Module 2: Land Use\Land Cover

 Module 2: Land Use\Land Cover

In this weeks assignment it was about learning how to interpret a map with using Land Use\Land Cover (LULC) classification criteria. 

LULC is important to learn because humans have been changing the landscape throughout time. Being able to look at an image and know how the area is being occupied throughout history for planning purposes. The image I was looking at was in Pascagoula, Mississippi. This area is constantly changing either by new people coming into the area for jobs or wetlands slowly going away through time. Many cities are planning different things such as making roads bigger. If the area did not have a lot residents the traffic would not be bad and not necessary for the roads to change. As you can see in the image below there are a lot of residents and it is likely the roads will need to change to help with the flow of traffic.

Another portion of LULC is doing the ground truth of the area. In order to make sure what the map is representing you can look at different areas on the map. It would take too much time to do the whole area. Being able to do sporadic testing across the whole map is important because it makes sure one area is not the main focus. Also, it is harder to get to other areas such as the wetlands on the left side of the image. This could be "ground truthed" by looking at the National Wetland Inventory (NWI) on there website. The only other way would be through getting on a boat to make sure it is correct.

LULC does give the GIS analyst time to understand the landscape and make sure they take their time to interpret the map. Also, it is important to note that the image is a snapshot of the area and can constantly be changing. Even though I had 80 percent accuracy, which is good, the image was older and some of my areas changed because of residential expansion and not because the area was incorrect.

Module 1: Visual Interpretation

 Module 1: Visual Interpretation

In this weeks lab we learned how to understand what remote sensing does to help us understand our landscape. Also, remote sensing can be passive (i.e. photos) or active (i.e. LiDAR). This is important to know because it helps us know how the data is being represented and how we can read the data. Lastly, we learned that the data can be automatic but it is up to the GIS analyst to understand the data and show how it is represented on a map.

In the lab module we had three objectives we needed to learn. In the first objective we needed to show the tone and texture of a USGS picture. We needed to make the polygons a feature class in the geodatabase. Since the map is not projected the features were not automatically projected. You could choose the "current map" and it is what is currently on the map. The tone of the map is trying to represent how dark or light different portions of the map are to the GIS analyst. The texture of the map is how close or smooth of different areas on the map. The image below shows how I as the GIS analyst saw the different portions of the USGS image.

In the second objective was to take another USGS image to understand how to look at an image and see how one could understand the image by Shape/Size, Shadow, Pattern and Association. First the shape and size features I choose was a building, house, and road. I choose each of these because it was very obvious of the size and shape of the feature on the image. Second the shadow features I choose was a water tower, light poles, and tree. I choose the water tower because it was the easiest to see and the shadow. The light pole was a little harder to see but when looking at the shadow you knew it was the light pole. Lastly, choose the tree because it was obvious to know what it was by the shadow. Third the pattern feature I choose was a parking lot, beach, and neighborhood. The parking lot was the easiest pattern to see because of the parking lines on the asphalt. The beach was a pattern of sand all together creates the beach. The final pattern was a group of houses would create a neighborhood. I thought a pattern could also be multiple houses and not just lines indicating a parking lot. Lastly, the association features I choose was a  hotel and pier. I could tell it was a hotel by the association of a parking lot, multiple balconies, and a pool. All of those identifying features helped me know it was a hotel. The second one was a Pier and that was the location of the feature, being in the water, and the wood planks on the pier. Looking at those identifying features I was able to know it was a pier for Pensacola Beach. The image below shows how I understood the image based off the different features.

The final objective was looking at two different images to see the true color and see how our eyes see different colors. The second part was looking at a False color infrared image to see how those the different colors change. Knowing these changes is important because it shows how remote sensing represents colors from our eyes to an image. An example of this is when you look at the trees in the in the true color image it is green, but when you look at the false color infrared image it shows up as red. The reason for this is because green is our "visible" color and red is the color what the trees give off to the remote sensing tool.

Final Project

 Final Project

In the final project for this class was taking everything we have learned the past seven weeks to answer different questions about a transmission line within Manatee and Sarasota County, Florida. The four objectives of the project were: Identify environmentally sensitive lands, Identify home/parcel locations, Identify school locations, and Identify the length of the transmission line and cost.

The first concern of the transmission line is how it is going to disturb environmentally sensitive lands, such as National Wetlands and Conservation Lands. The data from the conservation lands was able to calculate how much was being disturbed by the transmission line. The data from the National Wetlands Inventory (NWI) was able to help calculate the impact of the transmission line on the wetlands and uplands. This is important because wetlands are protected, and the energy company need to know how much they would be disturbing. The uplands are not protected but the energy company needs to make sure they are not disturbing too many acres. The way I was able to get to the results was by using the overlay tools in the geoprocessing pane to figure out which portions were intersecting with the transmission line. Also, to figure out how many acres were being disturbed I needed to add an “Area” field in the attribute table and then calculate geometry in acres. The results for the conservation lands are a total of 10,394 acres within the study area and 163 acres within the transmission line corridor. The results for NWI wetlands and uplands within the study area were a total of 6,566 acres. The uplands were 5,652 acres and the wetlands were 914 acres. We were then told to figure out the percentage of the uplands and wetlands which were 14% wetlands and 86% uplands.

The second concern were homes/parcels and how they would be impacted by the transmission line. Before adding in the home feature class I had to do the 400-ft buffer surrounding the corridor. This was used to know the “proximity” of houses and parcels within the area. The data for the homes were from the jpg aerials of both Manatee and Sarasota Counties surrounding the transmission line. I had to make my own feature class for the homes to place them on the landscape myself. I made the judgement call on the houses. Also, to get the parcels within the transmission line and the 400-ft buffer I used the overlay tool that intersected the corridor and the 400-ft buffer separately to get the total count. The results for the homes were a total of 74 homes with 23 homes within the transmission line and 51 homes within the 400-ft buffer. The results for the parcels are a total of 421 parcels in both counties with Sarasota County had 90 parcels and Manatee County had 334 parcels. Then within each county I went further to find what was within the corridor and within the 400-ft buffer. Sarasota County had 32 parcels within the corridor and 55 parcels within the buffer. Manatee County had 132 parcels within corridor and 202 parcels within buffer.

The third objective was knowing which schools would be impacted by the transmission line. The school location data from the Florida Department of Education website. After cleaning up the data, I geocoded the data for both Manatee and Sarasota Counties. The reason to do this was so you can get the exact location of the schools with a bigger data set quicker than trying to find them individually. Also, if the data does not show up in the county or is a P.O. Box you can fix it easily within GIS. The results of the data were that there were zero schools within the corridor and the 400-ft buffer. There was a total of 5 schools with 4 being Manatee County and 1 being Sarasota County.

The last objective was the transmission line length and cost. The transmission line length can be measured with the centerline. The way I did this was done by using the Polygon to Centerline tool. There was a problem with doing it originally with a shapefile that was projected in the wrong projection. I had to make sure it was projected in the Albers Conical Equal Area [Florida Geographic Data Library]. After the centerline was made, I had to add another field for the “Length” and calculated geometry in miles to get the exact distance. The total length is 25.8 miles. Also, I wanted to learn how to do cost. Based off the PowerPoint that was given to us I decided to choose Double circuit, Strung on both sides, Lattice Tower at 230kV will be $1,600,000. I choose this one because it seems that this transmission line is necessary for two counties to have energy for their area. The other information was on if it was hilly, flat, or mountainous. Also, if the area is urban population or suburban population. Lastly, you need to know the length to add in the extra 1.2 or 1.5. For me the formula is 1,600,000 x 25.8 x 1.2 x 1.5 = $74,304,000. I am not completely sure if I did this correctly because the formula said less than 10 miles it is 1.5 and 10-20 miles it is 1.2 but this one is 25.8 miles. So that was my best educated guess.

The impacts of the transmission line on the communities, landowners, parcels, and environmentally sensitive lands. The communities and landowners were a total of 74 homes (Within Transmission Line: 23 homes and Within 400-ft Buffer: 51 homes). There was a total of 421 parcels (87 parcels in Sarasota County and 334 parcels in Manatee County). Environmentally Sensitive Lands: There was a total of 10,394 acres of conservation lands within the study area and a total of 163 acres within the transmission line. There was a total of NWI 6,566 acres within the corridor (5,652 acres were uplands and 914 acres were wetlands). The location of this transmission line was reasonable for the schools and homes, but more impact on the parcels and wetlands. Wetlands need to be minimally impacted because we need them for our environment, and they are protected. Lastly, using GIS was very important because we are able to answer all our questions in one place and make an easy representation of the data.

I have included the link here of the transcript for the final project: 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1--DkfQyJsPPIdNK1MwzeTZfeZLXhaFnl/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=100825180926986160891&rtpof=true&sd=true

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-BUO0jz895XKbMo-6lEj6QKPqUnnfjli/view?usp=drive_link

Module 6: Georeferencing, Editing, & 3D

 Module 6: Georeferencing, Editing, and 3D

In this weeks lab assignment we were taught how to georeference jpg photo, editing those photos, and make a 3D scene from LiDAR data. 

Being in archaeology I have taken many jpg photos and georeferenced it to current landscape. In this module I learned about the RMS errors and the different transformations you can do when georeferencing photos. When georeferencing photos will always have a 0.0 RMS error because there is not enough information to know if it is on the landscape correctly. Also, when trying to do control points for the image it is important that the points are in different parts of the image so it can get the length and width of the whole image. Lastly, when georeferencing the photos they either need to be in a jpg or a tiff for the images to show up in ArcGIS Pro.

The second part of the module we learned how to edit features to add more data on to the map. When editing you want to make sure to hit the Create button under the Edit tab. Then you will click on the feature you want to create and can draw any image you want. After drawing the image you can edit the feature and put the data in the attribute table. Another feature we edited was the UWF Roads and used the snapping tool because it helped connect between two roads without going over the line. Knowing how to edit the features is important because you can add more data to your images without having to make a new feature class. Lastly, we needed to make a multi-ring buffer around the Eagle Nest that is on UWF campus. We needed to make a 330 foot and 660 foot buffer because conservationist wanted to make sure the eagles nest does not get bothered. Also, we were able to add an image on the GIS data point that in ArcGIS Pro. The image below represents three different georeferenced jpg photos and the edited features.

The third portion of this module was making a 3D Scene from LiDAR data. This LiDAR data was from USGS National Map Viewer. You need to go to the Insert tab and on the far right click New Map Arrow and click on the New Local Scene. It will open a new map that says Scene and will be blank. Make sure under the Contents Pane to uncheck the World Elevation3D/Terrain3D. Next you need to add UWF_lidar.lasd layer. This can be done by dragging it in from the Catalog Pane or by the add data button on the Map tab. Since it is LiDAR data it might take a second before loading on the page. It is likely that the data will show up as a blank red box. Make sure to click on the data in the contents pane and then the LAS Dataset Layer tab will show up after the share tab. Then under the Filters section on the right you will click LAS Points arrow and click on Ground. Afterwards you will click on the Analysis Tab and click the Tools button. That is when the Geoprocessing pane will open on the right.  In the search bar type in LAS Dataset to Raster to where you will input the data needed to get the LiDAR points to show up on the screen. Input LAS Dataset: UWF_Lidar.lasd and Output Raster: UWF_DEM. Then click Run at the bottom. You can change the color to what you want but to use common look of LiDAR data you want to right click on the data and change the symbology to “Surface” This is when the data will show up for you to see the information better.  Make sure to add the UWF DEM data on the scene map. The way to do this is by going to the Map tab and under the Layer group click on the Add Data arrow and click Elevation Source Layer. Then you need to go to where you saved the data. The UWF DEM view shows the LiDAR data but as a picture instead of specific dots on the page. It makes it easier to have a picture on top and still show the changes in the landscape. For this map we did add the other data such as buildings, UWF roads, uwf_n, and uwf_s1 to be on top of the UWF DEM map.  In order to get the buildings 3D we needed to click on the Buildings feature in the contents pane. Once that is clicked the Feature Layer tab will show up after the Share tab. On the far right in the Extrusion group click on the Type and select Max Height (third from the top). Lastly, to the right click on Field and select height as the option. Then the features will become 3D on the map.  Lastly, it is important to note that you can change your Elevations Surfaces in the Contents tab to be either UWF_DEM or World Elevation3D/Terrain3D. I chose the UWF_DEM one because it showed the elevation change better than the World Elevation3D/Terrain3D. The map below is showing all of the data above.

Module 5: Add XY Data Points and Geocoding

 Module 5: Add XY Data Points and Geocoding

This weeks lab was about taking other data that we have not worked with previously and project it onto a map. When getting a lot of data off the internet it is important to know the best way to consolidate the information. The best way to do that is by using Excel sheets! Excel has so many different functions that can help a person understand their data and consolidate it.

The first part of the lab was learning how to take longitude and latitude coordinates of decimal, minutes, and seconds into the Excel table. Knowing how to make formulas in excel to make your job easier when you have a lot of data and not enough time. If you had to do the math by hand it would take you so much longer and would be less accurate. It is important to note that when you are including the data in ArcGIS Pro changing the excel to comma separated values (csv) is the best file to save as. Also, when projected that data it is necessary to know what projection to use. Much of the data used would be in WGS 84, but there are times to need to change it to State Plane or UTM.

The second part of the lab was about geocoding a lot of data onto a map. Having the background of the first part of the lab was important because we had to take a lot of data and consolidate it into the Excel sheet. Being able to get the data into an area that can be read in ArcGIS Pro. We needed to learn how to filter and get the streets, counties, state, and zip codes separated without having to do it manually. Also, we took shapefiles from a website and learned how to get the shapefiles we needed for our project. When taking the data in ArcGIS Pro we took the shapefiles we got and separated for Manatee County. This was done by using the Project Tool which helped us take the attributes out we wanted and save as a shapefile layer for our map. This is important because sometimes we get data for the whole United States but only need it for one state or county, i.e. Manatee County, Florida. For the data we got we needed to geocode the street addresses of schools. This was done from the data of the table we created in excel. There was data that could not be projected on the map and that was either because of the address being a P.O. Box or outside Manatee County.

After doing everything we needed to create a Web Map that everyone could see and that is included here: https://arcg.is/1080Tz

Module 4: Georeferencing and Data Quality

 Module 4: Georeferencing and Data Quality

In this weeks lab it was about trying to get data to in the correct area on the map and presenting data to the client to where they understand what is being presented. There are different ways one can present maps to their clients.

For this map it was important to show buffers around rivers, lakes, and roads. We learned how to buffer around different features on the map. There needed to be a 300 meter buffer around the roads. The reason for this was probably because the noise from the roads would disturb the campsite. The next buffer needed to be 150 meters for lakes and 500 meters for rivers. The reason for this would be for possible flooding in the area. The next step was finding areas where they crossed to find the perfect area to set up possible campsites. When doing this you union the two feature outputs to create a buffer output. The last portion is to know where the conservation areas cross the buffer. The reason for this was to make sure the public does not disturb those areas and are protected. I was able to do this by creating a feature that erases the areas that cross over the conservation areas.

This map is showing the area of all the possible campsites in DeSoto National Forest, Mississippi. I choose the graduated colors for the unique values. Then in the Field box I choose Area which was in hectares for the different features. In the Normalization box I chose nothing because I wanted to show the areas that were in the same hectares class. In the Method box I chose Geometric Interval because it shows the different campsites in a closer data range, such as 0.07481 - 2.804 ha is one color. The other methods were making them too far a part. In the Classes box I chose 6 because it brought the campsites to ranges that made sense. Lastly, I went the advanced symbology options tab and said not to pad with zero which took the percentage away. I chose this because the percentage at the end was confusing on what I was trying to show through the data.

I have included the hectares because I wanted the client to understand that these were the colors for the different areas of all the locations on the map. Another thing was I chose these colors because they were giving the most contrast with the other features in the map. Lastly, the topo was the best fit to show all the features against the background.

 Module 3: G.I.Systems and Data

During this weeks module we learned how to collect data out in the field and how to share that data. Also, we learned how different projections of a map can change how it will be seen in ArcGIS Pro.

ArcGIS Collector and Data Sharing

As an archaeologist I have been using ArcGIS online and Field Maps. This was important for my job because we could take our cell phones out in the field and collect the data we needed for our projects. Also, we could make the maps that were created on ArcGIS online to an off line status for times when we were in the field and did not have cell service but could still collect data. Finally when you are done collecting the data you can sync it with your account and update your online map.

When sharing the data there have been different ways I have given it to others and have received it from a client. Many people within the company can use the ArcGIS online account and we can share maps that way and make it easier for people in the field. Another way I have shared data was by making a Map Package. I usually did this when I was done with a map, but I needed to send it to another person who did not have all the data I had saved on my computer. The map package is easier because you can send the data to someone else and they can manipulate it on their end without messing up your original map. Lastly, when sharing data I would usually get a kmz/kml file from Google Earth that the client had created and put it into ArcGIS Pro. The only bad part about the Google Earth files is that you cannot manipulate it yourself (i.e. change the symbol or the color of the file). It makes it harder when the color is not what you need it to be for the client.

Being able to share data is important because you know exactly what the client needs to get the project done and you can work through many different avenues to get that done.

Projections

When getting data one does not always know what form the data is being projected. Many different entities use different projections. An example is how most people in navigation use State Plane. It does change sometimes from 1983 and 1983 HARN. It is important to know the difference because it can change where a feature gets projected on the map. As an archaeologist I mostly use Universal Transverse Meracator (UTM) because that is what most GPS systems have as a default. Also, since archaeologists work in meters it is easier to stay in the same projection. 

When making this weeks map we projected Albers Conical Equal Area, NAD 1983 UTM Zone 16N, and NAD 1983 to HARN Florida. Each one of the projections map the map slightly different. This could only be seen when making a map for each projection. Also, the module showed how each projection would change the area of the counties that were shown. The reason for this is that each projection is based off how it lines up with the equator. Another important aspect to know about imagery and raster data is being presented. The data will automatically end up in the Atlantic ocean until you are able to project into your projection. Once you do that the image with end up in the correct location. Sometimes when you don't know the projection you do have to play around with in until you find the right projection.

The map below represents four different counties (Alachua, Escambia, Miami-Dade, and Polk) in the the state of Florida and how each projection changes the location of the state slightly. Also, I learned how to get the colors to be the same across all the maps. Lastly, the map has a table that shows how each projection does change the area of the feature across the different projections.