GIS 1: Lab 4

Goal: To map bear locations and find suitable bear habitats in a study area located in Marquette County.
o Background: The purpose of the mapping exercise was to find suitable bear habitats based on most popular habitat types, distances from streams and urban areas and areas that are within DNR managed lands.
o Methods: To attain this data, I used tools such as buffer, clip, dissolve, intersect, erase, spatial join, summarized spatial join and spatial query. I also created a flow model to keep track of the tools and outputs used in this exercise.
o Results: The map results show that the most suitable habitats for bears are in the northern portion of the study area. This makes sense because this is also where we find the most bears in the study area. The lower portion of the study area has a fair amount of suitable habitats, but almost none of them reside more than 5 kilometers away from urban areas.

Flow Model

GIS 335: Lab 3

Introduction: The goal of this lab was to individually collect GPS data and transform it into a map

Methods: I learned how to use and collect line point and polygon data on ArcPad for a Juno GPS unit

Results: The results show a few new grassy areas, tree locations and light post locations that have been placed on top of an old campus image. After the remodeling of campus, pathways, lights and trees have been moved to different locations, and grassy areas have changed shape, size and location.

GIS 1 Lab 2: Base Data

Goal: The goal of this lab was to download data and shapefiles from the internet so as to cartographically relay census information.

Methods: I downloaded census data and unzipped the files onto my computer. A Wisconsin shapefile was added to an arcGIS basemap. I then joined attribute tables with some excel files that contained the downloaded census data. I then showed this data using graduated colors and a natural breaks classification scheme. A cartographically pleasing coordinate system was chosen for the state of Wisconsin, and the data was set onto a landscape layout.

Results: The total county population map shows generally lighter populations up north and to the west and heavier populations around the coast of Lake Michigan. Dane and Milwaukee counties are the most heavily populated seeing as they contain the cities of Madison and Milwaukee respectively. The percentage of urban population is heavily concentrated in the southeast part of the state up to the Green Bay area. The rest of the state shows no other significant trend as to how urban populations are dispersed.

GIS 1 Lab 1: Base Data

Goal: To explore and learn about several data sets, to learn about the Public Land Survey System, and to build a layout with several different thematic feature classes.

Background: I digitized the site for the proposed confluence project of 2014 and built a layout displaying voting districts, civil divisions, census boundaries, PLSS, zoning and parcel data for the city and county of Eau Claire.

Methods: I used and created geodatabases for this layout.

Results: The proposed site lies in the business district within the city of Eau Claire on Graham Street and Eau Claire Street. It is in voting district 31 and PLSS section 20.