Angelique's GIS Portfolio

The objective of this week's lab was to explore the concept of dot mapping in which each dot represents a certain amount of some phenomenon. The resulting map shows the 2010 population in South Florida. To create this map, I used ArcGIS Pro and data provided by UWF. I joined an Excel table of 2010 US census population data to a feature class of the South Florida counties and applied Dot Density Symbology. In order to exclude surface water areas from the dot density map, I applied a masking effect using a surface water feature class. To more accurately display the dot density in the areas outside the surface water, I clipped the county population with an urban land feature class. I included and labeled 4 major cities to provide geographic reference to the map. In addition, I uniquely symbolized the surface water by type. I then adjusted the dot size and dot value to find suitable values where the densest areas are just beginning to coalesce. In order to create the visual legend, ...

The purpose of this week's lab was to explore the most common modeling tools in ArcGIS - buffer and overlay - and create a script in ArcPy for the buffer tool to combine or exclude multiple vector features. The resulting map includes final possible campsite areas, after applying the overlay tools.   First, I used the Buffer tool to create a feature class with a fixed distance. The resulting feature class included areas within 300 meters of roads, dissolving all buffer borders so that areas of overlap were merged.  Next, I created a feature class with a variable distance from the water features (150 m for lakes and 500 m for rivers). To do this, I added a field to the attribute table of the water feature that included the desired buffer distance for each feature type, and then I used the Buffer tool with these fields as the buffer distance and dissolve type. I also used ArcPy to create a script to use the Buffer tool to create feature classes with variab...

The purpose of this lab was to explore the design concepts involved with flowline mapping. For this lab, I used Adobe Illustrator to create a flowline map of immigration to the U.S. using data from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.  I chose to create my flow map where the choropleth map of immigration per U.S. state is overlaid on the world map.  I chose this option because it saved space on the map layout. In addition, I preferred keeping the continents in place to more accurately show the layout of the world and its relation to immigration to the U.S. (although the map does not aim to show the actual paths of immigration, just the percent from each region). I also chose this option because shows where the U.S. is located in relation to the other regions. Even though this option made it slightly more difficult to see the choropleth map, enlarging the whole map made the choropleth map easier to see. I then created proportional flowlines from each region t...

The purpose of this lab was to investigate the PRISM Interpolation Method to develop an isarithmic map of average annual precipitation for Washington state. PRISM is a model that calculates climate-elevation relationships from point data for each grid cell in a digital elevation model (DEM). The data set for Washington state includes annual precipitation over a 30 year period (1981-2010). In this lab, I explored two methods for symbolizing this data in ArcGIS Pro. The first symbolization method was using continuous tone symbology. Continuous tone symbology symbolizes a feature with differing shades between contours, where each point on the surface is shaded with a tone proportional to the value of the surface at that point. This results in a map where the shade of the colors vary and blend between contours, creating a smooth surface. A hillshade effect was applied to the map by using the Dynamic Range Adjustment (DRA) Hillshade Effect and editing the color and transparency of a co...

The purpose of this lab was to search for and select GIS data from multiple sources and create easy to interpret maps with the data for an assigned county in Florida. I was assigned Gulf County. The GIS data required for this lab was 1 Digital Orthographic Quarter Quadrangle (DOQQ) aerial, 1 Digital Elevation Model (DEM), 5 vector files representing the county boundary, cities & towns, roads, public lands, surface water (lakes and rivers), and 2 of 4 environmental vector files (I chose wetlands and invasive species). I found all vector files and the DEM by searching the Florida Geographic Data Library (FGDL). I found the DOQQ by searching for a quad in Gulf County under the aerial images section. The most difficult single layer to find was one for surface water. It was difficult to find one layer that showed both major rivers and lakes in Gulf County. Instead, I found and used 3 layers that accomplished this and looked the best on my maps.  Because all of the files...

The purpose of this lab was to explore choropleth mapping and utilize proportional symbology for two different data sets. The resulting map shows population density and wine consumption in European countries. To create this map, I used ArcMap with finishing in Adobe Illustrator. I explored the use of images instead of circles to symbolize wine consumption, however, after trying many options, I felt the image made the data harder to interpret. Instead, I elected to use proportional circles to symbolize wine consumption because they are more easily interpreted. I used proportional symbology over graduated symbology because the proportional symbology could be employed without classifying the data and the size of the symbols makes the data easy to interpret quickly. The most difficult part of creating this map was labeling all the countries. In order to better view a portion of the map that is cluttered with both small countries and many circles, I created an inset map. The inset map ma...