Lab 6: Music Festival, Part 2 - Musical Destination

Introduction

With the data in hand, we can now determine the optimal area to hold a Music Festival. We have been informed that the parcel(s) must be Rural Residential, zoned as " U," intersect with roads, avoid wetlands and rivers, and be within the range of a cell phone tower!

Learning Outcomes

• Use basic vector analysis tools (Intersect, Buffer, Clip, Dissolve, Erase, Add Field, Field Properties, Select by Attribute, Boolean Operators, Select by Location, Field Calculator)
• Perform basic overlay operations: Intersect, Buffer, Clip, Dissolve, Erase
• Use Boolean operators to select features, create a new layer from selected features, and export selected features to a new shapefile
• Create maps that convey results of spatial analysis

Setup

Within this lab, we'll be working in NAD 83, UTM Zone 10 North. We'll be using the data from the previous lab so just make sure you have a folder called "2_Working" with a folder inside of it named "NAD_83_UTM_Zone_10_North" with all the layers from the previous lab in the correct spatial reference system.

Walk Through

Within the Parcels shapefile, there are polygons that have been categorized as Rural Residential. To only select these polygons, we must use the Select by Attributes tool within ArcMap.

1. Launch the .mxd created in Lab 5:

2. From Table of Contents, right-click on Parcels and click on "Open Attribute Table:"

3. Within the Attribute Table, select "Table Options:"

4. From the drop-down menu, click on Select by Attributes:

5. This next step will bring up a Select By Attributes window. Click on "Help" near the bottom of the window and take a moment to read through the help documentation. Once you are done, close the Help window.
   1. Double-click on "EXLU4" within the box under Method (notice that "EXLU4" appears in the box at the bottom),
   2. Click on "Get Unique Values".
   3. "Get Unique Values" will populate all unique values in the attribute column "EXLU4" within the middle box.
   4. Click on the equals sign ("=").
   5. Double-click on 'rural residential' (notice that this text will appear in the box at the bottom). Your window should look like the one depicted below (without the red boxes).
   6. Click on "Apply" and all fields that match this description should highlight within the Attribute Table:

6. Click on "Show selected records" at the bottom of the attribute table window to only view selected records within the Attribute Table:

7. Right-click on "Parcels" and highlight "Selection" with your mouse from the drop-down menu. A new drop-down menu will appear adjacent to the one already open; click on "Create Layer From Selected Features" within this menu:

This will create a new layer with the original name plus the word "selection":

This new layer is a temporary selection layer that will vanish if you close your .mxd without saving. It is a representation of the data based on the original shapefile, so it must be exported as a shapefile to make this selection permanent.

8. Right-click on the "selection" layer and highlight "Data;" this will open a drop-down menu adjacent to the one already open. Click on "Export Data..." from this menu:

9. Make sure "Export" is set to "all features," and "Use the same coordinate system as" is set to "this layer's source data,"
10. Click on the folder icon to navigate to your "02_Working folder" to save this selection as a shapefile.
11. Take a moment and think about what would make a good name for this new file. It should probably contain "parcels" and "rural_residential".

10. When you click "OK" the layer will be created and you'll be asked if you want it added into ArcMap.
11. Respond "Yes" and you should see the new layer appear. You now know how to divide up shapefiles based on attributes!
12. Within the Tools Toolbar above the Table of Contents, click on "Clear Selected Features" on the toolbar.

Skill Drill 1: Select by Attributes

Select Areas that are Residential Rural and Zoned as "U"

The next section will have you select the areas of Humboldt County that are zoned as "U" and then intersect those areas with the residential rural layer from the previous section.

11. Repeat the proceeding steps, but for the Zoning shapefile and Select by Attributes for all features with a 'Y' (Yes) in the "U" attribute.

Do not query the ' U' at the top of the list (it has an extra space at the beginning), as this will give you the incorrect result. You should come up with 560 selections:

12. Click on the Geoprocessing tab and click on Intersect from the drop-down menu:

By using the Intersect tool on the Zoning and Parcels selection shapefiles, you are producing a shapefile that contains an Attribute Table that has all instances where a polygon is both 'U' and 'Rural Residential.'

13. Take a moment to read the Help documentation on this tool.
14. Add the rural residential layer and the zoning features with "U" as "Input Features".
15. For "Output Feature Class," navigate to your 02_Working folder by clicking on the folder icon and saving your output shapefile as "RuralU.shp:"

15. This will create a new layer, "RuralU" that contains only features that are rural residential and zoned as "U".

Next, we want to select all the areas that overlap with a road.

15. To select all features within "RuralU" that overlap with the Roads_Proj shapefile, you can use "Select by Location"
16. Click on the "Selection" tab and click on "Select By Location" from the drop-down menu:

16. Check the RuralU box within the "Target Layer(s)".
17. Click on Roads_Proj within the "Source Layer" drop-down menu.
18. Leave all other options at default and click "OK".

17. Right-click on the RuralU shapefile within the "Table of Contents", and use "Create Layer from Selected Features", and "Export Data" to create a new shapefile
18. Name the file RuralURoads.shp.

Skill Drill 2: Select by Location

Our Final Parcel cannot intersect with any rivers or water bodies, so the following steps will produce a selection of all RuralURoads that do not overlap with the National Hydrology Database (NHD) and the Wetlands data.

19. Repeat steps 15 to 17, but with RuralURoads as the Target Layer(s) and your NHD layer as the Source Layer.
1. Open the RuralURoads Attribute Table and click on the Switch Selection icon.

Switch Selection deselects all attributes currently selected and selects the remaining attributes that were not selected from the original query.

2. Create Layer from Selected Features and Export Data as a new shapefile named RuralURoadsNHD.shp.

To work with the wetland data, we'll first clip the wetlands just to Humboldt County, then buffer the area around the wetlands, and then erase the remaining area from our current layer.

20. From the Geoprocessing tab, click on Clip.
21. Since Wetlands_Proj extends beyond our area of interest, we will use the Clip tool to remove unnecessary data. Read the Help documentation to become more familiar with this tool:

22. The Input Features will be the Wetlands_Proj shapefile and the Clip Features will be the CNTYOUTL_Proj shapefile. Output Feature Class is still the 02_Working Folder.
    1. Name this shapefile Wetlands_CD and click OK.
23. From the Geoprocessing tab, click on Dissolve:

Dissolve allows the user to simplify shapefile data. Read the Help documentation to become more familiar with this tool.

24. Dissolve the Wetlands_CD shapefile and leave all options except the Input Features and Output Feature Class as default.

We will utilize the Buffer tool to place our Music Festival 3200 meters (approximately 2 miles) from any wetlands within Humboldt County.

25. Select "Buffer" from the "Geoprocessing" menu.
26. Leave all settings at default except Input Features (Wetlands_CD), Output Features Class (02_Working Folder), and the Linear unit (3200 meters):

You might notice that this is taking a horribly long time to process - this is because a buffer is being created around every single feature within the shapefile.

26. Before going further, you'll want to Dissolve your buffered wetland shapefile to make the next step go much faster.
27. Click on the Search button (or use the Ctrl+F trick) to open a search window:

27. Type in "erase" and hit [Enter], then click on the first option Erase (Analysis):

28. Input RuralURoadsNHD as the Input Features, and Wetland_Buff as the erase features and save your shapefile as "Erase.shp." This tool is fairly straight forward, in that it will erase all of the wetland from RuralURoadsNHD:

Adding XY Data

The Final Parcel must also be within cell phone tower range. Fortunately, we have access to a .csv file that has the latitude and longitude for each cell phone tower within Humboldt County. The next series of steps will instruct you on how to add this data and export it as a shapefile.

29. Download CellTowers_GCS.csv and save it to the 01_Originals folder.
30. Click on File within ArcMap, highlight Add Data, then click on "Add XY Data..." from the drop-down menu:

31. Click on the folder icon and select CellTower_GCS.csv then choose LONG_DD as the "X Field" and LAT_DD as the "Y Field."
32. Click on "Edit..." and expand "Geographic Coordinate Systems," scroll down and expand "World," and select WGS 1984 and click OK:

33. Right-click on the CellTower_GCS.csv Events layer from within the Table of Contents and export it as a shapefile.
34. Project CellTower_GCS.shp into NAD_1983_UTM_Zone_10N and save as CellTower_UTM.shp.

Creating Buffers based on a Unique Field

For the next series of steps, we will be creating Buffers based on a unique field within the Attribute Table:

35. Right-click on CellTower_UTM within the Table of Contents and open the Attribute Table.
36. From the Table Options drop-down menu, click on Add Field:

37. Fill in the Name as Buffer, select Double from the drop-down menu and within Field Properties, input 10 for Precision and 5 for Scale:

38. From the Table Options drop-down menu, click on Select by Attributes...

We will be creating a unique buffer field based on four different values (3200, 4800, 6400, and 8000); the following steps will show you how to use Select by Attributes to select specific cell phone towers and assign a unique value to the newly created field.

Towers ("LOC_NO")	Buffer
5, 10, 22, 25-27	3200
3-4, 7-9, 11-12, 15-21, 23-24	4800
1-2	6400
6, 13-14	8000

39. Double-click on "LOC_NO," the equal sign ("="), and then type in 6. Double click on "or," then "LOC_NO" and greater than or equal to (">=") 13 click on "And," then double click on "LOC_NO" and less than or equal to 14, then click on "Apply:"

40. Right-click on the Buffer Field, then select Field Calculator from the drop-down menu:

41. Enter 8000 and click on "OK"

42. Repeat the steps above until the buffer values from the table above have all been applied to the CellTower_UTM Attribute Table.

 

Skill Drill 3: Select by Attributes - Boolean Operators

43. From the Geoprocessing drop-down menu, click on Buffer and select CellTower_UTM as the Input Features, navigate to your 02_Working Folder to save your shapefile as CellTower_Buff.shp and click on the Field radio button. From the drop-down menu within Field, select Buffer. Read the Help documentation on selecting this field.
44. Leave all other options at default and click on OK:

44. From the Geoprocessing drop-down menu, select Intersect and intersect CellTower_Buff with Erase.shp and save the output as FinalParcel.shp.

46. Save your .mxd!

The Final Parcel (which should have two rows within the Attribute Table), will be utilized for Lab 7. The final selection should appear as follows:

In Lab Turn-In

Export and submit a TIFF of the Final Parcel at the end of lab.

Take Home Turn-In

A report that includes the parcel image and a description of the location and anything else outlined in Creating Reports in MS-Word.