Welcome to NR502 GIS Applications in Natural Resources. You can take this course for 1 or 2 credits. There is also an option for 3 credits.

Transcription

1 Welcome to NR502 GIS Applications in Natural Resources. You can take this course for 1 or 2 credits. There is also an option for 3 credits. The 1st credit consists of a series of readings, demonstration, hands on exercises, and 2 quizzes. For the 2nd credit you complete two more labs and then apply what you have learned in an independent project. You will design a GIS project, discuss your proposed project with fellow students and the instructor, complete the project and submit in a final report. You can choose to complete the independent project for 1 or 2 credits, depending on the scope of the project. 1

2 The major goals of this course is that you gain understanding in how GIS can be used in natural resource applications and that you become comfortable using GIS applied to your own natural resource management or research questions. 2

3 The 1 st credit consists of 7 lessons and 2 quizzes. If you choose to take the course for a 2 nd credit you will continue with 2 additional lab exercises and complete an independent project. For the independent project you will first submit a project outline, receive feedback on your project from the instructor and fellow students, have the opportunity to review and comment on the project outlines for fellow students, and complete a final project report of 6-8 double spaced pages including appropriate maps, graphs, and tables. Grading guidelines are provided. d 3

4 A few students have requested to take NR502 for 3 credits. These students will replace the independent project report (Lesson 10 in the last slide) with a more extensive report in publication format. You will have the opportunity to discuss your project with fellow students and the instructor, get feedback during the analysis and participate in peer review of student projects. Grading guidelines will be provided. 4

5 For the 1 st credit, 70% of the grade is based on the lab exercises (10% per lab) and 30% of the grade is based on the results from the two quizzes (15% per quiz). For the 2 nd (or 2 nd +3 rd ) credit the grade is determined as follows: 20% of the grade is based on the two additional GIS lab exercises 20% of the grade is based on the project outline 15% of the grade is based on the project discussion 45% of the grade is based on the final project report (grading guidelines are provided) 5

6 During this course we will be using ArcGIS 9.1 from ESRI (Environmental Systems Research Institute). ESRI launched their first GIS software in the 1960 s and the first commercial software in the 1980 s. Currently the ESRI GIS software is under rapid development and upgrades are released frequently. 6

7 Find out more about ArcGIS, ESRI and GIS analysis on the ESRI web page ( The Knowledge base on the ESRI web page lets you find the information you need by searching ESRI's database of known bugs, "how-to" documents, white papers, system requirements, and common error messages for all of our software. The Knowledge base is an invaluable tool for any ArcGIS user! 7

8 ArcGIS is designed as a scalable system that can be customized from an individual desktop to a globally distributed network of people. In this course we will be using the Desktop GIS. 8

9 ArcGIS comes in four versions: ArcReader, ArcView, ArcEditor, and ArcInfo. You can download ArcReader for free from the ESRI web site. In ArcReader you can view data, print simple maps and identify features. ArcView has the same capabilities as ArcReader but also additional tools for editing, analysis, and display. The ArcEditor and ArcInfo versions of ArcGIS has even more advanced analysis and editing tools. While ArcReader is free of cost, ArcView, ArcReader and ArcInfo are increasingly expensive. 9

10 ArcGIS is composed of three applications: ArcCatalog, ArcToolbox, and ArcMap. ArcGIS also comes in three versions: ArcViw, ArcEditor, and ArcInfo. All three versions of the software are composed of the same basic interface that contains the three applications ArcMap, ArcCatalog, and ArcToolbox. The difference is the capability of the program version, where ArcInfo has full capability, ArcEditor has reduced capability in ArcToolbox, and the capabilities are even further reduced in ArcView. 10

11 11

12 12

13 13

14 14

15 Spatial data is a geographic record that has map coordinates. The objects can be represented by points, lines, polygons or raster pixels. 15

16 In geographic information systems there are two different strategies for representing the world: Vector and Raster. Vector data is a coordinate based structure where objects are represented by a list of X and Y coordinates. There are three representations of vector data: Points, lines, and polygons. The image to the left shows a GIS layer of the incorporated places in Idaho. Each point represents a place. Each point is located at a known location (coordinate pair). The middle image shows the counties of Idaho represented by a polygon layer. Each polygon has an area and a perimeter and represents on county. The image to the right shows the hydrography (streams) of Latah county as a line data layer. The streams are composed of stream segments of a certain length. 16

17 Raster data is a cell based representation of the world where the data layer is made up of pixels (cells, squares) with a certain size. The picture on the left represents the vegetation in Latah county, Idaho. The brown pixels are agricultural lands and the various shades of green and yellow represent pixels that are forest lands. Aerial photographs or satellite imagery are other types of raster data. The digital elevation model (DEM) to the right is made up of pixels with a 30 meter size. Each pixel contains the elevation (in meters) at a particular location. In this DEM the dark pixels represent low elevation and the white pixels represent high elevation. 17

18 In summary, the basic elements for representing objects in a GIS are Points, lines, polygons, and pixels (raster data). In addition to the spatial representation a GIS also contains a database where attribute values are stored. For example, an attribute table for a point data layer contains information about each point in the dataset. 18

19 ArcGIS can utilize many different kinds of file formats. Common vector data formats are shape files and ArcInfo coverages. Coverages has topology while shape files do not. Topology within coverages means that there is node in every arc intersection with the result that polygons are never overlapping and there are no empty spaces between polygons. Shape files are not built in a rigid topological network of nodes and arcs and polygons are allowed to overlap. Read more about topology in Chang chapter 3. Images and ArcInfo grids are two types of raster data. A new file type introduced by ESRI within the last couple of years is the Geodatabase. A Geodatabase is a container for storage of primarily vector datasets. We will not use Geodatabases in this course 19

20 In this first lesson you will be using ArcMap. You can launch ArcMap from ArcGIS in the Start menu. 20

21 This is the ArcMap interface. Notice that in this case we arc running the ArcInfo version of the ArcGIS software. The interface of ArcMap is divided into two basic parts: the map display and the table of contents. In this map you can see the counties of Idaho displayed in different colors. 21

22 Idaho counties is a polygon data layer (vector data). In addition to the polygons the dataset also contains a table (attribute table) that contains information about each county, for example area, county name, population etc. 22

23 23