Lab 3: Geodatabase Development

Introduction
The purpose of this lab was to give an opportunity to show the organization of the final project geodatabase structure and organization. 

The purpose of this project is to develop maps that could be helpful in locating places around Wisconsin that could be possible locations for rock climbing.  Local rock climbers could use this as a way to use specifically identified physical characteristics that may be useful in locating these potential sites. 

Methods
The area extent is the state of Wisconsin.  The map scale was set so that all of the state is visible.  The projection used was North_American_1983_HARN_Transverse_Mercator.  Topology was not included.  The plan for metadata was for the end product to have descriptions within the item that inform the user of the relevant information to the project. 

From the DNR GCSM the “depth to bedrock” shapefile was used for its depth attribute.  This was mapped because rock closer to the surface means more potential for exposed bedrock, which is what is used in climbing.  The NED Elevation raster was used to show elevation and slope.  Areas with a steeper slope could be potential climbing sites as well.  The major roads feature and WI cities were also used.  Areas close to roads or cities would be more accessible, so people wouldn’t have as much trouble looking through these areas when exploring for new sites.  Figure 1 shows the ranking order of the areas.  

Figure 1: The rank of the data after being reclassified.

This was the order of rank used throughout the project.  Some features/maps had more than 3 numbers of rank, but the lowest numbers had the highest potential for a climbing site.  Some of these features were added to each other using the weighted sum tool. 

Results

Figure 2: This is the folder containing the geodatabase to be used in the final project.  Some of the text on the right describes the organization of the folder/geodatabase and details some of the contents.  

Conclusion
Having a plan for geodatabase organization and structure before actually starting the project will help later down the line.  The project here looks somewhat disorganized, and would need some cleaning up if it were to be used by someone else or if the project were to be recreated.