Data Management via Maps

Government data can get pretty messy. I know, Its hard to believe; with all the projects, novice GIS users, and employment turn-over putting all the messy data to use can be hard. Yet, a good way to get my feet wet with the data is make maps--and do some cleaning house as I go.

First up,

'Juniper Tree Management on Ranch Lands'.

Alright, I'll admit it, this topographic map doesn't show juniper tree management; what happened was while I was cleaning house, improving our data collection of ranches and juniper thinning, I was asked to produce a map for a rancher (as a good gesture for him allowing us access to his property). At the very moment I was done being a good citizen and compiling 10+ layers of random ranch layer, I was asked to produce this map, my first for the department.

The key to quickly producing this topo was spending the time to clean up the data! For me, the most important part of this story is the journey.

'Ranch Topology'

In addition to spatially joining the ranch layers, and the consequent deleting of the unnecessary fields, I then performed a topological check to be sure their was no overlapping polygons nor any gaps. I do, however, have a lot to learn with topology--but a lot less after making this map.

Lets get cartographic

When people think of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) they think 'Maps'. Mostly, I think of geographic data management, development, and analysis. But 'what the people wants people gets'.

Now, working at Arizona Department of Game and Fish it is more important than ever to produce quality maps that our Game Wardens can bring with them in their trucks and our policy makers can use to make those all important connections from the data.

So, in the next few posts I will be bringing you the maps I've produced (well, at least the quality pieces).

First Entry 6/10/2011

I'm finishing my 3rd week with my internship at Arizona Game and Fish. My post is up here in Kingman, Arizona. Just a couple of hours from Las Vegas, and 45 minutes from the West Rim of the Grand Canyon--no I haven't gone to either. My positions is a Geographic Information System Tech.

So far my duties are:
1) The Big Horn Sheep habitat evaluation for the Game and Fish Region 3
2) Derive Polyline geometry from Pronghorn Antelope GPS waypoints
3) Perform transects in the Espee Ranch grasslands (need to determine what type of Biome this is) while counting active and inactive Prairie Dog Burrows.
4) Produce a couple of maps for recreation OHV use and Pinyon Juniper Tree management.

I surprised my supervisor by producing a GIS layer of all the land that has slopes that are greater than 60% in just a few hours--my schooling is finally paying off!

Though I am struggling at writing some Python programming scripts that derive the Polyline geometry. Most programmers know the feeling-- I feel like I'm on the cusp of getting it!