Friday, September 27, 2013

Lab 1: Base Data

Goal and Background:


The confluence project is a collaboration of public and private parties, working together to redevelop an area of downtown Eau Claire, Wisconsin at the confluence of the Eau Claire and Chippewa rivers. A community arts center, public plaza, housing, commercial/retail space, and parking are all to be constructed on two parcels in this location.
The goal of my project was to prepare a report containing relevant mapping data. Below I have provided maps of civil divisions, census boundaries, PLSS divisions, parcel data, city land use, and the voting districts for the area of the confluence project.


Methods:


To create these maps, I used ESRI Arc GIS 10.2. I began by creating six data frames. In the first, I added a feature class containing Eau Claire County's border. Then, I added a civil divisions feature class. This is the Civil Divisions data frame. In the PLSS Features data frame, I added townships, sections, and quarter-quarter sections feature classes. I gave them unique colors so Eau Claire county was given a grid of PLSS features. In the Census Boundaries data frame, I added a block group feature class and a tracts feature class. I used the block groups data to display population density, with the tracts feature class over the top. In the zoning data frame I added a zoning feature class and grouped a number of zones together to simplify the map. I then provided a centerlines feature class to show roads, trails and the like. In each data frame, I zoomed in to a reasonable distance, and added the proposed site feature class into each data frame. It is denoted by two red polygons on each map.


confluence project map
Confluence Project. Click to expand.

 

Sources:

http://www.eauclairearts.com/confluence/
http://www.uwec.edu/News/more/confluenceprojectFAQs.htm
http://volumeone.org/news/1/posts/2012/05/15/3134_arts_center