GIS I Lab 1: Base Data

Top Left to Right: Fig. 1, Fig. 2, Fig. 3.
Bottom Left to Right: Fig. 4, Fig. 5, Fig. 6

Goal: The purpose of this assignment was to apply skills learned in Geography 335 GIS I to a real life situation. These skills include: digitizing buildings and geological features, creating a manipulating layers, altering features, manipulating symbols, and basic cartographic practices such as creating a neat legend and scale. Another purpose of this assignment was to become familiar with various data sets, including: the Public Land Survey System and parcels of land and their legal descriptions.

Background:  The goal of this project was to assess the projected site of the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire Confluence project.  This was achieved by assessing the various governmental data of Eau Claire County and the city of Eau Claire.  The Confluence Project is a future development through a combined private-public effort to take place at the meeting of the Eau Claire and Chippewa Rivers.  The various proposed projects include a new arts center and additional student housing for the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.


Method:  For all six maps I added world imagery as a base layer to aid in giving the reader a better picture of the area surrounding the Confluence Project.  I then digitized the future site of the Confluence Project by using the parcel data and the projected site listed on the Confluence Project FAQ online.  I then added various features for each seperate map. 

• Figure 1:  I added the civil division data from the Eau Claire county database in order to give a good scope of the region surrounding Eau Claire and the Confluence Project.
• Figure 2:  In order to give a better understanding of the region I added the block groups and tracts from the county and city database.  I then symbolized the block groups based on the population per square mile.
• Figure 3:  In this map I included the Public Land Survey System quarter quarter areas, which I added from the Eau Claire County database.
• Figure 4:  I inserted the water and centerline data from the city database and also included the parcel data for the city of Eau Claire.
• Figure 5:  This is a map of the different zoning areas in the city of Eau Claire.  I obtained this data from the Eau Claire city database and then grouped the zones based on the more broad zoning terms of C (commercial), CBD (central business district), I (industrial), P (public properties district, R (residential), and T (transportation).
• Figure 6:  I added the Eau Claire voting wards from the city database and labeled them based on the voting ward number assigned to them.

Results:  An interesting observation of this map is how close the projected site of the Confluence Project is to the the central business district of Eau Claire, which can be seen in Fig. 5.  This could be advantageous to the students who will be living in the new housing, as they will have easy access to resources and entertainment.  Also, the central business district may profit due to the close proximity of the potential customers (students) and all of the attention the new arts center is projected to bring in.  One potential problem with this project, which can be seen in Figures 4 and 5, is the lack of easy routes (centerlines in the maps) to the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire main campus, located just south of the riverbend in the public properties district (P) zoning data, seen in Fig. 5.  This could lead to congested traffic along the routes between the CBD and the UW-Eau Claire main campus.



Sources:

Eau Claire Regional Arts Center. (n.d.). Confluence. Retrieved from http://www.eauclairearts.com/confluence/

University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. (n.d.). News @ uw-eau claire. Retrieved from http://www.uwec.edu/News/more/confluenceprojectFAQs.htm
City of Eau Claire
Eau Claire County