Post 3:Data Gathering

Goals and objectives

The goal of this assignment was to download data from multiple sources, merge the data, and project it all with the same coordinate system. We also became familiar with python scripting, so we were able to project, clip and load the data into our geodatabase. Below are maps of Trempealeau County located in Wisconsin. These maps are meant to show sand mining in the county and the possible risks with activities such as transportation by rail line.

Methods

Data was obtained from various websites, that were downloaded into a temporary folder and then unzipped into our own folder. Data sets came from US Department of Transportation, USGS National map viewer, USDA Geospatial Data Gateway, Trempealeau County Records, and the USDA NRCS Web Soil Survey. With this data we were able to map land cover, transportation, crop cover, elevation and the location of the sand frac mining.

Sources of Data:

US Department of Transportation: http://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/rita.dot.gov.bts/files/publications/national_transportation_atlas_database/index.html

USGS National Map Viewer

http://nationalmap.gov/about.html

USDA Geospatial Data Gateway

https://gdg.sc.egov.usda.gov/

Trempealeau County Land Records

http://www.tremplocounty.com/tchome/landrecords/

USDA NRCS Web Soil Survey

http://websoilsurvey.sc.egov.usda.gov/App/HomePage.htm



Figure 1: Crops and tree cover of Trempealeau County

Figure 2: Land cover of Trempealeau County, showing where sand frac mining takes place and the railroads that carry the sand.

Figure 3: Elevation of Trempealeau County, showing where sand frac mining takes place and the railroads that carry the sand.

Data Accuracy

Conclusions

Not only is metadata difficult to find but sometimes there are pieces missing. This is very worrisome because we don't know how accurate the data actually is. The only other way to figure out the values that are marked "Not Available (N/A) would be to call someone in that department and ask them about the information. This is time consuming for small details. Companies/corporations/government programs should make metadata easier to obtain. Without metadata how do we even know what we are looking at? This project entailed a lot of data to download and unzip. It was very important to stay organized and know exactly where each piece of data would be located.