Download and extract the Weber County roads file, SWReGAP landcover data, and alternative sites from the Lab 4 data folder found here. (Must be logged onto Canvas)
The approximate location of the campground is **425,666 E 4,578,749 N in the NAD 83 UTM Zone 12N **coordinate system.
See the demonstration video on the Lab 4 assignment page (Canvas) for a couple tricks for using the coordinates to find the campground location.
Design a campground. It should have at least 4 sites. Use points to mark the site locations, polyline to map trails or paths, and polygons to create parking, site pads, or whatever you want.
You will need to create three new feature classes (shapefiles);
The new shapefiles should be added automatically to your map’s table of contents. They will be randomly assigned symbology, which you can change, but remember - nothing will display because they are ‘empty’ files (think of them as blank pieces of paper).
This tutorial walks through setting up your map and the steps for creating a new shapefile. **Note: this video refers to a USFS boundary file. You should disregard this data set. You do not need to work with the USFS boundary data or Weber roads, data. **
Add the shapefiles to your map if they aren’t there already.
Start with the polygon.
Start editing.
In the table of contents, right click on the polygon/campground layer > Edit Features > Start Editing
This will make the layer available for editing and will open the Editor toolbar.
This tutorial walks through digitizing and editing a polygon as well as adding a field and text to your attribute table. It is meant to be a general guide, not specific instructions for the lab assignment.
Remember (or note): you must double click to finish features (lines, polygons) when done drawing to ‘finish the sketch’. You can also right click while you are drawing and choose “finish the sketch”. If you don’t ‘finish the sketch’ the editor won’t have anything to save when you quit editing and you will lose your edits.
Populate the campsite (point) attribute table with the following information (minimally; feel free to get creative and add more if you feel appropriate):
Adding fields to your attribute tables can only be done outside an editing session. Select “text” as the field type. While in an editing session, you can populate any record field by clicking on it and typing directly into it.
Include this table (a screenshot is fine) in the write up on your Lab 4 webpage. See Lab 3 Task 2 for a refresher on adding tables. Make sure the header are descriptive (no jargon or undecipherable abbreviations). Export to Excel if editing is warranted.
This is a good time to mention the importance of metadata for newly created data.
See ESRI’s white paper on Metadata and GIS for more information on why this is important. But to summarize, “Metadata not only helps find data, but once data has been found, it also tells how to interpret and use data.” (ESRI, 2002) See ArcGIS Desktop’s Help for details about how to access, edit, and populate metadata for your files. (Not required for this lab, but you should know how to do this.)
Summarize the dominant landcover and overall variety of landcover for a 1 km area around your liberty campground. Compare this to the landcover for 5 alternative sites (shapefile in the zipped data folder).
Help! I am getting an error saying I don’t have the required license to run the Zonal Statistics tool!
You will need to activate the Spatial Analyst extension to run some of the tools needed in this lab.
You will have to do this every time you log into the Quinney computers, and once per install on your personal computer.
\1. Buffer Liberty Campground to 1 km.
\2. Use “Zonal Statistics” to summarize landcover for your campground buffer “zone”
Table is added to map. Open to view results.
Prepare a table to report Most Common land cover type and How Many landcover types are within 1 km of *your Liberty *campground.
Table should describe the descriptive name of the landcover type, not the numeric key. You may need to refer back to the original landcover dataset.
Create a map or series of professional figures presenting your proposed campground.
Presentation should include:
Map(s) of the campground area, the campsites, and trails
Spatial context (where is this relative to regional landmarks
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