Question 1: Cartographic Modeling
a. Sketch by hand a model, using the correct symbology, that uses the ‘POLYRAS’ module to rasterize a vector file named ‘Education’, then overlays the new ‘Education’ raster with a raster file image named ‘Malaria’. [1 mark]
b. Give an example of a research question that leads you to overlay these two rasters. [1 mark]
A potential research question that could lead me to overlay the education and malaria raster image files could be: How many schools provide courses/information about preventing malaria and/or malaria-safe practices?
Question 2: Database Query
a. What are the two fundamental types of query in GIS? [1 mark]
The two fundamental types of query in GIS are ‘query by location’ and ‘query by attribute’.
b. Give an example of each type of GIS query, in the form of a question. [2 marks]
An example of a ‘query by location’ is: what is the elevation at 48.7767° N, 121.8144° W?
An example of a ‘query by attribute’ is: where are all cities that have a population higher than 1 million people in Canada?
c. What is the difference between a working folder and a resource folder? [1 mark]
A working folder is your own folder that you create where the results of your projects that you are creating are stored. A resource folder is where you store data that is read, but not modified, whereas you can modify the data in a working folder.
d. What is the spatial resolution, reference units, and min/max values of drelief.RST? [1 mark]
The spatial resolution is 30×30 and the reference units are meters. The minimum value is 5.0000000 and the maximum value is 15.9999666.
e. Give an appropriate, one-sentence research question for the task in this exercise (working with the DEM and soil type rasters). [1 mark]
What land would be suitable for sorghum cultivation and benefit from the flooding that would occur due to the building of a dam on the north end of the Senegal River?
f. Bonus mark: in what town was the inventor of Boolean logic born? In what text did he publish his Boolean theory and what year was this? Give an example of two operations in ArcGIS that uses Boolean logic. [1 mark]
The inventor of Boolean logic, George Boole, was born in Lincoln, UK. He first published his Boolean theory in the text Mathematical Analysis of Logic in the year 1847. Two operations in ArcGIS that use Boolean logic are: clip and union.
g. How many square meters are suitable for sorghum cultivation? [1 mark]
There are 37,718,100 square meters of land that are suitable for sorghum cultivation.
h. The average price per hectare is 520 000 Mauritanian Ougulya. Calculate the estimated market value of each plot identified in this exercise. [3 marks]
| Category (Plot) | Hectares | Estimated Market Value/Plot in Mauritanian Ougulya |
| 1 | 1887.480000 | 981 489 600 |
| 2 | 1882.170000 | 978 728 400 |
| 3 | 2.160000 | 1 123 200 |
i. Using MS PowerPoint, create a mapsheet of the suitable plots for sorghum cultivation, with two smaller context maps showing the original relief and soils rasters. Include the estimated value of each plot. [9 marks]
Figure 2. This mapsheet shows the plots that are suitable for sorghum cultivation and would benefit from the excess floodwaters that would accumulate with the building of a dam on the north end of the Senegal River. This was made using the two original raster images on the right side that were queried using Boolean logic and then overlayed to fit the specific requirements needed.
Question 3: Think about your research project topic for this course.
I could not locate sufficient data for my original idea (from blog 1) so I have come up with a new idea that I have found more data sources for.
What is the research problem or issue you want to address? [1 mark]
I want to examine how agricultural run-off (pesticides) impacts local waterways and whether there should be restrictions on what can be used within certain distances of streams/rivers.
What is your draft research question? [1 mark]
Where does agricultural run-off have the highest impacts on local waterways and what can be done to combat this issue?
Provide one high-quality web-based or scholarly source of information on your topic (wiki, blogs, etc. are not appropriate here). [1 mark]
So far, I have found numerous sources that provide good information. This includes data from the Pesticide Environmental Stewardship https://pesticidestewardship.org/water/runoff/ as well as articles such as the “Stormwater Runoff: Understanding the Ecological Impacts of Changing Land Uses” paper by Joan Chadde.
Works Cited
Eastman, Ronald J. TerrSet. Version 18.31. Worcester, MA: Clark University, 1987-2017.
GEOG 355 