GIS Shapefiles Research Articles

Georectified polygon database of ground-mounted large-scale solar photovoltaic sites in the United States

Over 4,400 large-scale solar photovoltaic (LSPV) facilities operate in the United States as of December 2021, representing more than 60 gigawatts of electric energy capacity. Of these, over 3,900 are ground-mounted LSPV facilities with capacities of 1 megawatt direct current (MWdc) or more. Ground-mounted LSPV installations continue increasing, with more than 400 projects appearing online in 2021 alone; however, a comprehensive, publicly available georectified dataset including spatial footprints of these facilities is lacking. The United States Large-Scale Solar Photovoltaic Database (USPVDB) was developed to fill this gap. Using US Energy Information Administration (EIA) data, locations of 3,699 LSPV facilities were verified using high-resolution aerial imagery, polygons were digitized around panel arrays, and attributes were appended. Quality assurance and control were achieved via team peer review and comparison to other US PV datasets. Data are publicly available via an interactive web application and multiple downloadable formats, including: comma-separated value (CSV), application programming interface (API), and GIS shapefile and GeoJSON.

MOdern River archivEs of Particulate Organic Carbon: MOREPOC

Abstract. Riverine transport of particulate organic carbon (POC) associated with terrigenous solids to the ocean has an important role in the global carbon cycle. To advance our understanding of the source, transport, and fate of fluvial POC from regional to global scales, databases of riverine POC are needed, including elemental and isotope composition data from contrasted river basins in terms of geomorphology, lithology, climate, and anthropogenic pressure. Here, we present a new, open-access, georeferenced, and global database called MOdern River archivEs of Particulate Organic Carbon (MOREPOC) version 1.1, featuring data on POC in suspended particulate matter (SPM) collected at 233 locations across 121 major river systems. This database includes 3546 SPM data entries, among them 3053 with POC content, 3402 with stable carbon isotope (δ13C) values, 2283 with radiocarbon activity (Δ14C) values, 1936 with total nitrogen content, and 299 with an aluminum-to-silicon ratio (Al / Si). The MOREPOC database aims at being used by the Earth system community to build comprehensive and quantitative models for the mobilization, alteration, and fate of terrestrial POC. The database is made available on the Zenodo repository in machine-readable formats as a data table and GIS shapefile at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7055970 (Ke et al., 2022).

CASCADE – The Circum-Arctic Sediment CArbon DatabasE

Abstract. Biogeochemical cycling in the semi-enclosed Arctic Ocean is strongly influenced by land–ocean transport of carbon and other elements and is vulnerable to environmental and climate changes. Sediments of the Arctic Ocean are an important part of biogeochemical cycling in the Arctic and provide the opportunity to study present and historical input and the fate of organic matter (e.g., through permafrost thawing). Comprehensive sedimentary records are required to compare differences between the Arctic regions and to study Arctic biogeochemical budgets. To this end, the Circum-Arctic Sediment CArbon DatabasE (CASCADE) was established to curate data primarily on concentrations of organic carbon (OC) and OC isotopes (δ13C, Δ14C) yet also on total N (TN) as well as terrigenous biomarkers and other sediment geochemical and physical properties. This new database builds on the published literature and earlier unpublished records through an extensive international community collaboration. This paper describes the establishment, structure and current status of CASCADE. The first public version includes OC concentrations in surface sediments at 4244 oceanographic stations including 2317 with TN concentrations, 1555 with δ13C-OC values and 268 with Δ14C-OC values and 653 records with quantified terrigenous biomarkers (high-molecular-weight n-alkanes, n-alkanoic acids and lignin phenols). CASCADE also includes data from 326 sediment cores, retrieved by shallow box or multi-coring, deep gravity/piston coring, or sea-bottom drilling. The comprehensive dataset reveals large-scale features of both OC content and OC sources between the shelf sea recipients. This offers insight into release of pre-aged terrigenous OC to the East Siberian Arctic shelf and younger terrigenous OC to the Kara Sea. Circum-Arctic sediments thereby reveal patterns of terrestrial OC remobilization and provide clues about thawing of permafrost. CASCADE enables synoptic analysis of OC in Arctic Ocean sediments and facilitates a wide array of future empirical and modeling studies of the Arctic carbon cycle. The database is openly and freely available online (https://doi.org/10.17043/cascade; Martens et al., 2021), is provided in various machine-readable data formats (data tables, GIS shapefile, GIS raster), and also provides ways for contributing data for future CASCADE versions. We will continuously update CASCADE with newly published and contributed data over the foreseeable future as part of the database management of the Bolin Centre for Climate Research at Stockholm University.

Using Oil Spill Modeling in Oil Spill Exercises and Drills

ABSTRACT Oil spill trajectory and fate modeling was used in inland response Full Scale Exercises including the Enbridge Des Plains River (fall 2018) and Wisconsin River (fall 2019). The Spill Impact Model Application Package (SIMAP) was used to predict the three-dimensional movement (i.e. trajectory) and behavior (i.e. fate) of a hypothetical release of oil using site-specific environmental and geographic conditions (including seasonal and hydrographic information) for the date of the exercise. The RPS OILMAPLand model was also used to predict the two-dimensional movement and behavior of the oil over the land surface, before it was predicted to enter the waterway. The oil spill modeling evaluated the spatial extent, timing, and magnitude of hydrocarbon contamination at downstream locations including thicknesses of floating surface oil and the mass of oil on shorelines and sediments. The assessments included the potential for released oil to move over the land surface, before entering the waterway, as well as becoming entrained in the water column as a result of surface floating oil passing over local features such as locks and dams. The results were presented at two separate exercise planning session and the full scale exercise as static images, GIS shape files, and videos. Results were also included in the COP for the exercise itself, with predicted results provided at hourly intervals for several days.

Visualising regional inequalities in the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic in England and Wales

We examine regional inequalities in mortality from the 1918 pandemic in England and Wales. Crude mortality rates (per 100,000 for June 1918 to May 1919) from the Registrar General’s 1920 report were directly allocated to crude mortality rates for 306 administrative units. A custom GIS ShapeFile was constructed to map the rates first as a choropleth and then as a cartogram. The visualisations show a clear north-south divide in mortality in England with the northern areas and – to a lesser extent – the midlands and Wales having higher rates than the south. It also demonstrates an urban-rural divide with more sparsely populated areas – across both England and Wales – having lower rates.

Structural Analysis of the Victoria Quadrangle Fault Systems on Mercury: Timing, Geometries, Kinematics, and Relationship with the High‐Mg Region

AbstractThree nonparallel fault systems occur in the Victoria quadrangle of Mercury. The most prominent system (Victoria system) includes the NNW‐SSE trending Victoria Rupes‐Endeavour Rupes‐Antoniadi Dorsum (VEA) array, one of the major fault alignments on the planet, and shorter parallel fault arrays. West and northwest of the Victoria system, two additional fault systems with NE‐SW (Larrocha system) and NW‐SE (Carnegie system) trends, are found. The timing analysis reveals that the three systems are coeval and were active until ~3.7 Ga. Measures of rim offset within faulted craters on the VEA array and on Carnegie Rupes segment of the Carnegie system were used to derive the kinematics of faults and to perform a finite stress inversion, which provides an ENE‐WSW trending regional shortening axis. Results of the stress inversion and age relationships, together with geometrical and morpho‐structural observations, suggest that the NE‐SW and NW‐SE systems acted as right‐transcurrent and left‐transpressional, respectively, at the time when the computed strain field was active. The distribution of the three systems spatially coincides with the boundaries of the high‐Mg region and of other regional geochemical terranes. Lateral geomechanical variation of the crust combined with tidal despinning and global contraction processes drove the localization and slip pattern of faults in a kinematically consistent displacement field. Moreover, crustal heterogeneities controlled the lateral changes in density and spacing of fault segments along the VEA. Following the demise of faulting, the established lateral variation of geometry along the VEA favored the growth of volcanic vents at high‐permeability segment boundaries.

Street Network Models and Measures for Every U.S. City, County, Urbanized Area, Census Tract, and Zillow-Defined Neighborhood

OpenStreetMap provides a valuable crowd-sourced database of raw geospatial data for constructing models of urban street networks for scientific analysis. This paper reports results from a research project that collected raw street network data from OpenStreetMap using the Python-based OSMnx software for every U.S. city and town, county, urbanized area, census tract, and Zillow-defined neighborhood. It constructed nonplanar directed multigraphs for each and analyzed their structural and morphological characteristics. The resulting data repository contains over 110,000 processed, cleaned street network graphs (which in turn comprise over 55 million nodes and over 137 million edges) at various scales—comprehensively covering the entire U.S.—archived as reusable open-source GraphML files, node/edge lists, and GIS shapefiles that can be immediately loaded and analyzed in standard tools such as ArcGIS, QGIS, NetworkX, graph-tool, igraph, or Gephi. The repository also contains measures of each network’s metric and topological characteristics common in urban design, transportation planning, civil engineering, and network science. No other such dataset exists. These data offer researchers and practitioners a new ability to quickly and easily conduct graph-theoretic circulation network analysis anywhere in the U.S. using standard, free, open-source tools.

Locating provisioning ecosystem services in urban forests: Forageable woody species in New York City, USA

Scholarship on the ecosystem services provided by urban forests has focused on regulating and supporting services, with a growing body of research examining provisioning and cultural ecosystem services from farms and gardens in metropolitan areas. Using the case of New York, New York, USA, we propose a method to assess the supply of potential provisioning ecosystem services from species and spaces other than those explicitly designated for food production. We analyze the abundance and spatial distribution of trees and shrubs with known uses for food, medicine, craft, and other purposes across urban greenspace types. To do so, we created a database of all woody species known to occur in New York City, joining a citywide assessment of trees and shrubs with additional data from a metropolitan flora and a guide to native plants in the city. A second database of useful, or forageable, species was created by compiling information from a New York City-focused online foraging application and ten field guides chosen for the likelihood that prospective foragers would find and consult them. The City’s street tree inventory and associated GIS shapefile provided the basis for more detailed analyses of forageable woody species in this land use type. Our results show a substantial supply of potential provisioning ecosystem services from woody species in New York City. Coupled with growing literature on actual foraging in cities worldwide, these findings suggest implications for accountings of ecosystem services from urban forests as well as policy and management initiatives to enhance social-ecological resilience.

Comparative Performance of Multi-Source Reference Data to Assess the Accuracy of Classified Remotely Sensed Imagery: Example of Landsat 8 OLI Across Kigali City-Rwanda 2015

Accuracy assessment of remote sensed classified images is considered the backbone of remote sensing image processing to be considered credible. However, reference data to perform this task is also a considerable challenge for the remote sensing analyst. This study was carried out over Kigali city using Landsat remotely sensed imagery acquired on July 15, 2015, to compare multi-sourced reference data performance to assess the accuracy of classified Landsat remote sensed imagery. To achieve this objective, GeoEye-1, WorldView-2, Google earth high-resolution image, and GIS layers have been used to verify the accuracy of remote-sensed data classification. In this study, we applied different reference data sources to Landsat 2015 classified images to assess the accuracy. Therefore, results from GEOEYE-1 image as reference data source displayed the total accuracy and kappa coefficient of 98.5% and 0.98 respectively. WorldView-2 MS Image revealed 97.25% of total accuracy and a 0.96 Kappa coefficient agreement. High-resolution rectified images generated using El-Shayal Smart GIS Editor also show its capabilities to assess the accuracy of Landsat remote sensed data whose results were 94% and 0.92%, respectively, for overall accuracy and total Kappa statistics. Furthermore, the remote sensing analyst should not worry about where or how to find reference data to assess image classification so long as they possess GIS shape files. GIS shape files provide good results where the overall accuracy was 92% and a Kappa coefficient of 0.90. Moreover, GIS shape files results showed a slightly lower accuracy because of data properties; it is recommended to check projection before using any spatial data. This paper strongly focused on soft features during ground reference data collection. Test data from GEOEYE-1 images have shown the best thematic accuracy after being overlaid with Kigali 2015 thematic map. All of the referenced data sources, in general, showed the ability to assess remote sensed classified map in the range of 90% to 98.5% for both total accuracies of the map and kappa accuracy.

Using Boosted Regression Trees and Remotely Sensed Data to Drive Decision-Making

Challenges in Big Data analysis arise due to the way the data are recorded, maintained, processed and stored. We demonstrate that a hierarchical, multivariate, statistical machine learning algorithm, namely Boosted Regression Tree (BRT) can address Big Data challenges to drive decision making. The challenge of this study is lack of interoperability since the data, a collection of GIS shapefiles, remotely sensed imagery, and aggregated and interpolated spatio-temporal information, are stored in monolithic hardware components. For the modelling process, it was necessary to create one common input file. By merging the data sources together, a structured but noisy input file, showing inconsistencies and redundancies, was created. Here, it is shown that BRT can process different data granularities, heterogeneous data and missingness. In particular, BRT has the advantage of dealing with missing data by default by allowing a split on whether or not a value is missing as well as what the value is. Most importantly, the BRT offers a wide range of possibilities regarding the interpretation of results and variable selection is automatically performed by considering how frequently a variable is used to define a split in the tree. A comparison with two similar regression models (Random Forests and Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator, LASSO) shows that BRT outperforms these in this instance. BRT can also be a starting point for sophisticated hierarchical modelling in real world scenarios. For example, a single or ensemble approach of BRT could be tested with existing models in order to improve results for a wide range of data-driven decisions and applications.

An extensible, generic environmental process modelling framework with an example for a watershed of a shallow lake

We present a modelling framework for the generation of environmental process models. The framework builds on the Direct Computer Mapping method with an editable, process network based expert module and interpreter. The expert interface supports mapping of objects from the GIS layers onto the prototyped state, transition and connection elements of the case specific generic process model. The developed general purpose interpreter generates the standardized declarative facts and clauses, describing the actual model with the locally executable program prototypes. This input is executed by the general kernel. The model interpreter generates also the case specific templates for the (optionally web based) user interface, while map-server utilizes the GIS shape files of expert model. The implementation supports the extension of the model with new components in space and time. The framework is illustrated by an example for the watershed of Lake Balaton.

Using an OBCD Approach and Landsat TM Data to Detect Harvesting on Nonindustrial Private Property in Upper Michigan

Forest dynamics influence climate, biodiversity, and livelihoods at multiple scales, yet current resource policy addressing these dynamics is ineffective without reliable land use land cover change data. The collective impact of harvest decisions by many small forest owners can be substantial at the landscape scale, yet monitoring harvests and regrowth in these forests is challenging. Remote sensing is an obvious route to detect and monitor small-scale land use dynamics over large areas. Using an annual series of Landsat-5 Thematic Mapper (TM) images and a GIS shapefile of property boundaries, we identified units where harvests occurred from 2005 to 2011 using an Object-Based Change Detection (OBCD) approach. Percent of basal area harvested was verified using stand-level harvest data. Our method detected all harvests above 20% basal area removal in all forest types (northern hardwoods, mixed deciduous/coniferous, coniferous), on properties as small as 10 acres (0.4 ha; approximately four Landsat pixels). Our results had a resolution of about 10% basal area (that is, a selective harvest removal of 30% could be distinguished from one of 40%). Our method can be automated and used to measure annual harvest rates and intensities for large areas of the United States, providing critical information on land use transition.

Municipal Annexation and the Selective Underbounding of Colonias in Texas' Lower Rio Grande Valley

Municipal underbounding is the systematic failure of cities to annex surrounding minority communities. Recent analyses of the phenomenon in the United States have focused on small White Southern towns with African American communities along the jurisdictional fringe. This paper applies similar logic to the study of the exclusion of colonias in the Lower Rio Grande Valley (LRGV) of Texas. These low-income informal settlements, located in the hinterlands of cities, have historically had high rates of poverty, poor housing quality, and insufficient infrastructure and utility service. Using TIGER/Line files (GIS shapefiles), Summary Files of the US decennial censuses, and ArcGIS technology this project explores the prevalence of the municipal underbounding of colonias. In order to place the issue of municipal annexation in context, the paper begins with a description of regional demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, municipal growth, and annexation patterns in the LRGV. The paper then explores the extent to which colonias have been selectively excluded from annexation using logistic and autologistic regression. The results suggest that census blocks that contain colonias are less likely to be annexed than are other census blocks; in addition, those census blocks that contain colonias with poor infrastructure appear to have odds of being annexed that are lower still. The paper concludes with a discussion of the policy implications of these findings.

Geospatial approach for demarcating Jekyll Island State Park: Georgia barrier island

Demarcation of upland and water/marsh boundary is a critical issue for management and protection of barrier island ecosystems. Most accurate, precise and confident approaches are required to resolve conflicts related to developable lands and conservation area. Barrier islands are especially prone to these conflicts because they are highly dynamic systems that are formed and reformed by rise and fall of tides and seal levels. In response, this research analyzes the demarcation of Jekyll Island State Park, Georgia, USA that is faced with management issues of balancing tourism and development with resource conservation. Questions addressed by this research include: (1) What are the standard sea levels used to demarcate barrier islands? (2) What are the best methods for most accurately estimating the total area of coastal barrier islands? (3) Do differences in tide elevations between back-barrier and ocean-front shorelines of barrier islands exist? Specifically, this research considers a number of environmental policies, regulations, and laws along with geospatial data such as aerial photography, Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) and GIS shapefiles. These data are used to define sea levels and outline of Jekyll Island State Park based on Mean High Water (MHW) levels with respect to 0.79-m, 0.85-m, 0.94-m, 1.00-m, and 1.49-m for the entire Jekyll Island State Park. The demarcations of different back-barrier marshland and ocean-front side of the island were also considered. Results indicate that the total area of Jekyll Island State Park may vary by as much as 3.31-km 2 or 7.2% depending on the jurisdictional sea level that is used to demarcate the island boundary.

Airborne Laser Survey Specifications and Quality Management Protocols for Airport Obstruction Surveys

Airport obstruction surveys are conducted to identify obstacles (objects penetrating obstruction identification surfaces that may pose a hazard to air navigation) and to provide critical data for the safety of aircraft and passengers. The current practice of airborne light detection and ranging (LIDAR) technology for airport obstruction surveys is presented. Obstruction survey requirements and current federal standards related to airport airspace analysis and the airport-geographical information system (GIS) program are reviewed. The accuracy of airborne LIDAR surveys and obstruction analysis has been established in previous field studies conducted by the National Geodetic Survey (NGS). Commercial obstruction surveys have been conducted on many airports in North America with LIDAR configurations and survey specifications recommended by NGS. In most cases, LIDAR survey data can be collected efficiently during the day as well as at night. LIDAR point cloud and intensity data are used to identify obstacles for the entire survey area through computationally efficient office computer algorithms and complementary use of photogrammetry. In contrast, traditional photogrammetry-only methods are limited to identifying obstacles at discrete locations because of laborintensive data processing. In addition, LIDAR data can be processed into GIS shape files for seamless integration into an electronic airport layout plan. Multiuse of LIDAR data for both canopy and bare ground enables the generation of accurate digital elevation models, contours for engineering design, and planimetrics for GIS mapping. Mission planning, ground point spacing and density, and other key parameters considered in the latest sample LIDAR survey specifications published as ACRP Research Results Digest 10 are discussed.

A Survey of the Canals and Water Raceways of New Jersey

Canals and water raceways played an important role in the history and economic development of New Jer-sey. Much of the early settlement and industrial activity centered on areas with water transportation and water power. But many of these canals and raceways have been forgotten and lost. A small percentage still exist as abandoned waterways. A smaller percentage are still in use, for either their original purpose or for recreation. A new survey of the current and historic canals and water raceways of New Jersey found 171 of them. The locations are available in a GIS shapefile that indicates their current status (active or abandoned) and condition (wet or dry). The shapefile also shows the locations of locks and inclined planes on the Mor-ris Canal and the Delaware & Raritan Canal. The number of mapped historical water raceways in an area directly correlated to the interest and activity of local historians. Undoubtedly many more water raceways remain to be rediscovered. This report will be updated by the New Jersey Geological Survey as additional canals and water raceways are identified and reliably located.