Introduction
The
first step in the geographic inquire process is to ask a geographic question.
This step was covered in the last report, where it was possible to understand
the issues related to sand mining in western Wisconsin. Then, the study of the level
of impact that the transportation of sands have on the roads will be done by
the use of network analysis.
However,
any kind of analysis will need to have data to be based on, which consist in
the second step of the geographic inquire process. Then, this report will cover
the procedures related to the obtainment of geographic data within the area of
interest. One of the main necessary data is the location of the sand mines,
which were found in a table with addresses. So, this phase does not only include
the simple download of data, but also the necessary preparation of the data to
be ready for the analysis. Then, the geocoding process will also be reported.
Then, it’s aimed as a result to have a geodatabase containing all the necessary
data adapted already for the purposes of this project.
Methodology
Firstly,
a number of sources were explored: the National Atlas, the National Wetlands
Inventory, the USGS National Map Viewer, the Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics
Consortium (MRLC) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (both Geospatial Data
Gateway and the Soil Survey Geographic Database). Each website has a particular
way to download data and different levels of availability. Since that in this
particular exercise of gathering the data, the focus was in Trempealeau County,
some data was downloaded for the whole state, but it was preferred to obtain
the county data – usually more detailed.
After
obtaining the data, it was necessary to review it to guarantee its consistency.
In the case of elevation model (DEM), obtained by MRLC, there was two tiles, so
it was necessary to use a mosaic tool to join this data in one only file. In
one case – for the National Wetlands Inventory – the data was just not
available for Wisconsin, so no data was downloaded. In other case, for the soil
data, obtained by SSURGO, it was necessary to take in consideration the
drainage index of each feature, so the examination of the database over
Microsoft Access and the use of the join tool were necessary.
Next,
the design of a geodatabase included to re-project all features to the same coordinate
system. The choice is related to the available coordinate system covering the
smaller area beyond the Area of Interest. Trempealeau County is located in the
Central Zone for the Wisconsin State Plane System, so this was the best choice
found. Then, the features were combined in a single geodatabase: Railroads (The
National Atlas), Soils (SSURGO), Cropland (Geospatial Data Gateway), Land Cover
(USGS) and Elevation (MRLC).
Subsequently,
although all these elements are important, the crucial element for the project
consists in the location of the mines. For the Trempealeau County, a
geodatabase containing it was already obtained; however, since the analysis is
for Western Wisconsin, and not only one county, it’s necessary to have a
feature class with all the mines.
The data obtained for that consisted in a non-spatial table,
where one of the fields contained its addresses and the other fields contained
further information about each mine. However, the later network analysis
requires a spatial feature for the mines, not only a stand-alone table.
As
follows, plotting the points in the map accordingly with its addresses is
necessary, which can be done by using the geocoding tool. Geocoding, as said,
consists in giving X,Y locations for entities using their address field. It’s
based in a locator that has the settings related to the specifications of the
type of address used; the necessary fields and, mainly, relies on a reference
feature. This can consist in a line feature for the roads, which will use the
nodes to find a precise place for the number address. It can also consist in
polygons, where the address will be based on zip or state, and the point will
be located in the centroid of the polygon. Points are an option for the
reference data as well, and would be the most precise scenario, because the
output would match the point address of the reference feature. After having the
locator, it’s necessary to have a normalized table that fits the specific
requirements of the locator used.
For
this exercise, the locator chosen was “TA_Address_NA”, which used to be
provided by ESRI. In the new version of ArcGIS, the locator is still
accessible, but it’s necessary to connect to a specific server. In the near
future, it’s possible that this locator might have a restricted access. Anyhow,
this locator uses address, city, state and zip fields. The table obtained,
however, didn’t have these divisions. Then, the normalization of the table was
made.
Since
this task is time-consuming and requires attention to the detail, the class was
divided in groups of four people, so the division of tasks could increase the
productivity. There were approximately 100 entities in the table, after
excluding the ones located in Trempealeau County. Then, each person was
responsible for the normalization and localization of about 25 mines.
By
examining the table, it was possible to notice that the Facility Address field
didn’t contain only its address, although its name. There were three types of
information there: full address, containing number, street, street type, city
and zip; directions, where an intersection was mentioned or a sentence with the
explanation of where the place is located; and for last, the PLSS information for
the mine.
Considering
that, the entities were divided in three different sheets using Microsoft Excel
(Figure 1): 14 entities contained full address
and were supposed to correctly geocode; 4 entities were based on directions;
for last, 7 entities were based on PLSS code.
Figure 1 – Division
of entities in different sheets.
With
that, only the “(SupposeTo)GeocodeMines” sheet needed to fit the fields of the
locator, since the others would need other methods to get a X,Y location. Then,
a rough division of fields was made, without much concern to abbreviations on
the address, and then the geocoding tool was applied to check what might be
changed. Then, the fields were adapted to match better the reference feature.
For example, one of the mines had the address “S1678 CTH U”. (Figure 2). Although
it’s possible to determine that S stands for South and 1678 is the number
address, if you’re not familiar with the typical abbreviations, the “CTH”
doesn’t have a intuitive meaning.
Figure 2 –
Abbreviation in entity address.
A
quick research was made to identify its meaning, resulting in “County Trunk
Highway”, which is a nomination exclusive for Wisconsin. After examining the
streets of the different counties by Google Earth, it was possible to
understand better its structure. It’s extremely common to have different
streets named simply “County Road”, which can also be referred with the county
name. Inside Eau Claire County, for example, it can also be called “Eau Claire
Road”. In counties less urbanized, this is the base of the street naming, using
letters of the alphabet as a suffix to differentiate them. They are also
usually abbreviated to “Co Rd”, which was found in other entities as well and
was not easily comprehended at first (Figure 3).
Figure 3 – Structure of
roads near Montana, WI
Then,
after analyzing all the addresses and its possible correspondents, a new
correct sheet was used to run the geocode tool with. While geocoding, it’s
necessary to pay attention on the method used. The locator used will place the
feature in the centroid of the zip-code, city or state in case it doesn’t fit
in any other category. Then, after running the geocoding tool, it was necessary
to analyze the “Loc_name” field to see to which locator the feature was matched
to, the desired ones were “US_RoofTop” or “US_Streets”
(Figure 4). Because the ones with “US_CityState” and “US_Zipcode” had
the feature in the centroid of the polygon, they need to be manually found.
Figure 4 – Examination
of “Loc_name” field to recognize unacceptable geocoding.
By
comparing the current results in Arc Map to the address search using Google
Earth, it was possible to manually locate the mines. A two-screen set was
extremely helpful to maintain both softwares open and visible. With that, it
was easier to compare ground features and locate them correctly. The ideal
scenario was to find the exact location of the mines, what was possible by
using some 2013 updated Google Earth satellite images available (Figure 5).
Although remote sensing is not the focus
of this project, it’s important to use its skills to recognize a mine by its
exclusive tone, association with buildings and trucks, which creates a peculiar
circular shape. Also, with remote sensing identification skills, the comparison
between the features around the mine enables its placement in Arc Map, where
the image was not as updated.
Figure 5 – Typical
characteristics of a sand mine using tone, shape and association.
However,
not all the mines could be extremely precisely located. Not all mines listed
are already built, some are not in a stage where recognition is possible and
not all the satellite images are updated enough for the identification. Then,
when it was not possible to visualize it, the location was based in the road or
directions given by the “Facility Address” field.
This
process was used for the entities not geocoded and also the ones based on
directions. The difference between them is that for the first ones, an editor
session was enough to change its location; while for the second ones, it was
necessary to create a field on Excel to input its GCS coordinates available in
Google Earth. To increase precision, it’s important to remember to use about
six decimal places for GCS coordinates, since in this location, 0.1° represents
approximately 8km. After the input, it was necessary to import the stand-alone
table, display it using X,Y coordinates and then export the data as a feature
class to the geodatabase being used.
For
last, the localization of features based on its PLSS was made. It was noticed
that the code was no standardized; some features had the name of the township,
instead of its number and range. To be able to fix the table with the correct
code, a resource provided by the Wisconsin Cartographer’s Office was used: the
PLSS Finder. With that, it was possible to localize the Township and Range
based on the name given, using the search tool (Figure
6). For that, it was useful to remove the PLSS Covers, some other layers
such as County lines and names were useful to localize the features.
Figure 6 – Use of
PLSS Finder to identify township and range numbers by its name.
After
having an appropriate table, two polygon feature classes were used to localize
the same locations inside Arc Map: Sections and Quarter-Sections. However,
since most of features didn’t have the quarter-section information, the
sections feature was essentially used. In this feature, three fields were
mainly used: township (“TWP”), range (“RNG”) and section (“SEC”). The
symbolization based on the township field was used to understand better the
divisions of the PLSS (Figure 7). First, a query
was used to select only the townships necessary and minimize the overloading of
the system – which was slowing the process by then. Then, the selection was
used to create a new layer, this layer was then symbolized with the townships
32, 33 and 34.
Figure 7 –
Symbolization of townships in Wisconsin.
It would be possible to localize each section by the use of
symbolization, but that would be time-consuming, especially with the amount of
data displayed overloading the system. As faster and easier way to do that is
by running a query (Figure 8). That way, the
software would automatically find the features that meet the codes of the
non-spatial table. The ideal would be to have only one result out of the query,
but some entities were located in more than one section or range. In this
cases, it was necessary to use the operator “OR” as well and the results were
multiple.
Figure 8 – Use of SQL
expression in the query to find the appropriate PLSS sections.
However,
not only these cases had multiple results. The reason for that is on the “DIR”
field. It states if the feature is in the west or east side. However, it was
being represented by 2 and 4 and a legend wasn’t available. Then, the multiple
results were kept and map visualization would show which direction each one
had. After running each query, the selection would be used to create a new
feature layer (Figure 9). Multiple layers would
be helpful to keep the organization and not overload the system with a large
amount of unnecessary data.
Then,
all the layers would be turned off and, individually, each entity would be
located with an imagery base map. Then, with Google Earth open in a different
screen, it would be possible to find the mine or approximate to the main street
inside the section. The procedure would be similar to the ones for the
directions: comparison between different satellite images, input of GCS
coordinates in six decimal places, importation in ArcGIS using X,Y coordinates
and later data exportation as a feature class.
For
last, with all the mines located – even if in different levels of precision –
it was necessary to put all together in one only table. However, the fields
were already modified and wouldn’t match. Then, a simplified table was created
with the key-field “MAPID”, its coordinates and the initials of who found that location.
For the coordinate fields, it was necessary to use the “Add X,Y coordinates”.
All the features were kept in a geodatabase (Figure 10), so they were all
projected in the same coordinate system: Wisconsin State Plane System – Central
Zone (NAD 1983). For that reason, the fields created would match each other afterwards.
For last, the group agreed in having the coordinates in this same coordinate
system and a excel table was made with all the entities. The table would be
then be imported to ArcGIS using the X,Y coordinates and later exported as a
feature class.
Figure 10 - Geodatabase for the mine location finding.
Results
Therefore,
the data gathering resulted in a geodatabase containing the different elements
obtained (Figure 11).
Figure 11 –
Geodatabase designed for data gathering.
The
railroads feature class contains data for the whole United States (Figure 12),
but it will be clipped to the area of interest, as soon as this area is
defined.
Figure 12 – Railroads
The
same generalization happens with the cropland data layer (Figure 13), obtained
for the whole state of Wisconsin. In this case, it will be necessary to use a
different kind of clipping tool, since it’s a raster feature.
Figure 13 – Cropland Data
Layer
Then,
since the exercise was focused in the Trempealeau County, some features were
collected only within its area, like the soils feature class (Figure 14). The
DEM mosaic (Figure 15) and the land cover feature class by NLCD (Figure 16) don’t
match the exact boundary of the county, but also don’t cover much beyond that.
Figure 14 –
Trempealeau County Soils Feature Class
Figure 15 – Elevation
based on a DEM mosaic
Figure 16 – Land Cover
by NLCD
Later
on, to find the location of mines, after the division of 25 entities for each
person, 14 were used in the geocoding tool, having the result of one feature
tied – which was easily untied afterwards – and 13 matched. However, from those
13 matched, only seven consisted on the address locator; five of them were
matched to the centroid of its zip code and one to the centroid of the city.
For these six misplaced entities, the editor tool was used to replace them in
the right location. Besides the ones related to the geocoding process, four
entities were based in directions and seven in the PLSS code.
Considering
all the entities, after joining with the rest of the group, 74 were matched
(manually or by geocoding) and 25 didn’t have information enough to be matched.
The result was a feature class containing the mine features, originated from Trempealeau database, plus these 74 features localized (Figure 17), based
on the excel table designed (Figure 18).
Figure 17 - Sand Mines in Wisconsin
Figure 18 - Simplified table to create sand mines feature class.
Conclusion
The
process of gathering data and locating non-spatial table – either manually or
through the geocoding tool – is crucial for any project being made that depends
on searching data and not finding only spatial files. It’s literally impossible
to start your project without these steps, and the results will be the base of
all the other steps, so it’s necessary to be really careful with the procedures
taken. For that reason and even just because of the nature of the process, it
gets time-demanding and complicated to deal with, so patience is extremely
desired to deal with it.
The
overload of the system is common when dealing with large datasets, especially
in the data gathering, where most of the features were rasters; and if not,
they contained way too much information, which made the software crash for some
times. A lot of time was also taken by
the system overloads when geocoding and using satellite images in Arc Map. For
that, it was very useful to use Google Earth, since it has a better performance
when dragging, zooming in and out on the map.
Flexibility
is also an important element for these tasks, because you frequently need to
find different ways to come to an answer, such as dealing with unfamiliar
abbreviations or dealing with the overload in the system.
Finally,
the exercise can be considered successful in establishing the base data to be
later manipulated in order to accomplish the bigger goal of the project. With
the data formatted and organized as it’s after this, it will be possible to
easily manage it and apply the procedures for the next steps.
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