Week 6: Location Decisions-Alachua County Florida

This project entailed deciding on the optimum location for a couple relocating to Alachua County Florida. The primary concerns for the couple were to find a location that was convenient to both of their employment locations, in a residential area occupied primarily by people aged 40-49, and finally, and area with high property value. Data was analyzed, and 3 maps were produced.

The first map is a base map, which depicts primary features of the area, such as the county, roads, towns, Census tracts, and current public land use. This gives the audience a general layout of the area for familiarization.

• The second map takes the 4 basic reqirements into consideration individually: Distance from the college, where the husband is employed.
• Distance from the hospital, where the wife is employed. Areas with higher concentrations of people age 40-49.
• Areas where the median home values are higher.

The third and final map combines the factors in two different ways:

The first weighs each of the 4 factors equally, and the second puts more weight on the distances to each place of employment. In the second, the age and home value were less of a concern. In each situation, 3 tracts were selected as possible candidates based on what was percieved as the optimum location.

Week 5 ESRI Urban Planning Impact Assessment

This graphic focused on the agriculture, forestry and fishing trade in a region. It shows in which areas the trade is considered a basic industry, or one that exports a product and brings income from sources external to the region.




This graphic focused on areas where university students live within a region.


This graphic shows the impact a new research facility will have on an area. It considers traffic congestion, noise, and aesthetics.

The Role of GIS in Disaster Response

GIS can be a very useful tool when it is used for disaster response, but one key factor is being prepared before the disaster occurs. Nobody can predict when or where a disaster might occur, or what type of event the disaster might be, but having up-to-date relevant data for your area of responsibility is a good start.
Another good idea is to work with your local disaster response teams and gather data on disaster scenarios. This might provide insight to familiarize you with possible events, so it won't be a new learning experience when the actual event occurs. That wouldn't be the ideal time to try and figure things out.
The actual role the GIS will play in a disaster response will be important to the team leadership, to aid them in their decision making. It can make a difference on how personnel or resources are deployed to combat the event, or to render aid to those who may need assistance.

The information provided can vary, but will generally include the following essential areas:

• Information on the local area, especially areas immediately impacted by the event. This may also include other areas that might be impacted as weather or other factors have an effect on the event.
• Key resources in the area, such as shelters, hospitals, emergency response teams, etc.
• Emergency routes and evacuation routes (as applicable).
• Environment and Wildlife that may be impacted by event.

There are certainly other items of importance that may vary depending on the type of event, so this list is far from all inclusive.

The important thing is preparation. There will be alot of people who want information and they will want it yesterday. There will be mass confusion and it will be a very stressful situation, so the more prepared you are, the more confident you will be, and therefore able to provide the information required.

Tracking the Oil from the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

This project has taught me how to demonstrate progression of a particular subject, in this case, the spreading oil from the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill.

1. I gathered data from available sources (fortunately the data was provided for this project).

2. I verified the coordinate system of the template data as well as each feature to be inserted (before inserting it). In this case, the template data was in GCS_North_American_1983, while the oil data was NAD_1983_UTM_Zone_16N.

3. Since the coordinate systems were different, I chose to re-project the oil data to match the existing template data, so I projected the oil data to GCS_North_American_1983. It seemed to work nicely.

4. I added the oil data and created a group layer.

5. Using the animation toolbar in ArcMap, I created an avi file and posted it here: http://students.uwf.edu/jrc46/animation_Ciavola.avi

Flooded Areas

Flooding Risk

Well, here's a test run for posting an image

and comments to my blog....

hey, come on, it's relevent!