Accessing and Analyzing Soil Data using Web Soil Surveys, Papers of Physical Geography

Download Accessing and Analyzing Soil Data using Web Soil Surveys and more Papers Physical Geography in PDF only on Docsity! Making a Report Using Web Soil Surveys (9 pts.) Background and Purpose As a future homeowner or nature lover you may need a soil survey manual to answer questions about your property. Where should I build? Will my home become flooded? What kind of trees should I plant on my property? While soil surveys are published for almost every county in the United States, accessing a paper copy of the manual is often problematic. One has to request a manual from a local Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) District office where copies of manuals are often out of print because the government printing agencies no longer publish most manuals. To maintain continued access to this valuable resource, the National Cooperative Soil Survey (NCSS) has created a computer interface for accessing soil survey information for anywhere in the United States through the Web Soil Survey (WSS) Version 2.0. The WSS uses a GIS-like interface to define, view/explore, and check out soil data. In this exercise you gain familiarity with WSS to access soil maps and analyze soil characteristics for your area of interest. Procedure: Access the Web Soil Survey (WSS) at RESGI (webs.cmich.edu/resgi), click on “Soils”, then “Soils and GIS”, and then link #7, “Web Soil Survey.” Once at the site, click the “Start WSS” button to begin this exercise. Part 1: Defining Your Study Area 1. You will be taken to the “Area of Interest” Page. A help menu is available in the upper right hand side of the page. To enable the help menu Click the upside-down question mark. located on the upper right hand portion of the window. 2. Define your “Area of Interest” (AOI). You are free to choose an area that you want to learn more about (your home, where you might buy property, where you vacation frequently) but avoid heavily urbanized areas as all information about soils is usually categorized “Urban Soils” and won’t yield much useful information. Many suburban areas, however, will yield relevant data. Do not report on urbanized soils. I will not accept “urbanized” soils in this assignment. 1 Record the address and zip of your study area. Many suburban locations will be acceptable but locations in the middle of a large city will not. 3. Define your AOI under the “Quick Navigation” menu by entering your address. You can also enter information by county, hydrologic unit, or soil survey area. Enter the appropriate information using the “Address” option. (SHORTCUT: zip code gets you to your desired area in a hurry). Press the button to be brought close to the desired address. 4. Be patient as your AOI is accessed. 5. Use the zoom in and zoom out icons to get close to your AOI. Don’t select too big of an area using this method as this requires lots of processing power and your session might crash terminating your session. By default, you cannot select an area greater than ten thousand acres. Use icons on top of the screen to move in and out or pan around your desired AOI. 6. Use the AOI icons to make a final selection of your area of interest. A scaleable polygon will form when selecting your study area. Releasing the mouse button select the area of interest. Be patient. Maps don’t pop up instantaneously. If using the non rectangle polygon AOI button (on the right side) double-click on your last point to close the polygon. If you make a mistake use the “Clear AOI” button to the left to begin the selection process over. 7. To view the map legend click the “Legend” tab. To see what “Layers” are available, click the “Layers” tab. A table of contents will appear. Experiment turning layers on and off. There are some cool options, like the ability to place a topographic map over your area of interest to see elevation trends. To close “Legend” window click the icon. Note that your study area acreage appears in the upper left hand portion of the screen. Record this figure. Part 2: Viewing a Soil Map of your Study Area 1. When satisfied that the AOL is displayed at the proper level of resolution and after recording acreage, select the “Soil Map” tab located near the top left of the window. 2 analysis especially for question 5, no conceptual errors. All required elements present and additional reference (referenced) adds to the report. (8) element is missing or one conceptual error. A bit too brief or verbose in spots (7.5). elements are missing or two conceptual errors. (7) required elements are missing or more than two conceptual errors. This was done at the last minute. (6 or less) Grammar and Appearance No grammar errors, very neat. (1) 1 grammar error (0.5) Handwritten, 2-3 grammar errors. (0.25) More than 3 grammar errors. (0) 5 6