Part 3: Creating Your Landuse Map

As part of your project you need to create a landuse map. On the day of your fieldwork you recorded
landuse variation on a paper map using the key (Figure 2.64) from page 110 from your Geography
textbook. You now have to turn the information that you collected into a map. There are two ways that
you can approach this problem:

1. Colour in a paper map to show landuse variation.

2. Use GIS to produce a digital landuse map

The first way is by far the simplest and the one that you should adopt if you feel you are running out of
time.

The instructions below describe what you need to do if you want to produce your map using GIS.

1. Open up your BS GCSE project map

2. From the ArcMap tool bars open up ArcCatalog by pressing the button with the open drawer

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3. Using the ArcCatalog directory tree go to the location that all your GIS work

4. Now go to the file menu and click on New, Shapefile

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5. Give the shapefile a name the same as the landuse layer that you first want to draw. In this
example the first landuse that will be drawn is Industrial.

6. From the feature type drop down menu make sure that you select Polygon

7. Go back to the ArcMap programme

8. From the ArcMap tools menu select the add data button

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9. From the add data menu select Industrial.shp

10. When prompted that one or more layers is missing spatial reference information click OK

11. In the table of contents make sure the industrial layer is turned on

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12. From the tools drop down menu select the editor toolbar

13. From the editor toolbar select start editing

14. In the start editing dialog box choose your project folder making sure that the industrial layer is
available for editing.

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15. From the editor toolbar select the pencil. Make sure that the task bar is set to create new feature
and that the target is industrial.

16. Use the pencil and trace the outline of an industrial area. The traced outline is made up of a
number of points that are added by clicking the left mouse button. When you have finished your
trace outline double click with your left mouse button.

17. When you have finished tracing you will have drawn a new polygon showing the location of an
industrial area in Bishop’s Stortford

18. If you make a mistake these can be edited using the edit tool

19. Using the edit tool click on the outline of the polygon

20. Use the edit tool to change the position of your points

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Once you are happy with the shape of your polygon move on to other areas and produce industrial
polygons for those areas also.

Once you have drawn all the Industrial polygons you require for Bishop’s Stortford you move on
to creating a new shapefile for a new landuse.

Now go back to step four and repeat the process until you have drawn all the required landuses for
Bishop’s Stortford.

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