English

Abstract

North Dakota Public Service Commission (NDPSC) policies require that soil respread thickness be verified by soil probing reclaimed land prior to bond release approval. The topsoil and subsoil thicknesses observed from soil probing were compared to those presented on the bond release application soil respread thickness map. Soil respread thicknesses usually vary within the bond release area as grade approvals were submitted during contemporaneous reclamation. The objective of this paper was to identify soil probe locations within soil respread thickness boundaries using tablet computer software. The use of ArcPad software with GPS positioning on a tablet computer allowed accurate probe placement within soil respread thickness boundaries when displayed on geo-referenced raster images or as shapefile polygons. The topsoil and subsoil thickness observations and supporting data were recorded in an ArcPad QuickForm ® created for the soil probe location shapefile. The QuickForm was activated by capturing a GPS point at each probe location. Additional data fields of the soil probe shapefile attribute table were populated after adding the shapefile to an ArcMap ® map document. The shapefile attribute table was exported to analyze the data in spreadsheet form. Soil probe locations collected as spatial data in ArcPad allow subsequent analysis and display in an ArcMap map document.