How's the View?: Taking a Look at Potential Siting Concerns

For this assignment, I was instructed to perform a viewshed analysis of an object of my choosing. I chose the proposed site of two new, much larger Eversource storage tanks to be located on Peckham Rd. in Acushnet, MA, because I wanted to reflect how the assignment is relevant to real-world scenarios. Currently, there is some concern over the size of the tanks for several reasons, one being the potential impact on property value. I therefore used the data I had available to me at the time to show where in the surrounding area these tanks would be visible. Using Land Use data, I was able to show where forested area occurs in the towns of Acushnet, Freetown, and New Bedford. Based on a Google search that showed most local trees can grow to about 80 feet, I extruded the data to that height to account for the natural barrier this would pose to visibility. Since the towers are, at this point, imaginary, I created a point to represent the height (18.5 stories) and approximate location of the new tanks using what information was available to me. Running the viewshed analysis tool multiple times while adjusting the height of extrusion for my "Towers" shapefile, I show here where a particular portion of the tanks would be visible (none, 25%, half, 75%, all). However, there are some drawbacks to this map based on a lack of available data. For instance, I did not have access to data regarding the location and size of most man-made structures (such as residences, or the New Bedford hurricane barrier). Surely, this data would influence where these tanks will be visible from. For the purposes of this class assignment, however, this map adequately displays how a viewshed analysis functions.

   

Where to put the Solar-Wind Village?

An assignment on raster data and spatial analysis required the creation of a map (18 x 24) showing the locations in Adams, Massachusetts, matching the following site selection criteria. The site has to have a slope angle of 20 degrees or less with a southerly aspect (135-225 degrees) and a wind speed at 30 m over 5 mps. The premise for this hypothetical project is to assess the terrain of Adams for site suitability of a combined solar-wind village.

Nunckatessett Greenway Project: Where are Parcels of Interest Located?

For this portion of an ongoing assignment, I had to develop criteria in an Excel sheet based on what parcels of land in Bridgewater and West Bridgewater may be of interest to the Greenway Project. I then mapped out the locations of the parcels based on how many criteria each parcel met. This will give them an idea of where to look for land use/acquisition opportunities.

Board? Head to New Hampshire This Winter

I never slack on an assignment, but if there was ever a temptation to do so it would be due to my love of winter weather. I was a skier as a kid, but when my own children asked for snowboards two seasons back I knew I had to learn to ride. Now that they're gaining speed (and talent), we've begun to branch out and explore some of the area terrain parks. Well, I'm mostly watching them do the exploring. But in making my ski-to-snowboard transition I've noticed that when it comes to boarding, all resorts are not created equally. For my next short assignment I was asked to create and geocode a .csv file that includes a url and a field for an image url. This map will show my personal recommendations for the resorts with terrain parks worth the ride.

UFOs in the US?

UFO sightings are rare, but still occur frequently enough to justify a mapping exercise using ArcGIS Online! This assignment asked for the creation of a .csv file of the location of UFO sightings in the US. Using Excel, I copied information from Wikipedia and saved it as a .csv Excel table. From there, I mapped it in ArcGIS Online by dragging and adding the file to the base map. I changed the style of the symbol for sightings so they were based solely on location, thus rendering the dots a single color. The final product is here, below.

Understanding the Racial Undertones of Housing Trends

For this assignment, I was given specific Excel data from which I had to compute numbers for additional fields. While doing the calculations Excel did the calculations for me (so nice), it became apparent that there were some big differences in where people lived based on their racial identity. I had plenty of leeway in deciding which data I wanted to analyze for this project but that really jumped out at me, so I created this:

Pardon the screen shot, I won't waste time explaining. The assignment called for the following:

Create a GIS Poster in 11 by 17 inches (Tabloid) landscape orientation. This poster will contain:

ü  one data frame with a choropleth map,

ü  a data analysis table,

ü  charts, and

ü  text explaining your analysis.

 Leave a 1 inch margin around the edge of the paper and your map elements in order to add a neat line once the map is completed. Create a map focused on the 10 cities located within Plymouth, Bristol and Barnstable counties. The map needs all necessary map elements and to adhere to good practices in map presentation! Show the states as hollow, with wider black outline. Show the counties as hollow, with thinner black outline. Show the cities using red circles as a function of population in 2000.  Label the cities and counties, using different font sizes and bold/normal. Export the attribute table as a dbf (or txt) file and open in MS Excel. Copy and paste the completed table into ArcGIS. Make sure it is neat, fonts not too large/small. Add in grid lines and make the header stand out.

 Create two charts in MS Excel to visualize some aspect of your analysis. You can use scatterplots, bar charts, pie charts, etc. Whichever chart you us, make sure they are easy to read,  have meaningful titles, axes are labels (if applicable), etc. Copy and paste the completed charts into ArcGIS. Add text to your map documenting, describing, and interpreting your analysis. Add a border/neat line around all elements of your GIS poster.

What was fun about creating this poster was the freedom given in the assignment. As I mentioned, the difference between whites and non-whites in terms of where they lived and whether they lived in housing units as renters or owners jumped at me. 

So, why are people living where they are? As a community organizer, this verified what I had already observed in the work I do - that race is one factor (of several) determining where and how people live. As an activist, I might use this poster to aid in an investigation of racism in home ownership opportunities such as mortgage lending or real estate market practices. Since it is generally more costly to own a home in Southeastern Mass than to rent an apartment, perhaps I would use the poster to investigate economic opportunity based on racial identity, using the data on renter-occupied versus owner-occupied housing units and the racial composition of city populations. 

Where are People Living in Massachusetts?

This map was created for a short class assignment with the purpose of showing Massachusetts town populations in a format that could be printed in black and white without diminishing map logic. 

Details:

Fred Clark, the University President just called…he needs the following map ASAP: A map of the 351 towns in MA where the towns are colored based on population in 2010. He wants this map in black/white and sent to him as a PDF file, using an 8.5 by 11, landscape, professional map layout and map design. The goal: make a simple, yet professional map with all the necessary map elements.

The simplicity of the data lend to the clarity of the information displayed here. It seems counter-intuitive, but the quality lay in the limited amount of information displayed. Little pieces of important information are included on the map, summarizing a few pertinent results. Map readers may perform quick analyses by comparing their own data to what they see here. For example, if this President had a list of applicants from different towns across Massachusetts, he could compare the number of applicants per town with ease to their hometown population. This can determine the average number of applicants based on local population, or the proportion of applicants based on how large their hometown is. Such statistics are important if this University is dedicated to ensuring their student body is representative of statewide demographics.