Addison's GIS Journey

In this final lab we used multiple skills learned throughout the course to analyze the proposed route for a transmission line from Manatee County to Sarasota County. The four main criteria that needed to be analyzed were environmentally sensitive lands, homes, schools, and the length of the transmission line. Although learning the technical aspects of ArcGIS was challenging for me, but I enjoyed the challenge and see everything come together in a final product.  Bobwhite Manatee Transmission Line Transcript

 The map above shows the University of West Florida campus and a Bald Eagle nest conservation site. The buildings on campus are depicted in red, and the roads are depicted by the purple. The Root Mean Square (RMS) Error text indicates the accuracy of georeferencing an unknown raster point to a known raster point. The bald eagle nest is shown by the black dot. The areas surrounding it are protection buffer zones meeting FWC requirements. Throughout this lab I learned how to georeference raster points using images of campus. From that I was able to interpret the residual RMS errors from each layer and correct any mistakes/outliers. I also learned how to create new features on the map. This includes a building polygon feature, and a new segment of road. 

https://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=b176f8c78cf44800b8c5e03b2f51835a   The map contained within this link depicts different schools throughout Manatee County, FL. The schools are depicted by the yellow dots within the gray outline. I chose the gray outline to make the county stand out on the map, and the yellow dots to better visualize the schools within the county.  Having previous excel knowledge was helpful in this lab. I enjoyed learning more about data cleaning, and just how much one little thing in the data can affect the map. Not having "perfect" data helped to work on skills to resolve common geocoding issues. This lab showed me the importance of reviewing the data you receive and cleaning it. As well as how to fix some common errors that may come up.

 The map above outlines suitable campsites within the DeSoto National Forest in Mississippi. The green areas indicate possible sites within the forest. The gray lines indicate roads, and the blue areas indicate a body of water. Campsite locations were determined based on distances from said features and not within conservation areas. There is also a map to indicate where the DeSoto National Forest is located within the state. This lab focused on how overlays can be used to help with analysis. Throughout this lab we used buffers and other overlay tools to determine the potential campsites. I found the multiple ring buffer very interesting and useful when you want to see multiple distances within the buffer. By using the erase tool I was able to exclude conservation areas from the potential campsite locations. 

 The above maps depict four different counties within Florida using different coordinate systems. The counties use the same color code throughout each map to easily distinguish how different each coordinate system places them. In the table provided you can see the area in square miles for each county in the respective coordinate system. This lab focused on the importance of projections and how they can alter the look of the map. Three different projections were used on the same data to show how much the coordinate systems can differ. The calculation tools withing ArcGIS were also used to determine the changes in geometry between the projections on each map.  Through this lab I was able to understand just how important the projection you choose is. It can greatly impact the results and look of the map. As well as using different tools to calculate geometry on the map.