Lab 3: Project Data and Geodatabase Developments

Introduction:

This lab asked that students develop a geodatabase and feature classes for their projects, consider data storage formats and projections and other information, and show the file structure for their data. The methods below describe the structure of the data for a non-point phosphorus pollution sourcing project in development.

Methods:

The file geodatabase created for this project contains two feature datasets: one for all outputs of watershed analysis steps (the watershed analysis procedure outputs many different files which could clutter the geodatabase if not separated), and one for general output of all other geoprocessing. The geodatabase is intended for use by only the project author. Both feature datasets are formatted for the NAD 1983 Wisconsin Southern State Plane in feet, and all data, before being used in this project, is projected to this fitting projection for the study area of the Yahara Watershed. The watershed spans much of Dane County, Wisconsin, stretching into small sections of Green, Rock, and Columbia Counties. This area is completely visible with a scale set to 1:450,000.

Metadata will be produced for the end resulting data of this project. Data lineage is especially important to document in this project due to the long string of geoprocessing events.

Some of the data has not yet made it into the file geodatabase but will as soon as geoprocessing begins. Some data is in shapefile format as well and must be stored outside a geodatabase. Line and polygon shapefile EPA impaired waters data was used for locating rivers with excessive phosphorus content so that locations could be found upstream in this river. Fields included in these shapefiles include date last updated, waterbody name, and pollutants. The raster DEM USGS National Elevation Dataset was included for use in delineating watersheds. This file contains no fields, but contains a grid of elevation values. Wisconsin county boundary shapefiles were included for use in clipping statewide data for smaller file size of output features and shorter geoprocessing times. Wiscland 2 land use data was included for use in finding forested areas near rivers and streams buffering agricultural lands. This raster data contains values corresponding to different land use types.

This project is simply finding areas that are at most risk for creating non-point phosphorus pollution running off overland and does not include any use of newly created and populated feature classes using subtypes, domains, or their policies.

Results:

The data that has been created and sourced so far for the project is shown below in the open file structures (Figure 1). More data will be created as geoprocessing begins.

Figure 1

Sources:

Data sourced from WI DNR, USGS, and US EPA.