. I’m hoping I learn more about the different ways to use GIS and eventually get a better understanding of what exactly it does by doing it.

 

GIS and Crows

I’ve noticed a lot of crows on campus so I decided to see what I could find involving GIS. One use of GIS is the tracking of the type of land cover of American Crows. This figure shows the use of ArcGIS in creating grids to signify the different land cover/land use classifications of the study sites. The article studied the fine-scale characteristics of developed landscapes that may help explain the growth of crow populations in urbanizing areas.

Source: American Crows in an urbanizing landscape

In another article studying the dispersal rate of Juvenile American Crows, researchers used a program called RAMAS GIS to simulate the population growth of the crows and then put it into a model to visualize it. They used it to model two populations “urban” and “non urban”. This interested me because I have most likely looked at a simulated population model and didn’t realize it was done using GIS. There was no show model or figure for this section.

Source: Dispersal by Juvenile American Crows 

 

1. Hello! My name is Aiden Veerjee, Junior and I come from Johnstown Ohio. My major is in Quantitative Economics and I have a minor in Geography. I am in Alpha Sigma Phi, I am in the Economics & Business student board, and I am the Comptroller for WCSA (Student Government), I am also the President for our school’s Investment Club. I am also interested in Chess and Fencing, I’ve been doing a lot of reading & working out.

2. One of my professors for Economics had brought up that he had worked with a student who used GIS for a research project for modeling labor, but I had not fully realized that a lot of different disciplines had used GIS in various ways. I was especially surprised to the extent of sales that the GIS technology has achieved. I had only seen Geography mostly as the looking at political & land-maps, but not as much of the data within certain spaces & the specializing of resources / data. Before this chapter I was more unaware of the source of people using GIS systems, I had originally thought it was a more modern invention with the modernizing of computers, more internet access, and the general monetizing of data analysis. I had beenvery surprised to know that GIS had been used for a lot longer than just the twenty-first century. One of the biggest questions that I hope to answer by taking this class is how well can models actually reference or represent the different environments that it composes of. It is one thing to say that the Earth is 75% water, and another to say where that water is, what regions have access to the water, and how said water is being used. I hope that by taking the course it will help me understand methods with answering questions such as this one. I had known about how solid data can be interpreted in many different ways and different people can come to different conclusions even when the data remains the same. Even with the way that data is collected or classified can lead to loads of different issues, such as one example that the text cites with how that mountains & hills are determined. Drawing boundaries can also lead to some issues, and I would like to see how or if these issues can get rectified.

3. One topic that I have found interest in having to do with GIS is real estate. Real estate is a field that can take a lot of usage in collaboration with systems such as GIS. I had found some data on the agricultural districts within certain counties, I had wanted to see how close agriculture is to densely populated areas like cities and suburbs. I had thought before getting into the data that the agricultural districts would be further away from densely populated areas. Unsurprisingly, this had been reflected as true within Wake County NC. The blue within the image represents an agricultural district. I was surprised by some districts having a higher proximity to minor roads rather than big highways. Two different ways that this data can be used is to predict where good farmland might be for future farming. This can also be used as information for County taxation as since there is a very small amount of farmland, there may be less taxes & revenue gained through taxing agriculture.

Sources:
Wake County Map

me and my cat cletus!

Hey everyone! My name is Maizy Pratt- I’m a senior microbiology major with a minor in environmental science. I’m pretty spread out across campus- I’m a Theta, a member of the ENVS student board, working to start a microbiology club, and I work at Del-Co as the watershed intern. I’ve always been passionate about the outdoors, but I prefer the little organisms, so I’m pursuing a career in environmental microbiology. Outside of science time, I love listening to music, working out, being outside, learning new skills, painting/drawing, and thrifting.

I found this chapter incredibly interesting. I’ve always been aware  that GIS exists and that it’s a tool able to be used across so many disciplines, but I guess I never really digested it to the point that this chapter did. John Snow’s visualization of Cholera outbreaks is something that gets talked about crazy often in microbiology classes because it was one of the first epidemiological investigations, but I never thought of it as an early development in GIS. I also enjoyed the discussion of precision farming; not only is it useful for farmers to save resources when solving problems, it’s also useful when studying the impact of farming practices on the surrounding environment. As part of watershed crew duties, we take nitrate samples from different parts of the Scioto to get a good idea of what levels will hit the treatment plant in the coming days, especially after big rains. I think it would be very interesting to compare runoff data and precision farming data to understand how the nitrates make their way into the river. It makes a lot of sense to me that GIS has developed in the way it did because humans are such visual creatures. Schuurman’s comparison to visualizing genomic data made my microbio brain very happy. I can absolutely see how GIS became so widespread as it allows for a better understanding of data that would make zero sense on the surface as just a set of numbers. Go GIS!

Search one: GIS+corn+diabetes

I was not given an article by the Google gods that talked about diabetes but I did find Atrazine exposure maps of Nebraska. 

“Fig. 5. Exposure to Atrazine in Nebraska in 2005 (note: this is a population grid level map generated by the pesticide weighted exposure model developed in this study; exposure to Atrazine was categorized based on natural breaks; pixels with the value of 0 were distinguished from the first category 0–31.2).” (Wan 2015)

This paper explores the usage of pesticides, notably Atrazine, in different counties in Nebraska. Pesticide exposure has been shown to result in diseases such as cancer, neuro-degeneration, and reproductive issues. Wan used buffer-based exposure modeling to determine likelihood of exposure to Atrazine.

 

Search two: GIS+water+table

Here are some really cool maps of drainage density, lineament density, slope, land use and land cover, annual rainfall mean, soil, lithology, and geomorphology. RS-GI

S-based weighted overlay analysis and water-table-fluctuation technique were used to develop a potential map for groundwater abstraction in the northwest region of Bangladesh, which helps determine potential groundwater sources in the region. I didn’t realize how many variables go into determining groundwater availability and resources, so it was cool to learn about that.

Hi, my name is Gwendolyn Godsey, or Gwen for short, and I’m a senior majoring in Environmental Science with a minor in Nutrition.

While reading Chapter One of Nadine Schuurman’s GIS: A Short Introduction, I found it intriguing that the essential components of GIS, such as the concept of various layers of landscape (forests, streets, valleys), were mapped out using tracing paper and a light table. The tedious task of creating these layers and spatial analysis by hand can now be organized and separated quickly by computers, highlighting the advancement of the GIS process. GIS relies on a visual display of data and information, so it could be considered an unreliable or unscientific approach to quantifying data. However, as a visual learner, the illustrated display of information is easier to understand than viewing data on a table or chart. Before reading this chapter, I was unaware of the difference between GISystems, which focuses on the hardware and software that can capture and represent geographic information, and GIScience, which focuses on the abstract ideas behind the data and systems. As I understand it, GIScience is a foundation of ideas for how GISystems are built and operated, and the term GIS is used to describe both the system and the science behind it. Since the GIS process depends on spatial data, crisp and defined lines are favored in GIS to represent differences between various landscapes. I can understand why the classification process between landscapes and boundaries can become fuzzy, making this a challenge for users to overcome. The power of the GIS system is impressive, as the visualization of spatial relationships and objects allows the users to easily explore both intuitive and structured cofactors that may relate to an overarching pattern. Initially, I believed that GIS was only used by scientists and the government to understand environmental patterns or issues. But now I realize the true diversity of the industries that utilize GIS, including universities, hospitals, community groups, and public and private businesses. 

One area of GIS application is in Feminist Geographic Information Sciences (FGIS). Where conventional GIS uses precise locational measurements to quantify space, feminist GIS uses location and social processes with concerns about equality, wealth distribution, and power allocation. Through GIS, feminists can study how spatial problems involving women and other marginalized groups can contribute to social issues they are experiencing. (https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/90726a4c-9ae5-4f66-be6b-ec3f0b9b933c/content)

Another area of GIS application is in agriculture and farming practices. Farmers use spatial analysis to compare the differences in soil type and rainfall patterns within their agricultural land to assist with managing crops and drainage planning to prevent floods and droughts, leading to optimal crop yield. Farmers also use remote sensors through satellites to improve cultivation planning and decision-making to maximize crop yields. (https://smallfarms.cornell.edu/2017/04/use-of-gis/)

9-1: Short tutorial on the use of buffer rings, useful for finding low-service areas.

9-2: A continuation of 9-1 that teaches you how to make multi-ring buffers.

9-3:  Multiring buffers for calculating gravity models to do things like calculate travel times to service areas.

9-4: I’m really wishing I had finished this before I did my final oops. Network analyst tools are an excellent tool to determine and analyze service areas.

9-5: Not working.

10-1: Learned how to work with raster datasets, including  extracting smaller datasets and making elevation maps.

10-2: Learning how to make heat maps using thresholds.

10-3: Making risk index models using geoprocessing

11-1: Cool 3d maps, learned how to move around the scene and change the basemap.

11-2: Learned how to create a local scene and make 3d vector data models called TIN surfaces.

11-3: Learned how to make 3d feature classes by Z-enabling them and edit 3d display settings.

11-4: Learned how to determine LOS and a whole bunch of distance data in 3d maps.

11-5: Learned how to edit various visual aspects of 3d models.

11-6: Learned about procedural methods for creating 3d models and using different texture styles.

11-7: Learning how to make an actual animation in GIS which is crazy. This is all stuff I know how to do from being an animation major and its very similar.

 

• Address Point: A maintained and certified collection of addresses in Delaware county. Its primary listed uses deal with emergency response and reporting, especially when providing the information for 911 agencies.
• Annexation: Displays Delaware County boundaries from 1853 to the present. The data is up to date and is published monthly.
• Building Outline: Shows the outlines for all buildings in Delaware County. It says that it is updated as needed, with the most recent data being from 2021.
• Condo: Contains the polygons for all condominium buildings in Delaware County. In addition to the polygons it also contains information on the number of units and the recorded date of the condos, among other data.
• Dedicated ROW: Contains lines that represent all the ROWs (Right-of-Way) in Delaware County. The information is very up to date and well maintained, as it’s updated daily and published monthly.
• Delaware County Contours: Contains a two- foot elevation map (contour) of Delaware County. Can be downloaded in the form of a geodatabase.
• Delaware County E911 Data: Similar to Address Point, the E911 data contains information on the addresses in Delaware County with a more explicit purpose of emergency response usage.
• Farm Lot: Shows all of the farm lots in the US Military and the Virginia Military Survey Districts of Delaware County. It’s regularly updated and clearly shows the boundaries of the farm lots.
• GPS: Contains information on GPS monuments that were established between in the years 1991 and 1997. Information about the movements, such as their status (if they were destroyed or not) and their coordinates are included in the download.
• Hydrology: Shows LIDAR-enchanced data of all the major waterways present in Delaware County. This data set is also updated and published on a regular basis.
• Map Sheet: Shows all the map sheets covering Delaware County. Contains information such as the area and length of each map sheet.
• Original Township: Contains information on the boundaries of the 18 original townships in Delaware county. This information is more historic rather than up-to-date, as the shapes of the townships were changed with tax district adjustments.
• PLSS: Contains polygons that represent the PLSS- Public Land Survey System. It is updated and published regularly and helps easily identify the boundaries in multiple survey districts (including the US Military and the Virginia Military Survey Districts of Delaware County).
• Parcel: Includes the polygons of all parcels and their boundaries in Delaware County. The download contains information such as the address, owner, and class of each parcel. The data in the download is also updated daily and published regularly.
• Precinct: Shows the boundaries of the different voting precincts in Delaware County. The data is maintained with the assistance of the Delaware County Board of Elections and is updated frequently.
• Recorded Document: Contains points that represent documents that were recorded in Delaware county. These can include surveys, subdivisions, annexations, and more. There also appears to be links to PDFs of the official document.
• School District: Clearly illustrates the boundaries of each school district present within Delaware County. Includes information on the area and school name, among other data.
• Street Centerline: Shows a spatially accurate illustration of the center lines of all roads (public and private) in the county. It can be used in emergency response and disaster management while also containing information such as the speed limit and name of the street.
• Subdivision: Shows all subdivisions and condos in Delaware County. It is regularly updated and an effective visual illustration.
• Survey: Contains points that represent land surveys in Delaware County. Each point has multiple IDs that are observable upon clicking on the point. This dataset contains the newer surveys and is updated daily and published monthly.
• Tax District:Displays the boundaries of all the tax districts in Delaware County. There is information about the length and area of each district, which is all kept up to date.
• Township: Shows the shape, area, length, and name of the 19 townships of the county. It’s only updated as-needed, but is published monthly.
• Zip Code: Shows the boundaries of each of the zip codes present in Delaware county. You can find information about the actual zip code and name of area by selecting a polygon. The data is collected in collaboration with USPS and is updated monthly.

Delaware Data Inventory:

Address Point: Shows all the specific addresses for the county.

Annexation: Shows different parts or subdivisions of towns scattered throughout the county.

Building Outline: Shows the outline for all the structures present.

Condo: Shows all the different condo outlines.

Emergency 911 Data: Another way that shows address within the county, with a more spatially accurate data used for emergency response.

GPS: Shows all the GPS monuments made in the years 1991 and 1997.

Hydrology: Shows the county’s main water sources.

MSAG:  Shows the political jurisdictions areas in the county,

Municipality: Shows the city limits of defined towns/cities in the county.

Paracel: Shows all the county’s specific zoning areas for each property.

Precinct:  Shows the different voting areas within the county.

Recorded Document: Shows specific points where important data has been collected in the county.

School District: Shows all the school districts within the county.

Street Centerline: Gives accurate detail on all the roads present.

Subdivision:  Shows all the subdivisions and condos as well in the county.

Tax District: Shows all the tax districts in the county.