GIS Internship - GIS Day

 GIS day was first created in 1999 by the spatial software company ESRI, to celebrate geospatial technology, capabilities, and look forward to a future where new geospatial tools could be used to solve problems. Though GIS day is typically celebrated in the Fall (November 16th) the spirit of GIS day is effectively any day where you look to geospatial information or technology to make life easier. 

A page from the ESRI website on GIS day, and how to get involved.

For my GIS day event, I decided to treat my coworkers to a map-making workshop, and show off some of the ways GIS could be used to make our recreational diving more fun. We often have an issue with our favorite dive sites in that we know their layout very well, but struggle to communicate where exactly we want to explore if we have a loose dive plan. I let my coworkers know in honor of GIS day I would make some maps of our two main dive sites for the upcoming weekend. In my living room after work we brainstormed what features we wanted on the maps, and I used NOAA bathymetric data as my base to show depth contours. Once we agreed on which landmarks to show and the map extents, we "assigned" distinct landmark symbol sketches to the most artistic person, and imported those sketches as jpgs into ArcPro symbology. I had the two maps printed onto waterproof paper, and attached them to pvc slate so we could carry them with us during the dive. 

Overall my event was very informal, but it was nice to spend some dedicated time using GIS for fun instead of strictly for work. I think my coworkers and friends got a good appreciation for the abilities of GIS, since usually only very popular dive sites have existing maps, and those commercial maps tend to be expensive. 

M2: Typography

The goal of the Typography lab was to understand typical naming and style conventions used in map making. General rules like using italics for water features, using font and style to denote nominal and ordinal values, as well as continuing to adhere to the 6 Commandments of Cartography.  During this assignment we were instructed to build a map of Florida from provided datasets, and then make changes to the symbology, typography, and color scheme, overall building the map in our style. 

I built my map and decided right away I wanted to take advantage of the dust color line and stick with natural tones for the land and features. For labeling cities I toyed around with using graduated symbology to show the size of different cities. This worked well for the northern and Panhandle portions of Florida, but in South Florida the cities were too large and too close together, and it became difficult to understand. I also attempted to create separate label classes based on population, so that all cities with a population 250,000 - 499,999 would be labeled in a larger font than cities 50,000 - 99,999. I was able to accomplish this, but the size breaks were a bit abrupt and the map looked crowded with text. In the end I kept the basic convention from the assignment of separating the city symbology by "County Seat" and "Populated Place" but changed the appearance of the points so they fit the map aesthetic. I also created a custom label class so only the cities I wanted to show in the assignment were displayed. 

Customization of the map was the name of the game. I stuck with a National Parks inspired theme, but there are endless color and theme options.

For this assignment I also added Tallahassee as a feature, since it is the capitol and should be displayed, but was not originally included in the assignment dataset. 

Though our classwork left the rivers labeled in a lovely turquoise dust shade, when I reduced the scale of my map to the size I intended to export, I realized the names were too difficult to read. I changed the river label font and color and added a halo to keep the features more readable. I also increased the space between the label and the feature, which I feel made the river features easier to see. The use of italic type for river name helped distinguish rivers from cities, and the use of Tahoma for swamps kept those features visually distinct from cities and rivers. 

Lesson Learned: I am a bit chagrined to admit I've been using ArcPro off and on for five years but heavily for the last two years, and still through this assignment I "discovered" full use of the label ribbon. In the past I've usually saved my labeling for the Layout design window instead of the map view. Properties I needed to change that I couldn't access through the Label Properties pane I would edit by converting the labels to annotations and fix manually from there. The full use of the label ribbon is an excellent tool to have, and will save a good deal of time.

M1: Map Critique

For this module we began orienting ourselves by exploring cartographic styles and evaluating different existing maps to recognize well designed and poorly designed maps. Though basic elements were part of the process, so were the “6 Commandments of Cartography” all of which are based on the work of cartographer Edward Tufte:

6 Commandments:

▪ Commandment 1: Map Substantial Information (Tufteisms 1, 2, 3, 4, and 20).

▪ Commandment 2: Don’t Lie with Maps (Tufteisms 5, 6, 9, 10, 12, and 13).

▪ Commandment 3: Effectively Label Maps (Tufteisms 7 & 8).

▪ Commandment 4: Minimize Map Crap (Tufteisms 11, 14, 15, 16, and 18).

▪ Commandment 5: Map Layout Matters (Tufteism 19).

▪ Commandment 6: Evaluate your Map (Tufteism 17).

I chose maps from the UWF student drive, and found this map of Easter Island I considered well-designed:

 

This Easter Island map appeals to my personal aesthetic with it’s use of natural colors for water and elevation, and all of the colors have about the same value, without jarring contrast. I appreciate the inset on this map that shows the area being mapped relative to parts of South America, and I really like the balance the author chose between highlighting roads and cities while keeping the numerous archaeological sites legible. Some of these things that appeal to me personally are also in line with the 6 Commandments. This map maps substantial information (Commandment 1), minimizes map crap while still be informative (Commandment 2) and is very well laid out to balance all of this information in a pleasing way (Commandment 5). There are some small things that perhaps should be changed on a technical level – the legend and inset boxes don’t line up, there is no clear north arrow, and the map uses italics a bit more often than we have been advised to. Overall this is a very well designed map.

This map of LiDAR survey coverage areas on the other hand was poorly designed:

This map does a poor job with effective labeling and layout (Commandments 3 & 5). As someone with LiDAR natural resource experience and a familiarity with the Pacific Northwest, I should be set right in the target audience for this map. However, the colors are densely packed with borders that are unclear, the legend relies on acronyms, and some of the colors aren’t even labeled. The map extent is a bit skewed because of the dataset way down in southern Oregon, leading almost to a violation of Commandment 1. This “lie” happens because the scale gives the impression that Puget Sound is not well covered by LiDAR, when in fact the Sound itself is the densest area of LiDAR coverage. Since this is a map of Puget Sound coverage, it’s not clear why that southern Oregon dataset or Canadian dataset is included, or why parts of the dataset on the coast is cut off. 

In order to fix this map, I would clip the LiDAR coverage areas to the extent of a Puget Sound shapefile. This would allow me to change the map extent and scale, and focus in on the area densely packed with LiDAR coverage. Additional labelling would be the next priority for this map, further explaining some items in the legend, perhaps removing the county separations, and adding basic map elements like a scale bar and north arrow. While the bright contrasting colors on gray do not agree with my personal aesthetic, they do make the coverage areas stand out, and could stay as long as they are all labeled in the legend.

About Me

 

My name is Emily Jackson, I am currently in the GIS Graduate Certificate program at University of West Florida, and I work full-time as a fisheries biologist on artificial reefs for Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

I love Florida's diverse and vibrant marine ecosystems! I did my BSc in Environmental Science and Policy in Tampa at University of South Florida and completed my MSc research over in California at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. I've worked around and with GIS off and on at different points through my career, it's been fascinating to watch it grow from a buggy not-well-understood (by our remote field station at least) mapmaking software into the powerhouse of geospatial data display, collection, and analysis it is in the field today. One of the driving passions in my career is the interconnected nature of complex productive trophic systems, nutrient cycling, and coastal communities. I love GIS and ESRI products because they give me additional tools for translating ecosystem science and making it accessible to those community stakeholders. 

 When I took my position with FWC I also took up responsibility for the archival geodatabase of all Florida's artificial reefs (the FARD). While I am comfortable enough with GIS to run the database and do maintenance, I want to be able to use the FARD to help make even more of our habitat and assessment data accessible and easily visualized by the public and county managers. My goal for enrolling in the UWF Certificate Program has been to be able to push the FARD to its full potential. This year during my GIS Internship I added new layers to the FARD for shipwrecks vs artificial reefs, as well as created a new data layer, custom symbology, and data entry system for our fish census surveys.

Here is an overview of some of the research I've done so far, and the places that matter to me:

GIS Internship - GIS Job Search

 As part of our internship course and forum we searched for GIS positions that are currently open, and reflected on them in the context of our own experience and areas for growth. 

I used the Conservation Job Board to conduct my search, it is a board I'm familiar with, and I typically use it as much to keep an eye on the listings and pay scale in my field of marine biology as much as I do to look out for new opportunities for myself. I was pleased to find GIS positions right away on the Conservation Job Board. Land and resource management is one of the primary fields that utilizes GIS, so this makes sense. Something that struck me however was how there were openings for geospatial information system work at nearly every level of experience. I feel like marine biology lately has become a little stratified in that there are a wealth of far-end entry level positions - postings that are unpaid or pay very little, asking for a dive certification or a bachelor's without prior experience. On the other hand there are also openings for Deans and Chairs of foundations and university programs that require a postdoc and over ten years of experience, but nothing for mid-level, experienced entry, or career climbing positions. This is what I have come to expect from the marine biology job market as of late.  

For GIS on the other hand, I noticed that there were experienced entry jobs (no far-end entry) and mid level positions, openings that looked to be 1-2 year contracts as well as government services and career positions in addition to the high level "Director of Geospatial Services" I had expected. I think this is a reflection of the newness of GIS as a career, and of the value that organizations are placing on the toolset, while there is still a relatively small pool of applicants with the skillset needed by the industry. One other thing I did notice while browsing GIS positions was the variability of value that different organizations seemed to have. In some cases a position that primarily did geodatabase management would be near-entry level, with an hourly pay, while another position with similar job description would be salaried, and titled as a Technician IV or GIS Manager. I can assume some of this is from the variability in workload, but it was interesting to see nonetheless, and is possibly another symptom of the newness of the field and the GIS job market as a whole. 

GIS Internship

 During my GIS internship I will be working with Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to create a geodatabase and layers to capture fish surveys conducted at artificial reefs in Florida. 

FWC is responsible for recording the location and maintaining artificial reefs throughout Florida. In order to meet this requirement, the Commission conducts surveys on artificial reefs strategically in different regions of Florida. These surveys capture what species of fish were observed at the reef, the state of the reef structure, presence of natural hardbottom, and any boater activity on the reef. Currently these surveys are organized in an Excel database, however this lacks spatial data, and makes it difficult to visualize which reefs have been surveyed recently. 

Artificial reef locations as they are maintained by FWC. Notice no surveys are present, only reef locations. 

As part of my internship, in addition to working as part of the FWC GIS User Group and interacting with GIS professionals at FWC, I will build a layer and entry process for the artificial reef surveys, so they can be captured and displayed within ArcPro. 

In addition to the FWC GIS User Group, I have joined the American Water Resource Association, Florida chapter. This group is a network of spatial and water resource professionals in the region interested in hearing the latest news and issues associated with offshore, coastal, and urban water use in the state of Florida. More information can be found about the group at: https://www.awra.org/

Photo Interpretation and Remote Sensing - Supervised and Unsupervised Classification

 

The classified map of Germantown, showing land cover/a degree of land use based on ERDAS extrapolation of manually selected signatures. The Distance map shows areas where the classification may be uncertain.

This week's lab focused on conducting feature classification on aerial imagery using a computer-driven tool (unsupervised) and classification based on analyst inputs (supervised). Both methods require manual retooling before or after, and adjustment and manual assessment of the band representations to check that all features are displayed as clearly as possible. In particular, I used histograms and spectral plots to check for spectral confusion in the pixels I had classified - this is where one pixel may have a value that has been classified in two groups at the same time. At the end, I ran the entire process on an image from Germantown, Maryland, to practice supervised classification and the resulting recoding and display of land cover in Germantown.