Goals of this project:
 

• Learn about geographic information systems (GIS).
• Utilize  real-world data. In this project, sample water and test it (SWAT) water quality data collected by the Thompson Valley High School students will be used.
• Explore water quality changes along the Big Thompson River in Colorado.
• Students will use their own water quality data, collected monthly at points along the main stem of the Big Thompson River, to simultaneously learn about GIS and visualize their water quality data spatially.

Over the course of four lessons, we will be using ArcView GIS to look at SWAT data.

What is GIS? A geographic information system is a technology that manages data attributes while at the same time allowing manipulation and analysis of spatial features. GISs can store and manipulate very large amounts of data. You might ask, what is ArcView, and how is it related to GIS? ArcView is one of the world's most popular desktop mapping and GIS software. It allows you to map and spatially analyze your data. You can do things like:

1. Create Maps Showing your data with ArcView GIS makes it easy to create maps and add your own data to them. Using ArcView GIS software's powerful visualization tools, you can access records from existing databases and display them on maps.
2. Integrate Data ArcView GIS makes it easy to integrate data from different sources and work with the data spatially.
3. See the Big Picture In no time you will be working with your data spatially: seeing patterns you could not see before, revealing hidden trends and distributions, and gaining new insights. We'll see some trends using ArcView's charting function.
4. Solve Real-World Problems Working spatially enables you to understand relationships going through the following lessons will show you how the SWAT data is related to other factors.

Students will  complete four lessons in ArcView. The first is an introduction to the ArcView program, the second introduces the term and application of spatial analysis utilizing the SWAT data, the third looks at how water quality changes in relation to population density and the final lesson examines how water quality is related to land use. Click HERE for a more detailed description of each lesson.

Lessons:

Lesson 1: Introduction to ArcView
Lesson 2: Spatial Analysis, Water quality along the Big Thompson River
Lesson 3: Water quality and population density
Lesson 4: Water quality and land use

GIS software: ArcView GIS 3.2 with Geoprocessor Wizard and JPEG extensions.

Computer: Industry standard personal computer with at least a Pentium or higher Intel-based microprocessor and a hard disk

Memory: 24 MB RAM (32 MB recommended)

Operating System: Windows 95/98, Windows NT 4.0, and Windows 2000
 

Find your project directory.

Data for these lessons is stored in directories under your project directory/avfiles/.

Print out each lesson separately from a Netscape web browser.
(If you are browsing in Explorer, you may have difficulties printing, please close out and reopen from Netscape)

Scroll down for links to each lesson.

Lesson 1: Introduction to ArcView

INTRODUCTION
STEP 1: Opening ArcView
STEP 2: Creating a new view
STEP 3: Set the working directory
STEP 4: Saving the project
STEP 5: The View and its Properties
STEP 6: Add data to the view
STEP 7: Changing theme symbology
STEP 8: Give themes meaningful names
STEP 9: Moving around the view (Zooming, Identifying, and
    Selecting)
STEP 10: Images
STEP 11: Summary Questions

 

Lesson 2: Spatial Analysis, water quality along the Big Thompson River

INTRODUCTION
STEP 1: Table Analysis (Working with table attribute data), looking at SWAT data, and learning about metadata.
STEP 2: Creating Charts from the Table, charting the SWAT data
STEP 3: Creating Charts in the View, spatially visualize the SWAT data
STEP 4: Comparing grouped data versus site data, sample sites or groups?
STEP 5: Hot Links and linking images
STEP 6: Summary Questions

 

Lesson 3: Water quality and population density

INTRODUCTION:
STEP 1: Creating a new view
STEP 2: Adding themes
STEP 3: Exploring the Groups and subwatersheds
STEP 4: Exploring the census data
STEP 5:  Finding the population density in subwatershed 4
STEP 5a: Clipping the BT Census theme with subwatershed 4
STEP 5b: Obtaining the new areas for the census blocks
STEP 5c: Calculating the new total population for each census
    block
STEP 5d: Obtaining the total area and total population for
    subwatershed 4
STEP 5e: Calculating the final populations density in
    subwatershed 4
STEP 6: Relating Population Density to SWAT data
STEP 7: Summary Questions

Lesson 4: Water quality and land use

INTRODUCTION:
STEP 1: Adding Themes
STEP 2: Clipping the Land Use / Land Cover Theme
STEP 3: Calculating New Areas
STEP 4: Unioning areas with similar land use
STEP 5: Adding records for natural and human influenced areas
STEP 6: Finding percentages of each land use
STEP 7: Relating Water Quality to Land Use
STEP 8: Summary Questions

BACK TO TOP
Big Thompson Watershed News
Big Thompson Watershed Forum Home Page