SW USA Data Project Research

You need to choose a topic to research that is related to the SW USA (i.e., the California/Nevada region incorporating the San Andreas Fault, Death Valley and Basin and Range Province) – there flexibility to focus on a particular event, place or time period within this region but you need to choose one of these titles asap so that you can start researching scientific papers on that topic to get ideas for the types of data available and analyses that you could do. For most of these topics there is an associated practical that you can draw inspiration from and you can draw upon skills from other practicals to address the topic chosen.
Potential topics include:
• A geohazard event that has occurred (i.e., earthquake, flood, tsunami, landslide)
• A future sea-level scenario and potential impact
• Tectonic or fluvial geomorphology of a site of interest

If you have idea for another topic please check with Sarah first to ensure that it is viable and a valid.

• Checking data availability
Once you have chosen a topic think about the types of data you will need for your project. There are lots of free sources for satellite imagery and digital elevation models that all projects can use and many nations freely publish a range of geological data but many don’t. I expect to see in all projects a range of primary datasets being brought together, including:
• Satellite data (optical satellites imagery, DEMs etc)
• Published datasets (datasets from published papers or websites with coordinate information)
• Georeferenced or digitised map data

• Planning and undertaking your GIS analysis
Once you know the topic and know that there are data available you need to think about the range of analyses that you could use to answer the scientific question that you are investigating.
You must as part of your work generate new secondary data from the primary data that you have found, for example:
• Interpolations to make rasters from point data
• DEM analyses to make catchments, terrain maps, river systems, susceptibility maps etc – there is a lot you can do with a DEM!
• Density or cluster analyses of datasets
Once you have planned and thought about how you can do the analyses you can then crack on and build your geodatabase, format your data and do some GIS!
You also need to be quantitative – you are scientists! So remember than your analyses need to produce clear output data (facts and figures!).
• Collating information
Once you have finished your analyses you need to think about the key layers/data that you need. Upload these to ArcGIS Online – you might not need to upload everything that you have used or created. Collate other images (photos, diagrams etc.), write your text and maybe even source relevant videos and make sure you have everything ready.
• Build your story map
This is the last stage – once you have everything you need written and uploaded to ArcGIS Online it should be fairly straightforward to get everything uploaded and formatted into the Story Map. Shaun’s sessions will help you navigate this stage but don’t leave it to the last minute and don’t try and upload GBs of data!!