Geography 292: Geospatial Analysis with Web GIS

My name is Jay McConkey and I am a senior environmental science and geography major.

 I have already accessed my ArcGIS account from previous classes, but I updated my bio to include my graduation year and majors. I browsed through My Content and saw the maps I generated from GEOG 191. Next, I clicked Training and viewed the various modules, noting which ones are available for free and which are not.

About ArcGIS Online:

While ArcGIS Pro possesses the tools necessary for more complex analysis and customizability than ArcGIS Online, ArcGIS Online strength’s includes easy access to mapping software along with sharing or collaborating data or maps. ArcGIS is more accessible as you can log in on mobile devices or through web pages rather than being limited to a computer that is able to support ArcGIS Pro software. ArcGIS Online is great for sharing, exploring, and managing data as well as creating maps, scenes, and apps. Python coding can be utilized and be saved in Notebooks while data layers can be saved and published on ArcGIS Online as web layers. ArcGIS Online is a great tool to use when collecting data or mapping data in the field, where it can be further analyzed under ArcGIS Pro at a different time.

ArcGIS Online is a great tool to allow a select group of people or multiple groups of people to access and share relevant maps. It is advantageous for companies and large groups to use ArcGIS Online as it makes maps more accessible for other collaborators to join in. Scenes, which can be used in ArcGIS Online, allow you to visualize and analyze geographic information in interactive ways.

Two courses that interest me are Working with Raster Data Using Python (free) and ArcGIS Notebook Basics (requires maintenance).

I have already completed the Delaware Data entry.

Potential Applications:

Mubako, Stanley, et al. “Monitoring of Land Use/Land-Cover Changes in the Arid Transboundary Middle Rio Grande   Basin Using Remote Sensing.” Remote Sensing, vol. 10, no. 12, Dec. 2018, p. 2005. Crossref, https://doi.org/10.3390/rs10122005.

Using Landsat imagery from multiple years, these scientists were able to analyze and map land use/land cover changes in the Rio Grande Basin. Studies like these are important because they show patterns in development as well nature ecosystems and topography.

Antoniou, Varvara, et al. “An Interactive Story Map for the Methana Volcanic Peninsula.” Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Geographical Information Systems Theory, Applications and Management, 2018, https://doi.org/10.5220/0006702300680078. 

These scientists were able to make an interactive Story Map of the Methana Volcanic Peninsula and its special volcanic geoforms and cultural monuments. This information can be useful for geographers, volcanologists, students, tourists, or the general public. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had an unfortunate incident with a house guest this weekend. A memeaplogy.

Preface: I didn’t assign this but it’s always good to glance at it.

• stuff about updates to this new edition

• lots of jargon. yeesh.

• the tutorial stuff: go.esri.com/gtkwebgis5

How to Use This Book

• I have, I hope, set up all of your ArcGIS Online accounts for Publisher-level access. You should be able to see that in the information about your account. Also, make absolutely sure you are using your OWUGIS ArcOnline account and not a free account.

 

• We have full blown access to ArcGIS Onliine so don’t bother with the evaluation or trial versions.

• Downloading the exercise data: URL above; there is lots of stuff, click on Full Book Exercise Data on the left side of the screen.

• it plopped on my Mac Desktop as GTKWebGIS folder, with chapter folders inside. Yay.

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Chapter 1: Get started with Web GIS

• workflows: ESRI uses this term ALOT
• I’ll just let you know that I created a crowdsourcing (the public could add data to an online ESRI map) back in 1998 and is summarized (with missing links – it’s so old) as Public Participation Visualization: Conceptual and Applied Research Issues. You all were probably not even born then,
• “Science of Where” – corporate jargon – but lots of interesting applications for sure
• ArcGIS Online (SaaS) vs. ArcGIS Enterprise (I don’t think we have access to the latter, or at least we are not running it)
• emergence of GIS web servers (that’s the research I did in the late 1990s!) I’m old!
• one to two way information flow: that’s me too, back in the olden days
• portal technology: fancy way of getting access to tons of data
• cloud GIS: like custom built mini-GIS software that runs on a broswer (rather than using all of ArcGIS Pro)
• mobile: field work, in vehicles, etc.
• visualization (more of my background; shifting from just viewing data to the idea that you can interact with and think and understand and learn new stuff; tools to do this; 3D, virtual reality, modeling)
• static vs. real time data
• AI and web GIS: scary

Web GIS Information Model: this is worth looking at a bit more carefully for background

• user privileges: I’m the master of the OWU ArcOnline site and can adjust these privileges for you
• metadata
• sharing
• content: data, layers, tools, webmaps, scenes, apps

• Apps: you can creat these but there are also specialized Apps that ESRI proides. We have some of these, like Drone-to-Map
• ArcGIS User Types
• Basic compenents of a Web GIS app: basemaps (background map stuff), operational layers (data of interest – say mapped out sites of invasive species), tools (function on the operational layers, also sometimes the basemaps)
• Web Services = web layers & web tools (in essence provide users with functionality via the web)
• Feature layers: this is vector data (point, line, area)
  • hosted feature layer: hosted by ESRI
  • non-hosted feature layer: hosted by user (like you, using OWU site)
• Web maps vs web scenes
• Paths to building Web GIS applications: “workflow” – how you put together applications that users can access via the web using the data and layers and tools and functionality of ArcGIS Online.
• Attachments: for example, we could make a web map application for OWU and Delaware that locates PDFs of projects that focused on those areas, say a PDF about restoring the Delaware Run along the old part of campus, linked to a polygon of that area. Also, images, sounds, etc.

Tutorial 1: Simple map application with attachments.

• some minor glitches but all were easy to figure out

Application: I changed the text on the course schedule:

• Include a few-sentence description of an application based on ideas from chapters 1 & 2, using your own data or the Delaware Data (from Geog 191). This edition of the tutorial includes ideas under “Assignment” (p. 35 in the 5th edition of the tutorial).
• My example application: A map, similar to the one from the tutorial, showing the locations of the ENVS 399 Sustainability Practicum projects for Spring ’23. Proposals (PDF), images (PNG), etc. for each location.

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Chapter 2: Smart Mapping and Storytelling with GIS

• web layers, web apps, StoryMaps
• web app workflows for StoryMaps (below)

• feature layers: focus of Ch. 2 is hosted feature layers
• smart mapping: syles illustrated p. 41
• pop-ups
• ArcGIS Arcade: expression languages for adding your own info to data hosted by someone else
• ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World: updated in minutes/hours
  • ready to use data created by ESRI and other folks
  • incoporate in your own map apps.
  • basemaps, imagery, boundaries, human data, infrastructure, environment
• StoryMaps
  • uses block formatting (annoying but common for web design)

Tutorial Ch. 2: Web GIS app of population change using ArcGIS Story Maps

• geocoding: address matching (link address or geolocation data – street address, zip code, etc.) to location
• notice (p. 51) that you are using credits! You each have 1000 credits (which cost money – but we get them free as part of our educational deal. If you work for an organization, this is where you spend money doing stuff with ArcGIS Online)

The finished StoryMap: https://arcg.is/fa5Wb1

and so on…

 

Application: I changed the text on the course schedule:

• Include a few-sentence description of an application based on ideas from chapters 1 & 2, using your own data or the Delaware Data (from Geog 191). This edition of the tutorial includes ideas under “Assignment” (p. 35 in the 5th edition of the tutorial).
• My example application: A Story Map, similar to the one from the tutorial, telling the story of the Chimney Swift Tower project since the idea was first proposed a decade ago with proposals (PDF), images (PNG), information on chimney swift migration (from central America) etc.

This is your instructor, John Krygier, late on posts. I plan to follow along and do the work in the class as the tutorial (Web GIS, 5th edition) has been updated since I did it last year. I’m already behind.

I hope the tutorial has fewer challenges, as it just came out last year. Regardless, as I’ve said repeatedly, please do your due diligence in completing the chapters in the tutorial and note any issues. If they are minor, don’t worry about it. If they are issues that stop you from completing a significant part of the chapter, note them in the blog posting and direct my attention to the issue.

I have given you access to “educational materials” for the class, and actually broke the rules and took the paper copy of the tutorial home with me this weekend.

I’m signed up and into ArcGIS Online and on this blog as requested.

I’ve poked around the ArcOnline account in the past, and also looked at the training materials. What a treasure trove!

I googled around and found these neat applications:

This is the iMapInvasives site created to allow the public to add invasive species they have spotted to the database of invasives for the state. This is an example of citizen science. https://www.nyimapinvasives.org/public-map

 

 

 

 

 

This example is providing access to data, probably generated in ArcGIS Pro, related to climate change mitigation in relation to low-income communities. https://webmaps.arb.ca.gov/PriorityPopulations/

 

 

Chapter 1

The chapter discusses general use cases and an understanding of how to use Web GIS. For me, this was the first time making an app inside of Web GIS which I found personally interesting.

Chapter 2

The chapter discusses generally how to tell a story using Web GIS, in this scenario, it was showing how population trends have been changing since 2010-2016 to tell the story of the US Population

App Example

The scenario in Chapter 1 is a good use case of Delaware Data to create an interactive map throughout campus with pictures and details.

Hello!
I am Connor Skidmore a first-year student majoring in Environmental Studies and focusing on ESG work and Environmental Consulting.

ArcGIS Online
ArcGIS Online is used generally in tandem with ArcGIS Pro usually in the field where a computer that can run ArcGIS Pro is unavailable. So they will use ArcGIS Online to create a map and then later use Pro to analyze the map created.

ArcGIS Online Basics
I learned about Apps and how they can be used instead of maps or scenes.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SeInVegEbPPHHnMna3csJ0-JFk_25JjP05hr2vUGqCI/edit?usp=sharing 

I hope everyone has a good break!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yutlfauvX4vLYwIrTCtqVqRCp5Y0K_tXHW2UId0Q7DQ/edit?usp=sharing

 

Hey everyone here is the final for the 2 apps I made. Have a good break!!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gaBwmeJg2ntWykWz8b3GuxuaPj6MSbytHZjJn8rdW_Q/edit?usp=sharing