Trends and concerns in digital cartography

CISRG discussion paper ;

GIS Characterization of Beaver Watershed

Beaver Reservoir watershed is located in Northwest Arkansas including portions of Madison, Washington, Benton, Carroll, Franklin and Crawford counties. This watershed is important to the Northwest Arkansas region because it supplies most of the drinking water for the major towns and cities, and several rural water systems. The watershed consists of 308,971 ha with elevations ranging from approximately 341 m to 731 m above mean sea level. It includes the Springfield Plateau and the Boston Mountains provinces within the Ozark Plateau physiographic region. There are approximately 581 km of streams, 532 km of shore line, and 3712 km of roads in the watershed most of which are city streets and rural roads. The soils in the watershed vary extensively and are quite complex due to the differences in parent material, topography and time. Most parent material of the soils in the Springfield Plateau is limestone, whereas in the Boston Mountains the dominant parent material is sandstone and shale. The differences in soils have led to the differences in landuse and land cover. The near surface geology in the watershed is also divided by physiographic provinces. Most of the Springfield Plateau surface geology is limestone, whereas the Boston Mountains are primarily sandstone and shale. Spatial details of the streams, roads, soils and geology attributes in the watershed are presented in this report. The GIS database and characterization of the watershed offers an excellent beginning to future research and modeling of various water quality parameters in this and other watersheds

A Water Utility Mapping Application for the City of Elko, Nevada

This project explains how a small town in northeastern Nevada improved the collection of data for the local water utility department with the use of a GIS. The initial need was to improve and expand the city’s existing GIS data holdings by incorporating ESRI’s ArcGIS product to accommodate the mapping needs of the Engineering and Municipal Water Departments. The collection of data into a GIS is used to find, improve, and reduce time spent on researching for information needed for planning and decision making. Data assessment and conversion comprised a major portion of the project. The database design was modified with the use of an existing water utility data model based on the assessment provided by the client. The software design for the project utilizes out-of-the-box ArcGIS 9.2 tools and functionality. The use of a geometric network was implemented to execute trace analysis on the water network available with use of the Utility Network Analyst toolbar. The importance of using GIS for the water utility department has proven to be more than a pretty map but rather a tool that can be used to solve problems when they arise which helps save time and money for the community

Interactive topographic web mapping using scalable vector graphics

Large scale topographic maps portray detailed information about the landscape. They are used for a wide variety o f purposes. USGS large scale topographic maps at 1:24,000 have been traditionally distributed in paper form. With the advent of the Internet, these maps can now be distributed electronically. Instead of common raster format presentation, the solution presented here is based on a vector approach. The vector format provides many advantages compared to the use of a raster-based presentation. This research shows that Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) is a promising technology for delivering high quality interactive topographic maps via the Internet, both in terms o f graphic quality and interactivity. A possible structure for the SVG map document is proposed. Interactive features such as toggling thematic layers on and off, UTM coordinate readout for x, y, and z (elevation) were developed as well. Adding this type of interactivity can help to better extract information from a topographic map. A focus group analysis with the online SVG topographic map shows a high-level of user acceptance