GIS I: 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.