The GIS Internship part of the UWF GIS Certification program is something I have looked forward to since the start of classes last Fall. While working on AARoads is rewarding, the lack of a team to work with, especially in recent years, has been increasingly discouraging. Also my previous work with GIS Cartography and Publishing Services (GISCAPS) is 100% remote, so the interaction there is limited to phone calls. [...]
When viewing a map or working with geospatial data, it is generally assumed to be accurate. But this may not always be the case, and many factors can affect accuracy. Unaccounted bias may be present, data may have been digitized at a coarser scale than was required, errors present on a previous dataset used to update a new one could be carried over, etc. So how accurate is a [...]
The first module of Special Topics in GIScience covers aspects of spatial data quality. Furthermore, the associated lab defines and contrasts the concepts of accuracy and precision in spatial data. Quality generally represents a lack of error, where error in spatial data is the difference between a true value and an observed or predicted value. Rather than unrealistically attempting to know the exact error, an estimated error based upon sampling or another statistical [...]
The final scenario for the lab of GIS Applications Module 6 is to determine a potential protected corridor linking two areas of black bear habitat in Arizona's Coronado National Forest. Data provided included the extent of the two existing areas of known black bear habitat, a DEM, a raster of land cover and a feature class of roads in the study area. Parameters required for a protected corridor facilitating [...]
The second half of Module 6 for GIS Applications conducts Least-Cost Path and Corridor Analysis on two scenarios. The first continues working with the Jackson County, Oregon datasets from Scenario 2. There are several ways that GIS measures distance. Euclidean, the simplest, represents travel across a straight line or "as the crow flies". Manhattan distance simulates navigating along a city street grid, where travel is restricted to either north-south [...]
Module 6 for GIS Applications includes four scenarios conducting Suitability and Least-Cost Path and Corridor analysis. Suitability Modeling identifies the most suitable locations based upon a set of criteria. Corridor analysis compiles an array of all the least-cost paths solutions from a single source to all cells within a study area. For a given scenario, suitability modeling commences with identifying criteria that defines the most suitable locations. Parameters specifying [...]
