GIS+&+GPS+Needs

The GIS / GPS work for NR300 is starting to crystalize for this year. As you know, we are working with the UFORE model to do an assessment of the ecological value of Raleigh's urban forest. Here are a few of the things I believe we're going to need to do ... this is intended as a conversation-starter, so please let me know what you think and add as needed.

- Basic GIS intro - Estimate area inside the beltline - Estimate area of Raleigh - Estimate area of Raleigh parks - Download data - Use the UFORE plot generation software to generate plot locations for whatever are we decide to sample - Evan Keto, the course TA can help with this Inputs needed for plot generator: 1 polygon shapefile showing study area, National Land Cover Data (NLCD) for area, number of plots needed, .dll files from i-tree CD, ArcGIS 8.3, 9.0, or 9.1. Plot generator allows for samples that are random, grid, random grid, and stratified by landcover.
 * Raleigh muni boundaries
 * Raleigh parks boundaries
 * other open spaces in Raleigh (perhaps)
 * NLCD for Raleigh (May take a while, NLCD can only download to one user at any given time)
 * digital aerial photos

- Get plot locations onto GPS and learn how to use GPS to locate plot

They are going to need some kind of GPS to get to these sample plots from mid-Feb to mid-March. We will have 5 teams going out.

I'm thinking we need to get to GIS sooner rather than later this year, so my initial thoughts are to organize something like this. ....


 * Wed 23 Jan**
 * An intro session in which they**

- Basic GIS intro - Download data - Estimate areas (Raleigh, beltine, parks) - Create appropriate maps (eg, Raleigh with inside the beltline and parks, etc)
 * Raleigh muni, parks boundaries, and whatever is needed to estimate area inside beltline (We might want to pre-download much of the data and distribute CDs, but show them how to get at least one or two datasets from online.)
 * download a photo or two and show how to merge with other data

Provide a CD with ...
 * an extent / clip box that includes all of Raleigh's ETJ
 * Raleigh municipal and ETJ boundaries
 * Raleigh Park Boundary layer (**only if easy - 10 minutes or less** - if not it can wait)
 * Streets data
 * NLCD data
 * index tile for Wake County imagery
 * **//currrent//** tax parcel databasem, including names and addresses of property owners

Steps ...
 * download streams data from Wake County site
 * clip to the extent box
 * zoom / pan / play
 * create layout (professional quality)
 * use UFORE to generate plots
 * find, download, show a photo under a sample point
 * find name and address of property owner under point
 * generate CSV file

Oh, lab is on Wed 12:30-15:10.