This weeks module was very interesting. I designed maps based on a couple's criteria for relocation to Alachua County, Fl. Designing the maps based on weighted values, such as; home cost, distance from work or school and majority of age group in certain areas is very usefull. My only issue was that I could not figure out how to display the actual median home value as opposed to the 1-9 scale. At the end of the semester I am planning on relocating back to the West Coast, and recreating this project for my family will help in the decision process. My daughter will be starting kindergarten next year, my wife is a nurse and I will be looking for GIS firms. So developing a similar map with GIS jobs, hospitals and A+ schools and even crime rates, will help in determining which neighbor hood to pursue.

Week 5 Applications in GIS

This map shows the potential impacts that a proposed development will have on traffic. Knowing what impacts a development will have is important in the decision making process being that any negative impacts would need to be mitigated or could possibly terminate the project all together. Knowing a projected increase in traffic will affect noise levels in the are, a need for wider roads or an increase in traffic signals. I really enjoyed this exercise being that a previous impact assessment class I took just showed all the probable impacts as words with no visual components. A map makes it very clear as to which areas will be affected by increased traffic and by how much, which will lead to more efficient decision making.

The second map shows the Pewter City University student occupancy rate. Knowing the student occupancy is important in determining the social impact on an area. In order to determine the student occupancy, all areas containing residential buildings first needed to be established for the area. Then through a survey of students addresses a thematic map could be created to show the greatest number of university students residing in each area. This information is important to planners to depict population distribution which will aid in the development of more affordable housing and student based activities. The creation of the map went well and was pretty straight forward, I really enjoy the thematic map aspect of GIS.

Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

Here is a link to an animation produced using arcgis. The animation goes through the spread of the oil sheen caused by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill during the months of April and May.

The role of GIS in disaster response

Disasters come in many forms, such as hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, fires, tornadoes and even the recent Deepwater Horizon oil spill. A GIS is a very important part of the disaster recovery process and even disaster prevention. Communities expect a rapid response from all levels of government in the event of a disaster and this is made possible through a GIS. Although nature cannot be manipulated, a map can be quickly updated, pending the availability of data, to represent the areas and utilities affected by a disaster. As the affected location is determined, a GIS can quickly show transportation routes for emergency crews and supplies. It can help determine locations of base stations and staging areas. A GIS can aid in restoring utilities such as water, electricity and gas. Many forms of data can be layered and merged to create an easily understood method of communicating with first responders and volunteers. Raster and vector layers can be merged with digital elevation models to help determine accessibility to certain areas and also determine areas prone to some disasters such as floods and fires. Geographic information systems are also being used in regards to the recent Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Oil making it the the shoreline can be quickly updated on maps along with any wildlife that is susceptible to the oil slick or already affected by it. Maps layered with wind pattern and tide data can help create models that predict the path of oil which can than aid in the placement of booms and determine the closing of certain passes.

Week 4 Oil Spill

This is a KML file produced to show the fishing boundary restrictions resulting from the Deep Water Horizon oil spill. Points were determined using longitude and latitude from a provided NOAA map and then converted to decimal degrees in Excel. The xy coordinates were then imported into arcmap and the final product was exported to the KML file.
Very interesting project, main issues were utilizing the trace function efficiently.

Part 2 encountered problems with my computer, the server and my mind I GIVE UP!!

Appications in GIS: Week 3 Hurricanes

Well, this week we designed maps focused on three coastal counties in Mississippi (Hancock, Harrison, Jackson). The series of maps begin by showing the elevation, bathymetry and hydrography of the study area which will show low lying areas prone to flooding by hurricane induced storm surge. The second map shows the type of landcover that was most affected with the percentages of each landcover area accompanying the map in a graph. As expected the most flood prone area was the coastal wetlands.

The next map shown outlines certain infrastructure (major roads, railroads, hospitals and churches) that were damaged from the storm surge. The toughest part involved with this map is the decision as to where funds should be allocated first, roads or hospitals. Hospitals would need assistance due to being full of patients, where as roads are needed to transport new patients and supplies to the hospitals. I guess those decisions come from experience.

Overall this was a very good exercise and I really had no issues with the technical aspects of designing the maps with the exception of labeling features. When features are labeled, the labels are placed by arcmap, sometimes in inconvenient and hard to read locations. I annotized the labels which helped me to relocate all the labels in a particular layer but not to edit each individual labels location. I will continue to search for a way to have more control over the postioning of feature labels.