Project 2: Sierra Costera Site Evaluation: Assignment/Deliverables
After several conversations, WWF feels the products listed below will be hugely beneficial for their workshop. Please submit the following no later than February 16th. Submit them as hardcopy and also digitally on Sakai. [ALSO, submit your ArcPro toolbox to Sakai.](We'll use this to give you partial credit...)
First, present the stream dataset you created from the 90m DEM along with a brief memo explaining relevant decisions you made in creating the dataset.
Include a map set to the extent of the 5 watersheds showing the watershed boundaries and your stream layer. Show larger order streams shown with thicker lines.
Also include a small inset map zoomed in to an area showing your generated stream along with the INEGI stream layer.
Discuss in your memo how your DEM derived stream layer compares to INEGI's in terms of accuracy and level of detail.
Next, WWF-Mexico wants to know the tradeoffs between using the 90m DEM vs. the 15m DEM. Specifically, they want you to calculate summary statistics (mean and standard deviation) of slope (degrees) for each of the 5 watersheds (the ones derived from the 90m DEM). Submit the following for the slope data derived from both the 90m and 15m DEM.
Enter the mean and standard deviation of slope for each watershed in the first table in the Project2_Results.xlsx Excel file (found here).
Compare these results generated by the different resolution DEMs. Are slopes more or less the same, or does one appear to generate higher slope values than the other? Briefly explain why they are similar or different. (One paragraph will do here.)
Some researchers will be interested in your Slope Position and Landform datasets. Provide the following maps for discussion.
Provide maps of two slope position datasets -- fine and coarse. Mention the neighborhood values used to generate each and briefly explain how the two maps differ in terms of what's being shown. Set the map's extent to the 5 watersheds and display the watershed boundaries.
Provide a map of your Landforms. Include a table listing how much area of each landform is shown on your map.
TIP: When migrating values from ArcGIS tables to Excel, if you save the table in .dbf format, you can open it from within Excel. Or you can also export ArcGIS table to CSV.
As a very rough approximation of biodiversity within each watershed, WWF wants you to compute the relative amount of warm and moist area within the 5 catchments. They've agreed that "warm" areas are those with an insolation > 125 and moist areas are those with a TCI > 8.
Given this criteria, calculate the total "warm and moist" area within each catchment. Insert these values in the second table in the Project2Results.xslx table.
Include a map showing the pixels classified as "warm" and "moist" zoomed to the extent of the 5 watershed boundaries. Include the watershed boundaries in this map.
WWF wants to map sections of the landscape that may be more sensitive to deforestation, grazing, and human impacts. They suggest using the technique Weiss mentions in the last frame on his poster (www.jennessent.com/downloads/tpi-poster-tnc_18x22.pdf ). To do this, they've asked you for the following:
Create a TPI raster using an annulus with an inner radius of 5 cells and an outer radius of 10 cells. Use the 90m DEM.
Using the planning units dataset created in this lab, display a map of the mean TPI (created above) for each planning unit. Display these values as 5 quantiles (i.e., quintiles).
Extract just the fine scale TPI pixels within 500m from your stream raster. (Use the TPI raster created in step 1 above, and use the flow length technique outlined earlier in this lab to determine which cells are within 500m.) Then, create a second map showing the mean values of these near-stream TPI cells within each of the planning units. The two maps should be the planning units colored by (1) mean TPI and (2) mean TPI of near-stream cells. Again, display these values in quintiles and don't forget to include legends!
Lastly, WWF is interested in the relative amount of floodplain occurring in each of the 5 catchments. They consider a floodplain to be areas that are 3 meters above the stream.
Create a map displaying the floodplain areas across the 5 catchments, using the floodplain derived from the 15m DEM as instructed in the lab PDF. (Again, use the catchments derived from the 90m DEM, but do pay attention to cell size in computing you results.)
Enter the total floodplain area (in ) occurring in each in the Project2Results.xlsx table.