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ArcGIS Practical Guide

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 ArcGIS Practical Guide.

Arba Minch University

Department of Meteorology and Hydrology.
Prepared By:
Goitom Kelem
October, 2015
Preface
This practical guide book was originally designed for meteorological and hydrological lab
manual on ArcGIS. To be taught students at all level(BSc and Msc), this practical guide is
prepared clearly and step by step enable to be accessible by user without any other support .
Exercise data and in included in the cd or http://www.zaxum.plogspot.com .
There are many users of ArcGIS include Meteorology and Hydrology, Agriculture, forest and
water resources, urban planning, geology, environmental monitoring, and health centers much
more application that is why, I included many examples, and meteorology and hydrology also
uses these information back for different analysis and simulation too, especially in climate model
scenario development, watershed delineation.

Acknowledgements

First and foremost would like to thank God, and AMU Department of Meteorology and
Hydrology for their valuable assistance with many aspects of this guide, including proofreading
and indexing especially Mr. Assefa Derbew. Thanks to National Meteorological Agency of
Ethiopia, for providing me weather data. Thanks to Ethiopian Strategy Support program (ESSP)
for their lab manual, which is included in this practical guide. Generally I would like to say thank
all who supports me on this guide.
 Table of content
Introduction ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------2
Brief Overview of ArcGIS -------------------------------------------------------------------------------2
Goals of the Exercise -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------2
Components of ArcGIS Desktop ------------------------------------------------------------------------2
Basic Principles of GIS -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------3
Software Products (Licensing Levels) ----------------------------------------------------------------- 5
Procedure ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ --6
Common GIS File Types ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6
ArcGIS Terminology ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------7
Practical exercises. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------7
The ArcMap Interface & Adding Data----------------------------------------------------------------- 8
Navigation using the ArcMap Toolbars ---------------------------------------------------------------11
Feature Attribute Tables ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------12
Symbolizing Features ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------16
Saving your Progress ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------17
Preview Data ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------18
Viewing Shapefiles----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------18
Viewing Shapefiles in ArcMap -------------------------------------------------------------------------19
Preview Shapefiles in ArcCatalog ----------------------------------------------------------------------20
Creating Geodatabases, Feature Datasets, and Feature Classes ------------------------------------22
Create a new Geodatabase -------------------------------------------------------------------------------23
Adding Data to the Geodatabase ------------------------------------------------------------------------23
Create a New Feature Dataset ---------------------------------------------------------------------------24
Displaying Feature Datasets in a Map ------------------------------------------------------------------29
Accessing and Querying Attribute Data ----------------------------------------------------------------32
Viewing an Attribute Table ------------------------------------------------------------------------------32
Selecting features from a feature class (points, lines and polygons) -------------------------------35
Making a Chart-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------37
Creating a Map Layout --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 41
Spatial Analysis in Hydrology--------------------------------------------------------------------------45
Verifying calculations using ArcGIS-------------------------------------------------------------------46
Automating procedures using Modelbuilder-----------------------------------------------------------53
Abaya chamo Elevation and Precipitation--------------------------------------------------------------62
Loading the Data-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------62
Projecting the DEM----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------64
Exploring the DEM----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------65
Contours, Hillshade and Slope---------------------------------------------------------------------------68
Zonal Average Calculations------------------------------------------------------------------------------70
Calculation of Area Average Precipitation using Thiessen Polygons------------------------------72
The Layout View------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------80
Lab 02: Advanced Symbology ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 83
Lab 03: Chloropleth mapping in Arc-GIS------------------------------------------------------------- 89
Lab 04: Working with Attribute Tables in ArcGIS--------------------------------------------------- 94
Lab 05: Understanding Projections ---------------------------------------------------------------------97
Lab 05 - Part 1: Changing Data Projections in ArcMap---------------------------------------------104
Lab 05 part 2: Bringing Field Data into the ArcGIS software--------------------------------------106
Lab 06: Exporting external database information from ArcMap-----------------------------------109
Data Integration and Thematic Mapping--------------------------------------------------------------113
Data Integration-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------113
Lab 08 – Spatial Proximity Analysis-------------------------------------------------------------------122
SPATIAL JOIN – Measuring distance-----------------------------------------------------------------122
EXERCISE 09: Buffering for distance calculations and area definition--------------------------128
Exercise 10: Travel Time Raster and Market Access Visualization------------------------------131
Reference--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------136
 Part: One

Introduction to ArcGIS

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1. Introduction

A GIS (Geographic Information System) is a powerful tool used for computerized mapping and
spatial analysis. A GIS provides functionality to capture, store, query, analyze, display and output
geographic information. For this seminar we will be using ArcGIS Desktop 9.3 and above, the
newest version of a popular GIS software produced by ESRI. This course is meant to teach some
fundamental GIS operations using ArcGIS. It is not meant to be a comprehensive course in GIS or
ArcGIS. However, we hope this seminar will get you started using GIS and excited about learning
more.

2. Brief Overview of ArcGIS

ArcGIS is a software program, used to create, display and analyze geospatial data, developed by
Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) of Redlands, California. ArcGIS consists of three
components: ArcCatalog, ArcMap and ArcToolbox. ArcCatalog is used for browsing for maps and
spatial data, exploring spatial data, viewing and creating metadata, and managing spatial data.
ArcMap is used for visualizing spatial data, performing spatial analysis, and creating maps to show
the results of your work. ArcToolbox is an interface for accessing the data conversion and analysis
function that come with ArcGIS. ArcGIS comes in three variants: ArcView, ArcEditor, or ArcInfo,
which are the low end, middle and fully configured versions of the software. Any of these versions
can be used for this exercise. The instructions in this exercise are illustrated using the tools in
ArcGIS version 9.3 and above.

3. Goals of the Exercise

This exercise introduces you to ArcMap and ArcCatalog. You use these applications to create a
map of pan evaporation stations in Region, and to draw a graph of monthly pan evaporation data
measured at these stations. The relationship between ArcGIS and MS Word and Excel is
demonstrated so that you can create graphs in Excel, maps in ArcGIS and place the result in a Word
file as a report for this homework. You use ArcCatalog to create a new personal geodatabase and
import shapefiles to a feature dataset.

4. Components of ArcGIS Desktop

ArcMap, ArcCatalog, (and ArcToolbox)

ArcGIS Desktop is comprised of a set of integrated applications, which are accessible from the
Start menu of your computer: ArcMap and ArcCatalog.
ArcMap is the main mapping application which allows you to create maps, query attributes,
analyze spatial relationships, and layout final projects.
ArcCatalog organizes spatial data contained on your computer and various other locations and
allows for you to search, preview, and add data to ArcMap as well as manage metadata and set up
address locator services (geocoding).
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ArcToolbox is the third application of ArcGIS Desktop. Although it is not accessible from the Start
menu, it is easily accessed and used within ArcMap and ArcCatalog. ArcToolbox contains tools for
geoprocessing, data conversion, coordinate systems, projections, and more. This workbook will
focus on ArcMap and ArcCatalog.

5. Basic Principles of GIS

GIS is a technology used to view and analyze data from a geographic perspective. GIS links location
to information, and layers that information to give a better understanding of how it interrelates. A
GIS map is therefore composed of many layers, or collections of geographic objects that are alike.
You choose what layers to combine based on your purpose. The following map contains four layers,
Cities, Rivers, Countries, and Topography (elevation data).

Remember: A Map is made up of Layers

Figure 1 map layers

In the preceding map, the “Cities” layer is made up of many different cities, and the “Rivers”
layer of many different rivers. The same is true of the “Countries” layer. Each geographic

3
object in a layer, - each city, river, lake, and county – is called a Feature. Remember: Layers
contain Features.

In any GIS software, geographic features are represented as one of three geometrical forms, a
polygon, a line, or a point. Polygons represent things large enough to have boundaries, such as
countries, lakes or other large tracts of land. Lines represent narrow, linear features, such as
roads, rivers or pipelines. Points are used for things too small to be represented as polygons, such
as cities on a map of the Ethiopia, or schools on a map of Addis Ababa. Polygons, lines and
points are collectively called Vector Data.
Remember: Features can take the form of Points, Lines and Polygons, and are known
collectively as Vector Data.

Not all layers contain Features, The topological (shaded relief) layer you see above is not a
collection of geographic objects in the same way the other layers are. It is a single continuous
expanse that changes from one location to another according to the height/depth of the Earth’s
surface. A geographic expanse of this type is called a Raster. We use Rasters because unlike
rivers, or countries, things such as elevation, temperature, rainfall or wind speed have no distinct
shape.

A Raster is a matrix of identically sized square cells or pixels (much like a digital photograph).
Each cell represents a unit of surface area, and contains a measured or estimated value for that
location. When displaying this information, colors are assigned to the individual pixel values
along a ramp scale.

Remember: Layers also contain Raster.

There is much more to an individual feature than its shape and location, and GIS files have the
4
 potential to incorporate this additional information. There is a great amount of information that
may be gathered about any one feature. A country has population, a capital, a system of
government, leading imports and exports, average rainfall, mineral resources and many other
things. Roads have grading systems, speed limits, number of lanes, and one or two-way systems.

Information about the individual feature of any one layer is stored in a table. The table has a
record (row) for each feature in the layer, and a field (column) for each category of information.
These information categories are called attributes; therefore, these tables are commonly referred to
as “Attribute Tables”.

Each object (or “feature”) on a GIS map is linked to a row of information in an attribute table.

Remember: Layers contain Features, and each Feature is linked to a row of

information in the Attribute table

Figure 2 attribute table

6. Software Products (Licensing Levels)

ArcMap is made up of three software product levels: ArcView, ArcEditor, and ArcInfo. These
products share a common architecture but provide increasing levels of functionality. ArcView
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provides the base mapping and analysis tools. ArcEditor provides all ArcView capability and
includes additional processing and advanced editing. ArcInfo provides all ArcEditor capability plus
advanced analysis and processing. While these levels are crucial to consider when purchasing
software, it is also important to be aware of the limitations of the level you are using. We are using
the ArcInfo level. To do this, from Windows use Start/Programs/ArcGIS to invoke the ArcGIS
Desktop Administrator, and select another version. In the LRC, ArcView works best, but in another
lab setting, the ArcView or ArcEditor could be the right choice, depending on license availability.

7. Procedure

Please note that the following procedure is a general outline, which can be followed to complete
this lesson. However, you are encouraged to experiment with the program and to be creative.

8. Common GIS File Types

Geodatabase – The personal geodatabase, or geographic database, file is called the “modern
container for GIS data” and is specific to ArcGIS. Geodatabases define, manage, process and store
all the types of data that can be used in ArcGIS (i.e., feature, rasters, relationships, measurements,
attributes, etc) inside either a Microsoft Access database (.mdb) or a full relational database (SQL
Server, Oracle, Informix or DB2).

Shapefiles – ArcGIS shapefile format is a widely adopted standard and comprises three or more
associated files. Be careful copying this data to a disk. You must get all of the files associated with a
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single layer. They will have a variety of file extensions: .shp, .shx, .dbf and sometimes others. If you
are copying shapefiles, we recommended that you use the ‘File’ > ‘Data’ > ‘Export Data’ function
in ArcMap or through ArcCatalog. This will automatically copy all files associated with a layer.
Also, be aware that some of these files may be very large in size.

Layer – According to ESRI, the layer file (.lyr) stores symbology, symbology classifications,
labeling properties, scale dependency, and definition. If you save something in this format it means
that, unlike shapefiles, colors and other characteristics are saved and will appear the same every
time you open it.

Coverages – “A coverage stores a set of thematically associated data considered to be a unit. It

usually represents a single layer, such as soils, streams, roads, or land use. In a coverage, features
are stored as both primary features (points, arcs, polygons) and secondary features (tics, links,
annotation).” Source: ESRI Data Dictionary.

CAD (computer-aided design) – “A computer-based system for the design, drafting, and display of
graphical information.” Although most commonly used to support engineering, planning, and
illustrating activities, these files can be used in a GIS. Source: ESRI Data Dictionary.

Image formats – ArcGIS accepts and uses a variety of image files (.tiff, .jpg, .jp2, .png, etc).

Text files (with x,y coordinates). Many others…

ArcGIS Terminology
Term Definition Example
View a collection of themes Arba Minch
Theme a single layer of data University
Attribute a defined characteristic of a theme Year Built
Value a specific quality or quantity assigned to an 9302
attribute, for a specific instance.

9. Practical exercises.
Where we get the exercise data?
The exercise data are available www.zaxum.blogspot.com/tutorials/gis arranged based on this step
by step guide. Download the AMU_GIS.zip folder and copy to C: or D: partition and extract the
folder as shapefiles or copy from the CD to C: or D:

Notes there is not much difference in methodology except some interface between ArcGIS 9.3 and
older version and ArcGIS latest versions so we use both versions in our work.

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10.The ArcMap Interface & Adding Data (lab01)

1. Start ArcMap by double-clicking the ArcMap icon on your computer desktop. (Alternately, click
the “Start” menu, point to “All Programs”, point to “ArcGIS” and select “ArcMap”) when you are
using latest operation systems you can also search by typing ArcMap.

2. You may receive the following welcome screen, if so, select “a new empty map,” and press OK. If
you do not receive this screen, ArcMap has selected a blank map by default.

Figure 3 old version (9.3)

8
 Figure 4 new version (10.1)

3. You are now looking at the basic ArcMap screen with its various menus and tools. To begin with,
we will add some data. From the “File” menu, select “Add Data”. (You will notice that the “Add
Data” icon is replicated on the main tool bar. You will find that this is the case for many of the tools
and functions within ArcMap.)

5. In the “Connect to folder” window, navigate to the location of your Tutorial folder:
“D:\AMU_GIS\”, and click OK.

6. You will only have to do this step once. By establishing this connection, you will be directed to
your GIS lab folder each time you return to it and add new data to the map. It’s like creating a
shortcut.

9
7. Now open the folder “/Lab01/Regions/”, and select the file named “(Regions)”.
(If a warning box pops up when you attempt to add data at any point, just click OK)

10
8. The outline of Ethiopia should now be visible in your map window. Notice that on the left hand
side of the screen you have a box containing a short list, beginning with the word “Layers.” This
box is called the Table of Contents, and it lists the names of the various data layers in the map. It
shows the color symbol used to draw each layer, and tells you by means of a check mark, whether
or not the layer is visible.

9. Left click on the various (+) & (-) boxes in the Table of Contents window, noticing how the
Table of Contents changes. It works in a similar way to a data tree within Windows Explorer. Click
on the checked box next to the “Regions” Layer to turn the layer off, click it again, and the map
reappears.

10. The main window of the ArcMap interface is called the Data Frame. It is where your data is
displayed and manipulated. The various toolbars can be found both above and below the Data
Frame. Many of their functions are also replicated in the standard drop down menus to the top left.

11. In order to make the map more detailed, we will add further layers. Add additional data by

using either the “File” menu, or click on the “Add data” icon . You will be taken back to the
“Lab01/Cites” folder. Select cites file.
Layers in your map is represented in your Table of Contents. Make sure that you see the “Regions”,
“Cities”, “Lakes” and “Rivers” shapefiles in your Table of Contents on the left of your screen.

11. Navigation using the ArcMap Toolbars

12. Hold down your left mouse button over “Cities.shp” and drag it down below your “Regions.shp”
file. What happened to your map? The Table of Contents window controls the various layers of your
map. Whichever layer is on top in the Table of Contents, will also be the topmost layer of your map.
Move the other layers around to see how this property works.

IMPORTANT NOTE: In order to drag files to reorder them, your table of contents must be in the Display
mode, look at the bottom of the table of contents and make sure that Display tab is selected. Click on the
Source tab at the bottom of the Table of Contents. Now that you are in this tab, you can see where each data
source came from. Try to reorganize your shapefiles so “Regions” are on the top again. Notice that you
cannot move the order of your shapefiles unless you are in the Display tab. Click on the Display tab again at
the bottom of your Table of Contents in order to change order of your shapefiles in the Table of Contents.

13. On your screen are various tool icons. By moving your mouse over each icon in turn, a pop-up
box will alert you to the name and/or function of that particular tool. Many of the tools, though new,
are self-explanatory, and many others, such as the “Drawing” tools, are quite similar to those found
in basic Windows programs. The most basic toolbar within ArcMap contains the navigational tools:

11
14. Locate the “Zoom In” tool . Using this tool, draw a box around Addis Ababa by left click
and hold while you draw a box. Now, select the tool that looks like a hand. This is called the “Pan”
tool. Use it to ‘grab’ the map and move it around in order to see other areas of your map.

15. On your toolbar, you will see the scale box.

16. Using the “zoom in” / “zoom out”

or the “fixed zoom in” / “fixed zoom out”

Tools , adjust the map until your scale

shows approximately “1:2,000,000”. You may
also manipulate the scale box by directly typing
the required scale.

17. Switch to the identify tool and click

on any one of the diamonds representing the
cities.

The “Identity Results Dialog” shows you various facts about the feature that you have selected.
Using the Identify tool, you can see the information associated with each city in the pop up dialog.

18. Now click on the tool called “Full Extent”. This resizes your map to cover the full area of
your largest feature (all of Ethiopia).

19. Click on the tool for “Previous Extent” and it will take you back to your last zoomed in
view.

Now that we have explored a little on how to maneuver the basic tools in the map viewer format, we
will now look at the data that are behind the shapefiles, these data are very similar to an excel table.

12. Feature Attribute Tables

In GIS, a feature on a map may be associated with a great deal of information – more than can be
displayed at any given time. This information is stored in an Attribute Table. A data layer’s
12
attribute table contains a row (or record) for every feature in the layer and a column (or field) for
every attribute, or category of information. When you clicked on one of the ‘Cities’ points in Step 17
(above), the information you saw in the identity results dialog was the information stored in the
“Cities” Layer.

21. Scroll down the table. There are 74 records (record one is numbered as 0 – see first
observation in the table under column heading FID), one for each zone in Ethiopia.

22. There are multiple

attributes, or fields.
The “FID” field
contains a unique
identification number
for every record. The
“SHAPE” field
describes the object
geometry (Point, Line,
and Polygon). Among
other attributes is the
Zone name
(EASE_ZoneN), its
corresponding Region
code.

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23. The order in which the fields are displayed can be rearranged, much like in excel. Click
once on the field name in order to highlight it, then, click a second time (you should see a
white arrow), to drag it to your preferred location. Rearranging the data like this has no
adverse effects on the database or map.

24. Field data may also be sorted. Right Click on the field “NAME”. You will have option
to sort “Ascending” or “Descending”. Depending on the field type, the data will be sorted in
alphabetical or numerical order. Sort and resort this field and observe the effects on the
table arrangement.

25. Records, as well as fields can be highlighted. When a record is highlighted in a table, its
corresponding feature is highlighted in the map. A highlighted record or feature is said to be
“Selected”.

26. Right click on the field “NAME” and Sort Ascending. Click the grey tab at the left edge
of the first record in the table, (Afder). This record is now selected. See below.

27. Move or minimize the attribute table in order to see the map more clearly. The Afder

zone should be highlighted. You may have to use the “Zoom to Full Extent” to spot
the selected district.

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28. To unselect this record, Select the “Options” tab on the bottom right-hand side of the
Attribute table, and click “Clear Selection”.
29. You can also select objects in ArcMap directly from the map window. Close the
attribute table for now. Pan to the Southern Area, and select a zone using the following

“selection” tool from the main toolbar.

30. Reopen the attribute table for “Zones.shp”. On the bottom-center of the attribute table,
click on the button “selected”. The district you selected should appear as the only record in
this list. See how the link between table and map works; Items selected in the map are also
selected in the table, and visa versa. When you select a zone, and you see that more is being
highlighted than just the zone, this is because the select tool selects the related area with
each area file in the table of contents.

15
So, not only did you select Afder Zone, but you also selected Somali Region. You can open
the Regions Attribute table and click on the “Selected” tab, you will see that Somali Region
is selected.

31. Now unselect this record by selecting the “Options” tab on the bottom right-hand side
of the Attribute table, and click “Clear Selection”. Close the attribute table. If you still have

an area that seems selected on your map, you can use the “Unselect” button to
unselect everything in the Data Frame.

12. Symbolizing Features

Symbolizing features means assigning them colors, markers, sizes, widths, patterns,
transparency and other properties by which they can be recognized on a map. Data Layers
added to Arc Map have default Symbology. Points are displayed with small circles or
diamonds, and polygons (or shapes) have a fill color and outlines. The colors for points,
lines and polygons are randomly chosen.
32. First, turn off the “Zones” layer, by clicking the little black check mark to the left of the
layer name “Zones”.

3. Then, use the “Zoom to Full Extent” button to return to a view of entire Ethiopia. In
the Table of Contents, double-click on the color symbol for “Regions” layer. The Symbol
Selector dialog opens.

34. The scroll box on the left contains predefined symbols. The options frame on the right
allows you to pick specific colors and set outline widths. Choose a color of your preference
for both Fill and outline.

35. Next, we will work on the Symbology for the Cities. In the table of contents, double
click on the point symbol for the “Cities” layer. The Symbol Selector dialog opens once
again. In the scrolling box of predefined point symbols, click “Circle 1”. In the “Options”
frame, click the drop-down arrow to change the symbol size to 4 points.
Again, choose your color preference. On the map, the Cities should display with your new
symbol.

16
36. Choose a new color for the “River” layer also by double clicking on the line symbol
underneath the layer in the Table of contents, as you did for the “Zones” and “Cities”.
37. Experiment with the colors and options for the various layers. You are not tied to those
suggested by this lab.
Labeling: All maps contain textual information. Features in ArcMap are identified with
labels that make use of information from fields in the Attribute table to identify a particular
set of features.

38. For the moment, turn off your “Cities” and your “Rivers” layer.

39. Double left click on the “Regions” layer, the pop-up window you now see is called the
“Layer Properties” dialog. The mapmaker controls many properties of an individual layer
from this dialog, and we will work with this quite regularly in the future, but for the
moment, click on the “Labels” tab. (see below)
40. Click on the arrow for the drop down menu on the Label Field option, and choose
“Region_Nam”

41. Using the text tools, change the label to bold size 8. For more advanced options, Click
on the button “Symbol”, then the button “Properties”, and finally the tab “Mask”. This will
allow you to put a halo on your text. Choose a white halo, of 1.5 points.

Click OK repeatedly to accept these changes and exit out of the Layer Properties dialog.
You are encouraged to explore the other tabs within the labeling function at your leisure.
For example, you can explore the “Label Styles” under Pre-defined Label Style to see
different sizes of text and shadowing styles.

13.Saving your Progress

At this point, you have changed and customized quite a few features of this map. In order to
preserve these changes, we will now save your progress as a “Project file”. A project file in
ArcMap carries the file extension .mxd. An .mxd file saves each Component of a working
map, from the files you have opened, to the colors you have chosen. This allows you to edit
and return to a particular map, repeatedly.

17
42. From the “File” menu in the top left corner of your screen, choose “Save As”. Navigate
to the GIS folder on the D: or C: drive; C:/Shepfiles/Lab01, and save as
“Lab01_”Yourname”.mxd. It is always a good idea to save your map repeatedly while
working.

14. Preview Data

From the catalog tree on the left side, navigate to C:\AMU_GIS. You will see a list of
shapefiles. The .shp extension of the file means that these files are in shapefile format and
thus can be read by ArcGIS. Although this is not the only file format ArcGIS can read, it is
a popular format.

1. To view file extensions, navigate to ‘Customize’ > ‘ArcCatalog Options’ > and under the
‘General’ tab unclick ‘Hide file extensions’ and hit ‘OK’.

Tip: There are two kinds of data that can be viewed in ArcGIS – vector and raster. Vector
data is
a format whereby points, lines, and polygons are used to represent real features on the
earth’s surface such as an address location, a street or a zip code area. Raster data is a
continuous image of a portion of the earth’s surface and is made up of grid cells or pixels as
in an aerial or satellite image. If both vector data and raster data are georeferenced to the
same position, they can be used in the same view.

15. Viewing Shapefiles

A shapefile is a homogenous collection of simple features that do not contain topological

information. The format was introduced with ArcView 2.0 to simplify the representation of
spatial data. A shapefile includes geometric features and their attributes. The attributes are
contained in a dBase table, which allows for the joining with a feature based on the
attribute key.

18
16. Viewing Shapefiles in ArcMap

(1) Open ArcMap and select the A new empty map option.

(2) Use the (Add Data) button to add the exercise data for this exercise. Navigate to the
folder, which contains the data, and select all three files at once by using the shift key.
Click the Add button to import the images. If you are using a network drive to obtain your
files use the button to add the network drive to the ones that ArcMap is accessing so
you can get to the files.

In ArcMap, a layer consists of a reference to a spatial dataset (such as a feature class,

shapefile or coverage) and a definition of how to display it (legend colors, line thickness,
etc.), and a map is a graphical representation of geographic information. The left panel in
the ArcMap window is the Table of contents, and the right panel is the Display window.
In the middle is Arc Toolbox, whose use we will cover later. Click this off so that you just
have the Table of Contents and the Map Display panels displayed. The Table of contents
lists layers, and the Display window displays maps. You may get a message that says that
“one or more layers lacks spatial reference information and can’t be projected”. Don’t
worry about this. The Region polygon layer has a projection file (Region.prj) and the other
files are in the same coordinate system. We’ll deal more with projections in later exercises.
As you can see it is very simple to add shapefiles to ArcMap.

(3) Click off the check marks next to the layer names in the left hand column. Click on each
layer name individually to that you may view what features that layer contains.

19
When you are done exploring the possibilities of ArcMap, exit the program. You do not
need to save the file since you will be coming back to ArcMap later in the exercise.

When you are done exploring the possibilities of ArcMap, exit the program. You do not
need to save the file since you will be coming back to ArcMap later in the exercise.

17. Preview Shapefiles in ArcCatalog

(4) Open ArcCatalog

Arc Catalog is like a Windows Explorer for GIS files. It helps you to quickly explore what
data you have.

(5) On the left panel, search for the folder where the exercise data is located.

20
In ArcCatalog, you can toggle the right panel display between a file tree (Contents tab), a
data view (Preview tab), and a metadata document (Metadata tab).

(6) Highlight the layer for the Region shapefile and click on the Preview tab in the right
panel. First look at the Geography preview.

You can see the layer represents the outline of Region. The Preview option allows you to
display the feature class table as well, by selecting Table instead of geography at the
bottom of the panel.

21
If you click on the Metadata tab, you’ll see descriptive information about the Regions
layer:

Click on the other two data layers to preview them also.

18. Creating Geodatabases, Feature Datasets, and Feature Classes

A geodatabase is a relational database that stores geographic information. A relational

database is a collection of tables logically associated with each other by common key
attribute fields. A geodatabase can store geographic information because, besides storing a
number or a string in an attribute field, tables in a geodatabase can also store geometric
coordinates to define the shape and location of points, lines or polygons. Note that a single
table can store only one type of spatial feature (point, line or polygon) and not a mixture of
feature types. A personal geodatabase is a file with extension .mdb, which is the file
extension used by Microsoft Access.

A feature dataset is a collection of feature classes that share the same spatial reference.
The spatial reference describes both the projection and spatial domain extent for a feature
class in the geodatabase. Because the feature classes in a feature dataset share the same
spatial reference, they can participate in topological relationships with each other such as in
a geometric network. These topological relationships can also be stored in the feature
dataset. Note that feature classes in a geodatabase can exist as stand-alone feature classes,
without being part of any feature dataset.

A feature class is a collection of features with similar geometry. There are point, line, and
polygon feature classes. Two types of feature classes exist: simple feature classes and
topological feature classes. A simple feature class includes features that have no topological
associations among them and features maybe edited independently of each other.

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Topological feature classes are bond as one integrated topological unit, such as a geometric
network that we’ll explore later in this class.

19. Create a new Geodatabase

(1) To create a new geodatabase in Arc Catalog first right click on the folder that contains
the data for the exercise. Select New/Personal Geodatabase and a new geodatabase --
called New Personal Geodatabase.mdb and represented by an icon with the shape of a
cylinder -- will be created. Note – a File Geodatabase is an alternative form that stores the
data in a file system instead of as an Access file. It can be faster to do this but this is not
important for this exercise.

and (2) name the geodatabase Ex1Data (the geodatabase will keep its file extension mdb
regardless of whether you included it in the name or not). You can right click on the
geodatabase name and use Rename to rename the file in to EX1Data.mdb.

20. Adding Data to the Geodatabase

When first loading data into a geodatabase, it is important to think about the data and how
they are related. As mentioned above, in geodatabases the data is placed in feature classes
that are then organized into feature datasets. A geodatabase can have one or more feature
datasets. Each feature dataset has a single reference frame, which includes the map
projection and map extent. It is possible to define the reference frame after the creation of
the feature dataset and before data is loaded.

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21. Create a New Feature Dataset

We will create a new feature dataset within this geodatabase to define the spatial reference
of our data. Right click on the Ex1Data.mdb geodatabase and select New Feature
Dataset.

Name the new feature dataset Region, and hit Next to set the spatial reference frame.

Select Import in the screen which appears and then select Region.shp.

This has the effect of assigning the coordinate system and spatial extent of the Region.shp
theme to the Feature Dataset.

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Click Add and then Next and you will be asked to select a vertical coordinate system

In this case, we don’t have vertical coordinates (z-values) so we’ll just accept “none” and
hit Next . You’ll now be asked to select tolerances for various coordinate systems. Just
“accept the default resolution” and hit Finish . Note that this process of setting up a
Feature Dataset in ArcGIS version 9.3 is significantly different than in earlier versions and
avoids a problem of your being forced to set a spatial bound on the extent of your data that
caused considerable difficulties in this class in previous years.

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And if you view the “spatial” component of the metadata for this feature dataset, you’ll see
that you are using NAD_1983_Albers projected coordinate system.

And if you click on details, you’ll see some more information about the parameters of this
coordinate system. You’ll learn what this means in your next exciting lecture on map
projections and coordinate systems!

To import the shape files into the feature dataset, right click on the Region feature dataset
and select Import Feature Class (single)

You’ll see a Green Dot next to Input Features – browse for the shapefile Region and click
to import it. Type the name Region into the Output Feature Class Name field:

26
Click Ok

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 And if you view the Geography of this feature class in Arc Catalog, you’ll see:

If you check the file list for the shape files that you opened at the beginning of this exercise,
you’ll find that the Region shape file is the only one that has a .prj file and the Counties
and Evap shape files don’t have a .prj file, which means that they have a coordinate system
but it is undocumented in your dataset. It happens that these shape files have the same
coordinate system as the Region shape file so when they are imported into the geodatabase,
they overlay correctly in the same spatial reference. If you get shape files or coverages
with undocumented coordinate systems, it can be a real headache to figure out what the
correct coordinate system is. Fortunately, ArcGIS version 9.3 and above automatically
documents the coordinate system on each shape file, but earlier versions of ArcView did
not, and you may encounter the problem of undocumented coordinate systems when
loading older shape file data.

Ok, lets continue with the exercise.

Import the other shape files for Woreda and Evaporation to the feature dataset in a
similar way that you just did for the Region outline. You may see some messages in Green
about the resolution of the output feature class being greater than for the input feature class.
Don’t worry about this.

After creating the geodatabase, the feature dataset and the feature classes, the ArcCatalog
tree looks like this:

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Note that the feature classes Region, Woreda, and Evap could have been created outside the
feature dataset Region, but since they share the same spatial reference, it was decided to
group them together within the feature dataset. Trying to import spatial data to an existing
feature dataset may cause a conflict between different spatial reference frames. This is very
likely to occur when attempting to import data to an empty feature dataset created without
first defining its spatial reference.

22. Displaying Feature Datasets in a Map

We will now add the feature dataset that we created in ArcCatalog to an ArcMap
document. To display the spatial data of the Region feature dataset in a map, first open
ArcMap.

(1) You can launch ArcMap from within ArcCatalog using or you can open ArcMap
from the Start menu as you did before. Close Arc Catalog. In ArcMap, click on the Add
Data button, .

(2) Browse to the feature dataset Region,

and click Add. This has the effect of adding all the feature classes in the feature dataset to
the ArcMap display. You can add individual feature classes within the Region feature
dataset if you so desire, by clicking on the feature dataset icon, and then on the icons of one
or more of the feature classes (Hold down Ctrl or Shift to select more than one feature
class).

Note that the Table of Contents lists the layers corresponding to the three feature classes of
the Region feature dataset that you just added, while the Display window displays the map
with the corresponding spatial data (i.e., Region Woreda and evaporation stations). When I
loaded up my feature dataset, I found that the Region outline map is plotted above my
Counties so I can’t see my Region boundaries.

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This is fixed by dragging the Counties feature class up in the list of Layers so that it is
above the Region layer. The order in which the feature classes are displayed is the order
they are listed in the Layers.

(3) Save your work in ArcMap by choosing File/Save and, after navigating to your working
directory, naming the file Ex1 (the file will be assigned the extension mxd). When you do
this, the Ex1.mxd file contains the file location of the geodatabase and the symbology
you’ve chosen for the map display. You can shut down Arc Map and then invoke Arc Map
again and reload the same map display by clicking on Ex1.mxd. Note, however, that if in
the mean time you’ve relocated your geodatabase, ArcMap will go back to where you had it
at the time the map file was saved.

________________________________________________________________________

Helpful Tip:

If you open your ArcMap Ex1.mxd file later from another location in your file system, you
may see a red exclamation points beside your feature classes. If this happens, in ArcMap,
right click on the feature class use Data/Set Data Sources to relocate the file location
where the corresponding data are now stored and your map will display correctly again. It
does not matter where the Ex1.mxd file is stored, you can move that around wherever you
want, but it does matter where the data referred to in that file are stored. ArcGIS 9.3 and
above is a good deal more clever at dealing with file locations than earlier versions were so
you may not encounter this problem.

Ok, lets continue on with the exercise.

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(4) To change the appearance of a map display, you can access the Symbology menu just
by double clicking on the Symbol

displayed in the ArcMap Layers, and you’ll get the Symbol Selector window

Click on the symbol color box, make your selections for the Fill Color and the Outline
Color, and click OK, twice. Follow this procedure to modify the display of the Region
layer. Hopefully, the new map looks better than the original one. You can show the
outline of the of woreda more distinctly by using the Hollow symbology for the Region
polygon and then changing the Outline Width to 2 . Otherwise the Region layer is
obscured behind the Woreda layer and you won’t see it.

More complicated symbol shading that has the color and size of the symbols varying
according to attributes of a feature class, can be manipulated by accessing the of the
Properties of the Symbology of the Feature Class.

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23. Accessing and Querying Attribute Data

Numerical and text information stored in the fields of the geodatabase tables are called
attributes. To access attribute data of the feature classes at a specific location:

(1) Click on the Identify Features tool which is contained within the “Tools” menu. If you
don’t see this set of tools on your ArcMap document, use View/Toolbars and click on Tools to
make it appear.

(2) Click on the feature on the map you are interested in, and in the Identify Results
window, select the object you are interested in. In the figure, attribute data for the Arba
minch University evaporation station. I have used the Zoom button to zoom into the
middle of the state where Arba Minch is located to create the next picture:

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If you inadvertently close the Tools menu you just used, you can open it again from the

View menu:

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24. Viewing an Attribute Table

(3) Tables that contain attribute data of a layer are always called Attributes of <layer
name>, and contain a field called Shape. The field Shape displays the words Point, Line or
Polygon, but it really stores a geometric object with the shape of a point, line or polygon.
To access attribute data of an entire layer, in ArcMap: right click on the Evap layer name
in the table of contents, and select Open Attribute Table:

And if you scroll down and click on Number 18 you’ll see the record that contains the
attributes of the Arba Minch station that you identified earlier. Click on this to select it,
and you’ll see the corresponding point selected in the map – this is a key idea of GIS – map
features are described by records in attribute tables.

All attribute data is the same as retrieved before, except for the Shape field, but that does
not mean that the table stores information different from what can be retrieved with the
Identify Features tool.

(4) To Clear a Selected feature and select a new one, use: Selection/Clear Selected
Features in the ArcMap toolbar:

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25. Selecting features from a feature class (points, lines and polygons)

Selecting features from a feature class involves choosing a subset of all the features in the
class for a specific purpose. Feature selection can be made from a map by identifying the
geometric shape, or from an attribute table by identifying the record. Regardless of how
you select an object, both the shape in the map and the record in the attribute table will be
selected. To choose a particular data layer for selection use Selection/Set Selectable
Layers and then click off the layers that you don’t want to have selected. Be careful when
using this Set Selectable Layers function because if you later want to select features from
another class, you’ll have to go back and change this selection to your new class.

35
(1) To select an object from the map, in ArcMap: click on the Select Features tool ,
in the Tools menu

(2) Zoom to the full extent of the map, by using the button on the Tools menu. Click on
the Region polygons you want to select. To select more than one object, press the Shift key
and hold it down while you click on the additional objects. Selected objects are displayed
with a light blue outline, although the color might change depending on your settings. The

36
corresponding attribute table records have also been selected. You can verify this by
opening the Region attribute table, and hit Selected at the bottom of the attribute table to
show just the Selected Counties.

(3) To clear your selection, right click on the layer name, and choose Selection/Clear
Selected Features.

26. Making a Chart

Charts are useful because they allow you to visualize trends in data. ArcMap has chart-
making capabilities. We will plot a chart of one or more records selected from a
geodatabase table.

(1) Use Selection/Set Selectable layers to show only the Evap data layer.

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Select the two evaporation points that are located in Arba minch Woreda. Arba minch is
located in south Ethiopia. If you open the Evap attributes table and hit Selected, you’ll see
just the evaporation records for Arba Minch stations. If you scroll across, you’ll see some
attributes from January to December and an Annual value. These are average pan
evaporation values in inches for each month and year compiled from historical data
measured at these locations.

To create a chart, choose Tools/Graphs/Create, this opens the Graph Wizard.

(2) You will be making a Column chart (the default option). The next screen will allow
you to indicate the data to be used in the graph. Here is a graph of the Annual Evaporation
of the two stations plotted against a backdrop of all the stations in Ethiopia:

Hit Next and edit the graph properties to make them nicer:

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Press Finish. You have created a graph in ArcMap!!

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Another option is to make a chart in Excel using the dBase tables given by the evaporation
shapefile. Open the evaporation attributes table evap.dbf as a table in Excel. Use Files of
Type: dBase files in Excel to focus only on .dbf tables when you open the table. Select the
stations you want to plot, copy their records to a new worksheet, delete the columns you
don't need there, and then create a chart. Here is an example chart created this way. The
column headers have been renamed from Jan_Val to Jan, etc to make the Chart x-axis more
attractive to view. The legend has been moved to the top of the chart to allow a wider
spacing of the data in the chart. I copied the data for Addis Ababa and Adama airport into a
new spreadsheet to make this chart.

Helpful Tip:

Instead of opening the evap.dbf file in Excel, you could have accessed the same data
directly from the geodatabase using Data/Get External Data in Excel

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Navigate to the geodatabase and select the table Evap. Then select the fields that you want
to appear in the spreadsheet. You’ll end up with a spreadsheet containing the data for all
the fields you’ve selected.

Ok, lets continue with the exercise.

27. Creating a Map Layout

To consolidate a map of counties of Region with evaporation stations with the graph that
you created before in a single sheet of paper, in ArcMap: (1) change the format of the
display window from Data View to Layout View by clicking on View/Layout View,

If your Layout doesn’t display properly in ArcMap, hit at the bottom of the
map display to refresh it.

41
Reduce the size of the data frame in the layout (i.e., rectangle where the spatial data is
contained) -- to make room for the graph -- by clicking on the graph and moving its
handlers. If you have a zoomed in view in Arc Map, you’ll get the same image in in the
Layout. To go back to the image of the whole State of Region, right click on the Region
data layer in the legend and select Zoom to Layer.

To insert the ArcMap Chart into the Layout, right-click on upper blue bar at the top of the
Chart and select Show on Layout. Move and resize the graph as necessary. If you want to
copy your graph from Excel, highlight the graph, and click on Copy on Excel, then Paste in
ArcMap and your graph should appear in the map layout.

You can draw lines to relate the location of the measurement stations and the data plotted
on the graph using the Draw a Line tool from the ArcMap Draw toolbar (to display this
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Toolbar, use View/Toolbars and select Draw). This draw toolbar works the same in
ArcMap as it does in other MS applications. It is important to show some association
between the data plotted on the chart and where these data were measured on the map so
that you can figure out which data series was measured at what location.

Or you can add text with the text tool shown next to the line draw tool. You can also
insert a North Arrow by using the Insert menu in ArcMap.

Your map might look like this:

You can export your map from ArcGIS using File/Export Map from the ArcMap menu, and
you can store this as Ex1.emf in your data file (don’t worry that it has 0kb size). Then you
can add it to a Word document using Import/Picture/From File and load this emf file, as
shown below. Pretty cool!

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Helpful Tip:

A more general procedure is to simply copy the screen to the clipboard and cut out the part
that you want, saving it to a file for later use. That is how all the images in this exercise
were prepared. To copy any image, hit Shift/Print Screen on your keyboard (this copies
the Screen onto the Clipboard). From the Start Menu in Windows, Open
Accessories/Paint.

After you open the paint copy the image and pest and save as image.
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Part: two
Application of
GIS for
hydrological
Analysis.
28. Spatial Analysis in Hydrology

Goal
The goal of this exercise is to serve as an introduction to Spatial Analysis with ArcGIS.

Objectives
 Calculate slope from a grid digital elevation model
 Apply model builder geoprocessing capability to program a sequence of ArcGIS
functions
 Use raster data and raster calculator functionality to calculate watershed attributes such
as mean elevation, mean slope and mean annual precipitation.

27.Computer and Data Requirements

To carry out this exercise, you need to have a computer, which runs the ArcInfo version of
ArcGIS 9.3 and above The necessary data are provided in the accompanying zip file,
hydro.zip in CD and in the web blog http://www.zaxumblogspot.com

29. Slope calculations

1.1 Hand Calculations
Given the following grid of elevations. Calculate by hand the slope and aspect (slope
direction) at the grid cell labeled A.
(i) The standard slope function
(ii) The 8 direction pour point model

(iii) The D algorithm

Grid cell size 100m

61 60 55 53 53

57 71 60 A 55 58

57 56 50 B 47 49

56 58 45 46 45

Comment on the differences and indicate which you think is a most reasonable
approximation of the direction of water flow over the surface.

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To turn in: Hand calculations of slope at point A using each of the three methods and
comments on the differences.

30. Verifying calculations using ArcGIS

Verify the calculations in (1.1) using ArcGIS Hydro and Geoprocessing functions and
TauDEM.

Save the following to a text file 'elev.txt' (This file is also included in
http://www.zaxum.plogspot.com/p/hydro/ or in the CD
ncols 5

nrows 4

xllcorner 0

yllcorner 0

cellsize 100

NODATA_value -9999

61 60 55 53 53

57 71 60 55 58

57 56 50 47 49

56 58 45 46 45

This shows how raw grid data can be represented in a format that ArcGIS can import.

Open ArcMap and ArcToolbox. Use the tool Conversion Tools  To Raster  ASCII
to Raster to import this grid file into ArcMap. Specify the name of the Output raster as
elev and give it a disk location. Specify the Output data type as FLOAT (It is more
consistent to think of elevation data as including floating point data, rather than integer,
even though this specific case is integer data).

46
You can use the identify button on the grid created to verify that the numbers correspond to
the values in the table above.

Open Tools  Extensions and verify that the Spatial Analyst function is available and
checked. This is where the spatial analyst license is accessed, so if Spatial Analyst does not
appear you need to acquire the appropriate license.

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Select View  Toolbars  Spatial Analyst. This displays the Spatial Analyst toolbar in
the ArcMap interface. You may dock the toolbar somewhere convenient.

Select Spatial Analyst  Surface Analysis  Slope on the Spatial Analyst toolbar.

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At the dialog that appears select elev as the input surface and select whether you want the
output in Degree or Percent (to be consistent with your hand calculations above). It’s a bit
easier to interpret slopes in Percent.

Use the identify button on the slope grid that is created to verify that the numbers
correspond to the values you calculated by hand and resolve or reconcile any differences.
Record in a table the ArcGIS calculated slope at grid cells A and B (B being the grid cell
immediately below A as indicated on the above table)

Select Spatial Analyst  Surface Analysis  Aspect on the Spatial Analyst toolbar. At
the dialog that appears select elev as the input surface.

49
Use the identify button on the aspect grid that is created to verify that the numbers
correspond to the values you calculated by hand and resolve or reconcile any differences.
Record in a table the ArcGIS calculated aspect at grid cells A and B.
Open the Toolbox. Open the tool Spatial Analyst Tools  Hydrology  Flow Direction

Select elev as the input raster and specify names for output rasters (e.g. FlowDir and
PercDrop). Note that raster file names can not exceed 13 characters and that there should
not be a space in the name or the file path leading up to the name. Also note that when you
click on each field in the dialog box the help part of the dialog to the right explains the
content of the file. This is shown below for the Output drop raster which from the
description is really the slope expressed as a percentage.

Use the identify button on the FlowDir and PercDrop grids that are created to verify that the
numbers correspond to the values you calculated by hand and resolve or reconcile any
differences. Record in a table the ArcGIS calculated flow direction and hydrologic slope
(Output drop) at grid cells A and B.
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The D algorithm is not part of standard ArcGIS. Rather it is part of TauDEM that is
distributed by as a toolbar plugin to ArcGIS. The TauDEM software is available from
http://www.engineering.usu.edu/dtarb/taudem/. Download the setup file for the ArcGIS
version and install it. And alos you having in the hydro.zip folder in the CD

Open ArcMAP and add the TauDEM toolbar. [Click on Tools  Customize  Add from
file and select the file c:\program files\Taudem\agtaudem.dll]

You should get a toolbar that looks like

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This may be docked in a convenient location. On the TauDEM toolbar select Basic Grid
Analysis  Dinf Flow Directions.

This is the function that computes slope and flow direction using the D method. At the
dialog box that appears click on the folder browse button next to the Pit Filled Grid field
and browse to the 'elev' grid. Click on the other browse buttons to fill in output names (e.g.
DinfDir and Dinfslp, remaining cognizant of the 13 character and no space file name
limitations). You do not need to fill in the Flow Path Grid field as we are not using an
existing flow path grid. Click compute. This is the only TauDEM function needed for this
exercise. We will use other TauDEM functions later in the Lab.

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Use the identify button on the Dinfdir and Dinfslp grids that are created to verify that the
numbers correspond to the values you calculated by hand and resolve or reconcile any
differences. Record in a table the TauDEM calculated Dinfdir and Dinfslp at grid cells A
and B. Note that TauDEM does not compute values for the edges of the domain, because
results there are ambiguous due to the data outside the domain not being present, so
TauDEM grids will appear smaller. This is not an error.

To turn in: Table giving slope, aspect, hydrologic slope, flow direction, D slope, D flow
direction at grid cells A and B. Please also turn in a diagram or sketch that defines or
indicates what each of these numbers means for the specific values obtained for cells A and
B.

31. Automating procedures using Modelbuilder.

Modelbuilder provides a convenient way to automate and combine together geoprocessing
tools in ArcToolbox. Here we will develop a Modelbuilder tool to automate the importing
of the ASCII grid and calculation of Slope, Aspect, Hydrologic Slope and Flow direction.

Right click on the whitespace within the ArcToolbox window and select New Toolbox.
Name the toolbox Ex3 (or something else you might like).

The toolboxes created in this manner are stored within the Documents and Settings folder
for the user of the computer (e.g. 'C:\Documents and Settings\dtarb\Application
Data\ESRI\ArcToolbox\My Toolboxes').

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Right-click on the new toolbox and select new model.

The model window should open. This is a window where you can drag, drop and link tools
in a visual way much like constructing a flow chart.
In the Toolbox window browse to Conversion Tools  To Raster  ASCII to Raster.
Drag this tool onto the model window.

Double click on the ASCII to Raster rectangle to set this tool's properties.

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Set the Input ASCII raster file to elev.txt and Output raster to ElevM (I used ElevM so as
not to conflict with elev that already exists). Set the output data type to be FLOAT. Click
OK to dismiss this dialog. Note that the model elements on the ModelBuilder palette are
now colored indicating that their inputs are complete.

Locate the tool Spatial Analyst Tools  Surface  Slope and drag it on to your window.
Your window should appear as follows.

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The output from the ASCII to raster function needs to be taken as input to the slope
function. To do this use the connection tool and draw a line from elevm, the Output
raster of ASCII to Raster, to Slope. Right click on Output Raster and select 'Add to
Display'.

You could also double click on Output raster or slope to change the name of the output file
if you wish (but this is not essential). The model is now ready to run. Run the model by
clicking on the run button .

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The orange boxes briefly flash red as each step is executed and then the Slope Output raster
is added to the Map display. The default variable calculated is the Slope in Degrees, if you
want PercentRise, you can click on the Slope tool and change the default type in the
PercentRise.

Add the following two tools

Spatial Analyst Tools  Surface  Aspect
Spatial Analyst Tools  Hydrology  Flow Direction

Connect the elevm outputs to these tools. Use the layout tool to organize the layout.

Your model should appear as follows. Notice that the "output drop" oval is hollow. This is
because this is an optional output that has not been specified.

Double click on the Flow Direction rectangle and set the output drop file name to
something suitable, e.g. pcdrop. When setting names you need to be careful that you do not
use a name of a grid that already exists, or else you will get a yellow warning sign in the
display and the model will not run, as shown below:

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Set the flow direction output at the same time. Then double click on the slope and aspect
rectangles to set the outputs to appropriate grid file names. Your final model should look
something like:

You can click run and do all the processing required to import the data, compute Slope,
Aspect, Flow Direction and Hydrologic Slope at the click of a button. Pretty slick!

Right click on elev.txt and select Model Parameter.

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Right click on each of the outputs Asp, FDir, pcdrop and slpdeg in turn and select Model
Parameter and Add to Display.

A P now appears next to these elements in the diagram indicating that they are 'parameters'
of the model that may be adjusted at run time. Close your model and click Yes at the
prompt to save it. Right click on the model in the Toolbox window to rename it something
you like (e.g. SlopeAspect). If you go back to your model and now Open it,

you’ll see that the input files are shown as parameters of the model just like when you
execute a tool in ArcToolBox.

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If you see a red X near one of your output files, it means that there is already a file of that
name in the place where you propose to put the output, so rename the output to another
folder or another name.

You are done creating this model. Close ArcMap.

ModelBuilder is a very powerful way of creating complex analyses, and documenting your
“workflow” in a form that is visual and can readily be described. In this way, analyses that
you’ve done can be passed on to other analysts, and you can also use the visual palette
display in your term project report or thesis to document how you’ve done your analysis, so
the visual aspect of the display helps with documenting your work, as well as in organizing
it.
To turn in: A screen capture of your final model builder model.
We will now use this model for different data. Locate the file demo.asc extracted from the
zip file of data for this exercise. Reopen ArcMap. Right click within the Toolbox area and
select Add Toolbox. Browse to the My Toolboxes folder within Documents and Settings
for the user of the computer (e.g. 'C:\Documents and Settings\dtarb\Application
Data\ESRI\ArcToolbox\My Toolboxes') to locate and add the Toolbox Ex3 that contains
the tool you just created.

60
Double click on the model in the Toolbox window to run it. The following dialog box for
the tool you created should appear.

Select as input under elev.txt the file demo.asc. Specify different names for the outputs
Asp, FlowDir, Percdrop and Slp to avoid the conflicts with existing data and remove the

red crosses . Then click OK and the model should run and add results for this new data
to ArcMap. Examine the ArcMap table of contents and record the minimum and maximum
values associated with each of the outputs Aspect, Slope, Flow Direction and Hydrologic
Slope (percentage drop).

To turn in: A table giving the minimum and maximum values of Aspect, Slope, Flow
Direction and Hydrologic Slope (Percentage drop) for the digital elevation model in
demo.asc.

Congratulations, you have just built a Model Builder geoprocessing program and used it to
repeat your work for a different (and much larger) dataset. If you would like to save this
tool to take to another computer or share with someone else you can copy the file Ex3.tbx
from c:\documents and settings\<username>\application data\ESRI\ArcToolbox\My
Toolboxes to a removable media to take with you.

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32. Abaya chamo Elevation and Precipitation.

The purpose of this part of the exercise is to calculate average watershed elevation and
slope for subwatersheds of the Abaya chamo basin, and to calculate average precipitation
over each of these subwatersheds using different interpolation methods.
The following data is provided in the Ex3.zip file.
Ex3.mdb personal Geodatabase.

The feature dataset Ethiopia Basemap contains the following feature are found in hydro.zip
folder.

- HydroEdge
- Watershed
The Abaya chamo feature dataset contains feature classes:

- PrecipStn. Precipitation stations in and around the Abaya chamo basin with annual
precipitation for the year 2014 downloaded from http://www.zaxum.blogspot.com
or copy from hydro.zip file Ex3.mdb file.
- Abaya chamoStreamGages. Locations of 5 stream gages in the San Marcos basin
- Subwatershed. Subwatersheds delineated to each of the above stream gages
following the procedures that will be learned in a future exercise.
A digital elevation model from the National Elevation dataset is provided in the folder
DEM_et.

33. Loading the Data

Open ArcMap and from the geodatabase Ex3.mdb load the Etio_adm Basemap and
Abaya chamo feature datasets. Check the spatial reference system of each by right
clicking and selecting properties. Check the spatial reference system of the data frame
layers and if necessary set it to be the same as SubWatershed, "GCS_WGS_1984". We
will use the GCS_WGS_1984 projection that of the feature dataset Abaya chamo for this
exercise.

Add the grid DEM_et to ArcMap. This is a digital elevation model that was downloaded
from the http://www.diva-gis.org/gdata Your map should look similar to the following:

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The DEM grid is skewed in this display because it was obtained in geographic coordinates.
Right click on the smdem_raw layer in the table of contents and select properties. Click on
the source tab. This shows you the Cell Size and number of columns and rows. If you
scroll down in the properties you also see the Extent and Spatial reference of this DEM.

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The cell size is in degrees. This is not a very useful measure at this scale. Use what you
learned in the lecture on Geodesy to calculate the cell size in m in both the E-W and N-S
directions, assuming a spherical earth with radius 6370 km.

To turn in: The number of columns and rows, cell size in the E-W and N-S directions in m,
extent (in degrees) and spatial reference information for the San Marcos elevation dataset
DEM 'smdem_raw'.

34. Projecting the DEM.

To perform slope and contributing area calculations we need to work with this DEM
projected into the Albers equal area projection (An equal area projection is most
appropriate for area calculations such as we will be performing). Open the Toolbox and
open the tool Data Management Tools  Projections and Transformations  Raster
 Project Raster. Set the inputs as follows:

The output coordinate system should be specified using Import a coordinate system …
after clicking on the button to the right of Output coordinate system. Then browse to the
Abaya chamo feature dataset. This ensures that the projection of the DEM is the same as
the other data.

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The cell size should be specified as 100 m and CUBIC interpolation used. I have found
cubic interpolation to be preferable to nearest neighbor interpolation for continuous datasets
such as DEMs. (This NED data is at 1 arc second spacing which is close to 30 m, so in
general 30 m would be a better choice here, but 100 m is chosen to reduce the size of the
resulting grid and speed data processing and analysis.) CUBIC refers to the cubic
convolution method that determines the new cell value by fitting a smooth curve through
the surrounding points. This works best for a continuous surface like topography at
limiting artificial "striping" that can appear in a shaded relief map (we will construct a
shaded relief map below) with the other methods. Click "OK" to invoke the tool. After the
process is complete, the projected DEM, DEM_et, is added to ArcMap.
Examine the properties of the projected dataset.

To turn in: The number of columns and rows in the projected DEM. The minimum and
maximum elevations in the projected DEM. Explain why the minimum and maximum
elevations are different from the minimum and maximum elevations in the original DEM.

35. Exploring the DEM

The spatial information about the DEM can be found by right clicking on the DEM_et
layer, then clicking on PropertiesSource. Similarly, the symbology of the DEM can be
changed by right clicking on the layer, PropertiesSymbology.

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To explore the highest elevation areas in your DEM Select Spatial Analyst  Raster
Calculator. If you don’t see the Spatial Analyst toolbar, go to View  Toolbars and click
on Spatial Analyst. Double click on the layer DEM_et with the DEM for San Marcos.
Click on the “>” symbol and select a number less than the maximum elevation. This
arithmetic raster operation will select all cells with values above the defined threshold. In
the example below a threshold of 600m was selected for the Z pixel value of DEM_et.

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A new layer called calculation appears on your map. The majority of the map (brown color
in the figure below) has a 0 value representing false (values below the threshold), and the
red region has a value of 1 representing true (elevations higher than 550 meters).

Zoom in to the region of highest elevations (red region) and do some sampling on the

DEM_et grid using the identify tool to select a point close to the maximum elevation.
In a layout mark your point of maximum elevation and label it with the elevation value for
that pixel.

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You can place the dot using the Draw toolbar. It seems that when you zoom out the dot
does not show up in zoomed out view. If that is the case, just show the zoomed-in view, as
above.

To turn in: A layout showing the location of the highest elevation value in the Gamo Gofa
DEM.
Contours, Hillshade and Slope

Contours are a useful way to visualize topography. This can be done by using the spatial analyst
extension through the following steps:

Select Spatial Analyst  Surface Analysis  Contour…

Select the Input surface as DEM_et, leave the default parameters, and browse to your
output folder. Name output features as contour.shp. If you find that you don’t have contours
over your whole extent, it is because one of your Calculation grids has been chosen by
default as the Input surface. Make sure DEM_Et is provided as the input surface.

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A layer is generated with the topographic contours for San Marcos. Notice the big
difference in Terrain Relief to the west of the basin compared to the east. This results from
the fact that the Balcones fault zone runs through the middle of this basin, to the west of
which lies the rolling Texas hill country and to the east the flatter coastal plain. There is a
tower located in the City of San Marcos on which you can stand and see these differences
in topography to east and west!

Another option to provide a nice visualization of topography is Hillshading.

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Select Spatial Analyst  Surface Analysis  Hillshade… and set the factor Z to a higher value
to get a dramatic effect and leave the other parameters at their defaults (the following hillshade is
produced with a Z factor of 100). Click OK. You should see an illuminated hillshaded view of the
topography.

Spatial Analyst also provides the capability to compute slope.

Select Spatial Analyst  Surface Analysis  Slope… Set the inputs as follows:

A grid of slope values in percent is displayed.

To be turned in: A layout with a depiction of topography either with contours, hillshade or
slope in nice colors. Include the streams from the Ethio_adm Basemap HydroEdge feature
class and the outline of the Abaya chamo Basin Watershed.

36. Zonal Average Calculations

In hydrology it is often necessary to obtain average properties over watersheds or
subwatersheds. The Zonal Statistics functions in Spatial Analyst are useful for this
purpose.
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Select Spatial Analyst  Zonal Statistics… Set the inputs as follows:

Click OK. A table with zonal statistics is displayed.

This contains statistics of the value raster, in this case elevation from smdem over the
zones defined by the polygon feature class Subwatershed. The Value field in this zone
table contains the HydroID from the subwatershed layer and may be used to join these
values with attributes of the Subwatershed feature class.

Open the attribute table for Subwatershed. Note that Zoneelev has been joined to this
(because the join option was checked above). Determine the mean elevation and elevation
range of each subwatershed in the Abaya chamo Subwatershed feature class.
Select Spatial Analyst  Zonal Statistics… Set the input raster to be smslope:

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Click OK.

Examine the attribute table for Subwatershed which should now also have the zoneslope
table joined to it. Determine the mean slope (in percent) of each subwatershed in the
Abaya chamo Subwatershed feature class.
To be turned in: A table giving the HydroID, Name, mean elevation, elevation range and
mean slope (in percent) of each subwatershed in the Abaya chamo Subwatershed feature
class. Which subwatershed has the highest mean elevation? Which subwatershed has the
largest elevation range? Which subwatershed has the largest mean slope?

37. Calculation of Area Average Precipitation using Thiessen Polygons

Now to do something really useful. We will calculate the area average mean annual
precipitation over the watershed using Thiessen polygons.

Open the attribute table of PrecipStn. Notice that the last column of this table contains the
annual precipitation for the year 2005 in hundredths of inches. Notice also that some of the
values are -99999. These represent missing data and can not be used in our calculations so
we need to eliminate them. In ArcMap choose Selection  Select by attributes

Set the layer to PrecipStn and form the selection to be where ANNUAL is not equal to
"<>" -99999.

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Click OK. The stations without missing data should be selected.
Export these selected features to a shapefile PrecipSubset.shp in the folder where you are
working.

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This subset of the precipitation stations will be used to calculate the area average
precipitation. I am using a shapefile, rather than a feature class because the Thiessen
function to be used next gave me problems with feature classes.

Thiessen polygons associate each point in a watershed with the nearest raingage. Select the
tool Analysis Tools  Proximity  Create Thiessen Polygons

Specify PrecipSubset as the Input Features. Set the output feature class to be
ThiessenP.shp and indicate that ALL fields should be output. Click OK.

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The result is a Thiessen polygon shapefile.

To average precipitation values in these polygons over the subwatersheds we need to

convert this to a grid. Select Spatial Analyst  Convert  Features to Raster.

Specify the Input feature as ThiessenP, field as ANNUAL (it is the annual rainfall that we
would like to work with), output raster as thiessen and cell size as 100 m. Click OK.

The result should be a grid that gives in each cell the annual precipitation value from the
corresponding Thiessen polygon.
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Select Spatial Analyst  Zonal Statistics… Set the inputs as follows:

Click OK. A table with zonal statistics is displayed. This contains statistics of the value
raster, in this case 2014 annual precipitation from thiessen over the zones defined by the
polygon feature class Subwatershed. The Value field in this zone table contains the
HydroID from the subwatershed layer and may be used to join these values with attributes
of the Subwatershed feature class.

Open the attribute table for Subwatershed. Note that Zonetheiss has been joined to this
(because the join option was checked above). Determine the mean precipitation of each
subwatershed in the Abaya chamo Subwatershed feature class from the zonetheiss.mean
column.

To be turned in: A table giving the HydroID, Name, and mean precipitation by the
Thiessen method for each subwatershed in the Abaya chamo Subwatershed feature class.
Which subwatershed has the highest mean precipitation?

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7. Estimate basin average mean annual precipitation using Spatial Interpolation/Surface
fitting.
Thiessen polygons were effectively a way of defining a field based on discrete data, by
associating with each point the precipitation at the nearest gage. This is probably the
simplest and least sophisticated form of spatial interpolation. ArcGIS provides other spatial
interpolation capabilities under the Spatial Analyst  Interpolate to Raster functions.

We will not, in this exercise, concern ourselves too much with the theory behind each of
these methods. You should however be aware that there is a lot of statistical theory on the
subject of interpolation, which is an active area of research. This theory should be
considered before practical use of these methods.

Select Spatial Analyst  Interpolate to Raster  Spline. Use the input points from
"PrecipSubset" and Z value field as "ANNUAL", and set the spline type as Tension with
default parameters as follows:

The result is illustrated:

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Select Spatial Analyst > Zonal Statistics… Set the inputs as follows:

Click OK. A table with zonal statistics is displayed. This contains statistics of the value
raster, in this case 2005 annual precipitation interpolated using a tension spline over the
zones defined by the polygon feature class Subwatershed. Determine the mean
precipitation of each subwatershed in the Abaya chamo Subwatershed feature class from
the zonespline.mean column.

To be turned in: A table giving the HydroID, Name, and mean precipitation by the Tension
Spline method for each subwatershed in the Abaya chamo Subwatershed feature class.
Which subwatershed has the highest mean precipitation using a Tension Spline
interpolation?

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Experiment with some of the other methods available (Kriging, Inverse distance weighting)
to see if you like them.

To hand in. A layout giving a nicely colored map of the interpolated 2005 annual
precipitation surface over the San Marcos Basin for one of the methods used and a table
showing the 2005 annual precipitation for the same method in each Subwatershed. Report
what method you used.

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Part: three
Miscellaneous
Lab
Exercises.

Notice: this exercises started from lab02 lab01 is included in part one if you need
information about lab01 place refer page 8.
38. The Layout View
43. You now have a basic GIS map of Ethiopia. The next step is to prepare this map for
printing.
44. First, make sure that your “Regions”, “Cities”, and “Rivers” shapefiles are all turned on
by checking the checkmark box next to the layer name in the table of contents. Also, go to
the “Add Data” button, and add the “Lakes” shapefile to your data screen.
45. The map window that you have been working in up to now is called the “Data View”.
We will now move to a different map window called the “Layout View” to prepare the map
for printing. The “Data View” is where you perform the majority of your GIS editing work,
while the “Layout View” is where you arrange your map(s) along with preferred

graphics for printing or export. To navigate between these two views, there are two small
tabs located on the bottom left-hand corner of the main map window.

46. The “Layout View” is represented by the white sheet of paper, and the “Data View” by
the little globe. Click over and back between these tabs, and observe the changes.

47. The third little icon, represented by the double arrows, is the “Redraw/Refresh” button.
Use this button at any time, if you feel your map has not redrawn fully after opening or
editing.

48. When you have finished experimenting with the alternative map views, select the layout
view.

49. We want to select a paper setup that best fits the geographical nature of Ethiopia in
order to use the most space on our page for our map. Click on the File tab in the upper left
of your screen and scroll to “Page and Print Setup”. Make sure you select

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Landscape for the Orientation. Also click the checkmark to “Use Printer Paper Settings”.
This will give you a dotted outline of how far you are able to expand your map. (see next
step)

50. Now, resize the window around your map of Ethiopia, so that it fits within the printable
area.

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51. using the “Insert” menu, add a Title, Scale Bar, and North Arrow to your map. Using
the insert title option, name your map “Ethiopia: Regions and Cities” (or something
similar).

There are many Scale Bars, and North Arrows styles to choose from. Pick your favorite.
52. Return to the menu option “Insert” and click on “Legend”.

53. In the Legend Wizard dialog that pops up, accept all the default options by Clicking
“Next” repeatedly, and finally “Finish”.

54. You will notice a small legend appear somewhere in the middle of your layout window.
Position it correctly.

55. If you wish to change the name of your layers in the legend, edit the corresponding text
in the table of contents, and it will also change in the legend. Just click twice on the text in
the table of contents to edit it, (as you would to rename a file in Windows Explorer).

56. When you are happy with the appearance of your map, you can export this map as a
.jpeg, by choosing the menu option “File”, scroll to “Export”, then save with as
(Lab01_YOURNAME.jpeg) in your Lab01 folder following the instructions.
PLEASE MAKE SURE: That you save the changes to your map before you continue.Your map should
look similar to the one below (featuring your own color and style preferences of course).

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39. Lab 02: Advanced Symbology

In the previous exercise, Rivers had the same line symbol regardless of their level of importance.
This is sufficient for a basic navigational map, but most GIS maps are used as a visual
interpretation of tabular data, therefore we will learn how to visualize such data in this lab.

1. Open a new, blank map by clicking on the “New Map” button in the upper left Corner of
your screen below the “File” button.

2. From your Lab01 folder, add the file “Regions”, “Cities”, “Lakes” and “Rivers”. Reorder these
files in the table of contents so that “Cities” are on top, “Rivers” are next, then “Lakes” and
“Regions” is at the bottom. Remember: Your table of contents must be in the Display mode, look
at the bottom of the table of contents and make sure that the Display tab is selected.

3. From your Lab02 folder, add the “Roads” shapefile. Uncheck the roads layer for now so you
don’t see it in your map frame; we will work on that later. When you uncheck it, the roads layer
should disappear from the Data Frame.

4. Choose an appropriate color for the “Regions” layer, and then SAVE your project file as
Lab02_YOURNAME to the Lab02 folder.
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5. Double-click on the layer name “Cities”; this will take you directly to the “Layer Properties” for
the layer. Select the tab “Symbology”.

6. In the “Show” box (see graphic), click on the option “Quantities”, and the sub-option “Graduated
symbols”. In the “Value Field” dropdown list, select the Field name “POP”.

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7. Click “Apply”, but not OK. If you move your dialog slightly you will see that the city
symbols have changed. The map is still a little too busy. Change the “Symbol size” to “from: 4
to: 12”.

Next, click on the “Classify” tab. This will take you to the “Classification” drop down menu
(see graphic right).
8. Click on the arrow to the right of “Classes” and choose 2. Click on the arrow to the right of
“Method” and choose “Manual”.

9. Choose your “Break Values” to be 50,000 and the second the same as it displays the
maximum value of population of a city. (See right)

10. Press OK once you have finished step 9.

11. Now you are back to the Layer Properties Window. Double-click on the largest circle
and chose a bright color to represent the cities that are greater than 50,000 people. Press
OK. Double-click on the other circle and chose the symbol “Circle 1” in the left box,
change the size to 4 and choose a color for these cities that display population under 50,000.

85
12. Press OK repeatedly until you see the mapping screen again.

13. Now it should be clearer where the cities of 50,000 are. Switch to your identify tool

, click on one of the large circles. Scroll up and down in the “Identify” window that
appears in order to read the attribute information. What is the city’s name (Adama)? What
is its population (POP)? What is the population calculated for the year 2000 (ES00POP)?

Now, SAVE YOUR WORK again as Lab02_YOURNAME!!

14. Okay, now we are ready to add our roads. Check the box next to your roads layer so it
appears in your Data Frame.

15. Wow! There are a lot of roads in Ethiopia, this is not very helpful. Double click on the
roads layer (double-click on the word ‘Roads’) in order to enter into the “Layer Properties”
window. Click on the Symbology tab like you did when you were working on the cities.

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 16. Click on “Unique Values” under the “Categories” option to the left of the Layer Properties
window. (see below)

17. Next, in the drop down menu on the Value Field, choose “SURFACE_TY” and then
click on the tab “Add all Values”.
18. Let’s first see how the Primary roads connect to major cities (The primary roads here
are labeled as AC or Asphalted Concrete).
19. Double click to the left of the “AC” on the line symbol, this will take you to the
“Symbol Selector” window, choose the “ExpressWay” symbol and press OK. You are now
back at the “Layer Properties” window.
20. Now, press “Apply” and move the “Layer Properties” window to the side so you can
see your map. Now you are able to see the primary roads more clearly.
21. Now let’s label the other roads more clearly. Double click on the line next to the
“Gravel” roads in order to the “Symbol Selector” again. Choose “Major Roads” symbol and
press okay. Do the same for the roads labeled “ST” and “Earth in order to display them in a
different color. Press Apply, and now all roads in your Data Frame should have the colors
you chose to display.
21. When you have finished experimenting with the alternative Roads views, select the
layout view (see step 46 in previous exercise if you need help).
22. Using the “Insert” menu, add a Title, Scale Bar, and North Arrow to your map.

23. Return to the menu option “Insert” and click on “Legend”.

24. In the Legend Wizard dialog that pops up, except all the default options by Clicking
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“Next” repeatedly, and finally “Finish”.

25. You will notice a small legend appear somewhere in the middle of your layout
window. Position it correctly.

26. If you wish to change the name of your layers in the legend, edit the corresponding
text in the table of contents, and it will also change in the legend. Just click twice slowly
on the text in the table of contents to edit it, (as you would to rename a file in Windows
Explorer).
27. When you are happy with the appearance of your map, you can export this map as a
.jpeg, by choosing the menu option “File”, scroll to “Export”, then save following the
instructions.
Your map should look similar to the map below.

PLEASE MAKE SURE: That you save the changes to your map before you continue.

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 40. Lab 03: Chloropleth mapping in Arc-GIS

1. Open a new, blank map by clicking on the “New Map” button in the upper left
corner of your screen below the “File” button.
2. From your Labo01 folder, add the “Regions” and “Lakes” shapefile. From your Lab02 folder,
add the “Roads” shapefile. From your Lab03 folder add the “Woreda” shapefile.

3. Double click on your “Woreda” layer in order to open up the “Layer Properties”
window. And choose the “Symbology” tab.

4. Click on the “Graduated Colors” under the Quantities option on the left side of the Layer
Properties window.
5. Choose Pop_04 in the Value Field, which is the population count per woreda in 2004.
6. Classify your data accordingly by clicking on the “Classify” button and choosing
classifications for your values (see step 8 of the previous exercise for help in the specific
steps of classifying your data). When finished, press Apply and Okay.
7. Now you are back to the Layer Properties Window. Left click on the numbers under the
label column. Here you are able to change the labels of your data so when you make a
map, the labels in the legend are clear (see above).
8. Change all of your labels following the graphic above. Then click out of the labels box
and press Apply and OK to return to the mapping screen.
9. Make sure that your “Roads” layer is on and that you have classified your roads in
hierarchical order.

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10. It is interesting to note spatially how population follows critical road infrastructure. But,
is population count an appropriate measure to understand relationships between
infrastructure and demography? Let’s experiment with a different measurement to
understand the differences and then create a map of both.
11. Right click on the “Woreda” shapefile name in the table of contents and press copy.

12. Scroll to the top of the Table of contents and right click on Layers tab and
choose “Paste Layers”. This will copy the same layer that you have already built on

Population count into the Table of Contents. You will now have two of the same “Woreda”
layers in your table of contents.

13. Now, double click on the new “Woreda” layer that you just copied into your table of
contents and Click on the “Graduated Colors” under the Quantities option on the left side
of the Layer Properties window (as you did before in step 17 above).

14. Choose Pop_Dens (this is the population density: average people per square kilometer
by woreda).

15. Classify your population density data by clicking on the “Classify” button and choosing
classifications for your values. See the picture to the right under the label “Range” which
shows how I classified my data. (look at step 6 above if you need help). When finished,
press Apply and Okay.
16. Left click on the Symbol tab above the color squares and choose Properties for all
Symbols. Under the Outline Color tab, choose No Color for your outline color and then
press OK until you exit Layer Properties.

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17. Notice how population density changes the further away one gets from the main
infrastructure corridors in the highlands. Turn off and on the “Roads” layer in order to see
the Density differences under the “Roads” corridors.
18. Now add your “Regions” shapefile from your Lab01 folder. Left click on the colored
square underneath the layer in the table of contents in order to open the Symbol Selector
window. Choose the “Hollow” option and press okay.
19. Turn off the “Roads” layer and just look at the differences between Population Density
and Population Count. You can do this by turning off and on the Population Density
“Woreda” layer. The layer beneath it is the Population Count layer.
20. Looking at the Population Density map, we can see that parts of SNNP, and areas in the
Northeast of Oromia have very high population density (see two maps below). In these
high population density areas, what does the road infrastructure look like? Are they well
connected? Is it suitable for meteorological station establishment?

Later in the course, we will use spatial analysis to calculate distance, access, and
remoteness to specific targets such as cities and markets in order to quantify these
relationships!

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 Population Density Population Count

21. Now we will map both of the variables in the same layout window. Switch to the layout view, by

clicking on the layout symbol in the bottom left and corner of the map window.

22. Using the “Insert” menu, add a legend, and other appropriate cartographic elements to your map
(North Arrow, and simple scale bar) for the Population Density map.

Save your map if you haven’t recently!

23. In the layout window, resize the map, so that it is roughly one-quarter the size of the page by
clicking once on the map and then dragging one of the corner sizing squares to diminish the size of
the map. (You will also have to resize the legend and other elements). Move them to the top right hand
corner of your layout.
24. From the “Insert” drop down menu, choose the “New Data Frame” option. This will add a new
empty map window to your layout. (see below)

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25. Now to add data to your new map window. In the table of contents, right-click on the “Woreda:
Pop_04” layer in your first Data Frame that you have been working with up until now and scroll to
“Copy”.

26. Now right-click on the “New Data Frame” listing, and scroll to “Paste”. Repeat the process to add
the “Regions” and “Lakes” layer to your second map window.

27. In a multi-map set-up such as this. Only one map may be considered
“Active” at any given time. This means that you can only work on the
elements of one map at a time. To “Activate” a map,
you can simply click on it in the layout view, or, you can right-click
on the title of its corresponding set of layers in the table of contents, and
scroll to “Activate”.
28. On switching to the “Data View” (remember, the little globe
symbol), you will notice that only the active map is shown.
29. Test this by switching to the “Data View” and activating (from
the table of contents) each map in turn.
30. After understanding varying “Data View” interfaces, put the final
touches on the maps (including adding another legend for the Population
Count map) that you chose to make and export them as a .jpeg by going
to the “File” button in the upper, left corner. Scroll to export and save
as .jpeg in your Lab03 folder!

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 Your layout window should now look something like this, but may have different colors!

41. Lab 04: Working with Attribute Tables in ArcGIS

1. Open a new, blank map by clicking on the “New Map” button in the upper left corner of your
screen below the “File” button.
2. From your Lab01 folder, add the “Cities” and “Lakes” shapefiles.
3. From your Lab02 folder, add the “Roads” shapefile. From your Lab03 folder add the “Woreda”,
from your Lab04 folder add the “Banks”, and “Microfinance” shapefiles. Reorder your shapefiles so
that the point data are at the top of the table of contents, then the “roads”, and last the “woreda”
shapefile.
Remember: Your table of contents must be in the Display mode, look at the bottom of the table of
contents and make sure that the Display tab is selected.

4. Choose an appropriate color for the “Woreda” layer, and then SAVE your project file as
Lab04_YOURNAME to the Lab04 folder.

5. Double-click on the layer name “lake”; this will take you directly to the “Layer Properties” for the
layer. Select the tab “Symbology”.

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6. In the “Show” box (see step 4 in the previous exercise), click on the option “Quantities”, and the
sub-option “Graduated symbols”. In the “Value Field” dropdown list, select the Field name
“shape_leng”. This value field represents the total number of Lakes in each Region.

7. Change the “Symbol size” to “from: 4 to: 16”. Next, click on the “Classify” tab. This will take you
to the “Classification” drop down menu (see graphic on step 7 in previous exercise if you need help).

8. Click on the arrow to the right of “Classes” and choose 6. Click on the arrow to the right of
“Method” and choose “Manual”.

9. Choose your “Break Values” to be 0.2, 0.5, 1.0 1.5 and the last number displays the maximum value
of lakes in a country. (See Below).

10. Press OK once you have finished step 9.

11. Now you are back to the Layer Properties Window. Left click on the numbers 0.219.. under the
label column. Here you are able to change the labels of your data so when you make a map, the labels
in the legend are clear.

95 24
12. Change all of your labels following the graphic to the right. Then click out of the labels box
and press Apply and OK to return to the mapping screen.

13. Now define thresholds for the “Microfinance layer following the same steps that you
completed above. Use the variable “CLIENTS” in order to show how many people the
microfinance project is serving
14. I used the thresholds shown to the right, but you can experiment using different classifications
in order to emphasize lakes large and small lakes. The way in which you classify your data
depends on what you hope to demonstrate and communicate to your audience.
15. Although we are able to see where most of the lakes we should do a few calculations to
understand how these lakes areas are represented spatially.
16. Right click on the “Banks” and open your attribute table (Remember, this is the table that
holds all of the underlying data that connects to our specific map layer)

17. We have quite a bit of data in this file, such as:

- Town name
- Town population
- Wereda name
- Region
- Zones
- Population urban
- Population rural
- Population total
- Lakes

18. Let’s use our attribute table tools to

summarize some of these data by
administrative unit. Right click on the
“Wereda” tab in your attribute and choose
“Summarize”.

19. This will take you to the Summarize

window (See Right) which gives you a variety
of options on how to summarize your data.
You will see that each variable in your attribute
table is listed. Click on the
+ box next to the variable name. This will
give you a drop down list of various

25

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Calculations you can perform. You have a choice to summarize data by “Wereda/regions”
Including: Minimum, Maximum, Average, Sum, Standard Deviation, and Variance.

20. For now, let’s Sum “first”, “last”, and “shap_leng” by clicking on the + box next to the
variable name. Choose “Sum” for each of these variables by clicking on the box next the
Sum option.

21. Last, save your table to your Lab04 folder: Lab04lake_YOURNAME and then press
OK.

42. Lab 05: Understanding Projections

Projecting Map Data using ArcMap

The location of any given place can be defined with reference to lines of latitude and
longitude, which create an imaginary mesh over the world. Latitude and Longitude values
belong to a spherical coordinate system – a system for defining locations and making
measurements on a sphere, or something close to a sphere (a spheroid) like the earth.

26
97
The latitude - longitude value of a point depends on the assumptions you make about the
earth’s shape. The earth isn’t perfectly round. It bulges at the equator and is flattened at the
poles. Technically, this makes it an oblate spheroid.

Besides not being quite round to begin with, the surface of the earth has various bumps and
indentations. Determining the exact shape of the earth is not a simple matter.

There are many different models and ArcMap recognizes almost three hundred different
projections.

To make one map, one of these models of the earth (or some part of it must be represented
on a flat surface. This is accomplished by a mathematical transformation called a map
projection.

Just as location on a sphere is defined by latitude and longitude, location on a map is

defined by Cartesian coordinates, which assign values to points according to their positions
on a horizontal x-axis and a vertical y-axis. As opposed to a spherical coordinate system,
this is known as a planar coordinate system.

The exact location of a point on a map varies according to the map projection used. There
are about 50 commonly used projections and many variations on each.

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Four world projections. Many projections are made for individual continents, countries, parts
of countries, or strips of land that may cross international boundaries.

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 Every spatial data set in a GIS stores
geographic coordinates for its features.
These coordinates make up its geographic
coordinate system (GCS). A data set that
has been projected also stores Cartesian
coordinates for its features. These make up
its projected coordinate system.

When you work with unprojected data (data

that has only a geographic coordinate
system), any measurements or calculations
you make are only based on a sphere or
spheroid. This is problematic because degrees
of latitude do not have constant length. A
degree of latitude at the 30th parallel (30
degrees north of the equator) is longer than a
degree of latitude at the 60th parallel. Both
represent 1/360th of a circle, but the circles
have different circumferences.

Since degrees of latitude are not constant, they can’t be used to make meaningful measurements of
distance and area. This problem is overcome with map projections. On a flat surface, units of
measurement (meters or feet, for example) are constant, which means that you can calculate
meaningful area and distance measurements. There is another difficulty however. Since the world is
a sphere, and maps are flat, you can’t go from one to the other without changing the proportions of
features on the surface. Map projections distort shape, area, distance and direction. Some
projections preserve one of these properties at the expense of others, some compromise on all of
them, and some preserve properties for one part of the world and not the others. The Mercator
projection, for example, preserves direction, but distorts area. The sinusoidal projection preserves
area but distorts shape.

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In the Mercator projection, Greenland looks larger than Brazil, although Brazil is four times its size.
Because direction is preserved, Brazil correctly appears due south of Greenland. In the sinusoidal
projection, the proportional sizes of Greenland and Brazil are correct. Their shapes however are
distorted – Greenland is too narrow, and Brazil is too wide.

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Your choice of map projection allows you to control the type of distortion in a map for your
area of interest. If you are working with a fairly small area and using an appropriate
projection, the effects of distortion are insignificant. If you are working with the whole
world, there is bound to be significant distortion of some spatial property.

When you add a layer to a map, both its appearance, and, the results of measurements and
calculations you make depend on its coordinate system. You can find a data set’s coordinate
system in its spatial metadata.

To access the metadata for your file (if indeed it exists) open ArcCatalog. ArcCatalog is a
standalone application for managing geographic data. It is part of the ArcMap Suite, and is
essentially an interactive browser for spatial information.

To view the metadata for a particular file, double-click on the ArcCatalog icon on your
desktop. In the table of contents, navigate to your chosen file. Highlight this file, and click
on the Metadata tab that sits over the view window. (You can also access a preview of your
spatial data by choosing the preview tab).

When data sets that have the same coordinate system are added to a data frame, the
features in each layer are correctly positioned with respect to each other. If you
subsequently add a data set that has a different coordinate system, ArcMap changes it to
match the others in a process called “on-the-fly” projection. This new, temporary
projection is applied only within a particular data frame; the data set’s native coordinate
system (the one shown in its spatial metadata) does not change.
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By default, layers are projected on the fly to the coordinate system of the first layer added
to a data frame (even if the layer is later removed). The coordinate system is stored as a
property of the data frame and can be changed. You can project all layers in a data frame to
any coordinate system ArcMap supports.
To project a layer on the fly, ArcMap uses the information stored in its geographic
coordinate system. On-the-fly projection works best when all layers in the map have the
same GCS (in other words, when they all use the same model of the earth.)
On-the-fly projections are less mathematically rigorous than permanent projections (which
change the native coordinate system of the data set). If you plan to use data sets in an
exacting analysis, you should project them permanently to the same coordinate system with
the ArcToolbox Projection Wizard.

Go to the next page for the Lab05 exercise.

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 43. Lab 05 - Part 1: Changing Data Projections in ArcMap
1. Open ArcMap, and from your Lab05 folder, open the files, “World_Countries”,
and “World30”. Change the Symbology of the “World30” layer so that it is a hollow fill,
with black or grey outlines.
2. Right click on “Layers” in the table of contents and point to “Properties”. Select the tab
“Coordinate Systems” (if not already selected by default).
3. Move the Properties window a little to the right so that the majority of your map is
visible.
4. You will see, under the box “Current coordinate system” that these shapefiles presently
have a geographic coordinate system called “GCS_WGS_1984”. This stands for
“Geographic Coordinate System (GCS), World Geodetic Survey (WGS), 1984”
This is a popular projection for the World, and is the reference system used by GPS (Global
Positioning System) Units. However, there are alternate projections available (such as those
introduced in the intro, and they have different purposes for different maps). Let us explore
them.

5. In the folder tree, click on the folder “Predefined” (This is where all the alternate
projections are stored). In the next list of folders, click on “Projected Coordinate systems”.
The subsequent list is quite long, scroll to the end and click on “World”. These are the
world level projections available in ArcMap.

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6. Select “Cylindrical Equal Area”, then click Apply, and OK. The appearance of your world map
should change dramatically. (You may get a pop-up box asking you if you are sure that you want to
do this, Just click OK).
7. Move to the “Layout View” for your map. Resize your map so that it fits the whole page.
8. Return to “Layer Properties”, and click on the tab “Frame”. Remove the “Border” from around
your map window. Then click OK. (This will make your final product a little less cluttered, as we
plan to use several images).
9. At this point, save your map in your Lab05 folder as “Lab_05World.mxd”.
10. Next, go to the “File” dropdown menu. Choose “Export map”, and save your map, (as a .jpeg
with resolution of 150), in your Lab05 folder as “C Equal Area”.
11. Return to the table of contents. Once again, right-click on “Layers” and scroll to “Layer
Properties”. Select the tab “Coordinate System” and following the same route as Step 5;
(Predefined/Projected…./World), select the projection “Equidistant Conic”. Click Apply, and OK.
12. Look at how different this view of the world is! Once again, export this map as a .jpeg with
resolution of 150dpi. Choose an appropriate name, e.g. “Equid Conic”.
13. Using the instructions from the previous steps, produce 5 additional jpegs of the world using the
following projections:
a. Mercator
b. Sinusoidal
c. The World from Space d. Fuller
e. Robinson
14. Using Microsoft word, or PowerPoint, inserts the jpegs onto one page/slide.
Label each projection according. See the next page for a sample layout of all images.
15. Your finished product should look somewhat like the following graphic on the following page:

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 44. Lab 05 part 2: Bringing Field Data into the ArcGIS software
program. Allowing visualization using GPS point data.

Your colleague has just returned from mission, and gave you a simple database file
containing the X, Y (latitudinal & longitudinal) information of health centers located
throughout Ethiopia. This information must be visualized, and integrated into the spatial
data repository.

Close ArcGIS before you begin

this exercise.

1. Open Excel, and go to your Lab

05 folder. Open Healthcenters.xls”.
You can see that there is a “LONG”
(longitude) and “LAT” (latitude)
field,
along with other information that
describes each health center.

2. In order to bring an Excel

worksheet into ArcGIS,

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You must save it as a .dbf file, or a .csv file (make sure to choose ms-dos format). This is
sometimes problematic because it occasionally truncates values during the saving process.

3. Resave your file as “Healthcenters.csv” into your Lab05 folder.

4. Close all worksheets in Excel.

You need to have the worksheet that you intend to add to ArcGIS
closed in excel in order to add correctly.

5. Open a new session in ArcGIS and add the file “Woreda”

from your Lab05 folder and the database file: “Healthcenters.csv”
that you saved in your Lab05 folder.

6. Right click on the Healthcenters.csv file and scroll to

“Display XY data”. Click on “Display XY data” and a window
should pop up like the window to the right.

7. Make sure that your “X Field” displays LONG for the

coordinates, and your “Y Field” displays LAT for your
coordinates. Press OK

8. You may get a warning message stating that your “Table Does Not Have Object- ID Field”.
This is a unique identifier that ArcGIS builds into all of its shapefiles. Press OK and ArcGIS will
create this field for you.

9. Now, can you see your “HealthCenter” points? Where are they? Right click on the
“HealthCenter” layer, and from the menu choose “Zoom to layer”. The “HealthCenter” layer
should now be visible, but not the “Woreda” layer.

10. Right click on the “Woreda” layer and choose

“Zoom to Layer”. What happens to the “HealthCenter”
layer? Magic, it isappeared…or is it a projection
problem??

11. Go to the main tool bar, and select the “Zoom to

full Extent” button

12. You should now see the entire “Woreda” layer, with
one tiny dot to the Southwest of the country. If you use

the regular zoom tool , and zoom repeatedly into

this dot or draw a small square with your zoom tool, you
will realize that it is in fact the “HealthCenter” layer. As
it is in a different projection, it is unable to locate and
resize itself correctly in relation to the “Woreda” Layer.

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13. If we take the assumption that this information was collected by GPS, then reverting to the default
coordinate system used by GPS will correct this issue.
14. So let’s try our hypothesis! First, Right click on the “Healthcenters.csv Events” you select Remove.
15. Now, right click on the “healthcenters.csv” layer. Left click on the “Display XY Data”.
16. As you can see, the coordinate system is unknown. Click on the “Edit” button. In the next window,
click the “Select” button and choose the following path:
Geographic Coordinate Systems
World
WGS 1984

17. Click Add.

18. Your “Add XY Data” window should now look like the
graphic to the right. Click OK

19. Now your Healthcenters should be geographically

contiguous with your “Woreda” layer.

20. Your “Healthcenters.csv Events” is currently only a

cosmetic layer. We know this because it has the word
“Events” following the name. It is not yet a shapefile.

21. To create a permanent shapefile from this cosmetic layer,

right click on the “Healthcenters.csv Events”, scroll down to
“Data” and select the “Export Data” option.

22. Leave all the initial options as default, but make sure to save
the final file to Lab05 folder, calling the file “HealthCenter.shp”

23. A pop – up window will ask you if you would like to “Add to map”. Select OK and the new
shapefile should automatically add to the dataframe.

24. Look at these data, where are Healthcenters missing, why? Add some other geographic data
from your Lab01 – Lab04 folder (rivers, roads) to see if you can hypothesize. Just looking at your
map, can you find a place where a hospital should be built?

25. Create a map with the Healthcenters layer, and other key data that you think may affect where
these Healthcenters are located. (hint: are they located in large cities?, are they near roads?)

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 45. Lab 06: Exporting external database information from ArcMap
Exercise Overview
You have been asked to simplify the healthcenters data You will perform what is known as a Spatial Join
to generate this information, then you will export this information to excel so that the project lead can
generate an excel graph to demonstrate these numbers. A spatial join, links/combines the attributes of two
layers, based on the location of each layer’s features. Just like a table join, a spatial join appends the
attributes of one layer to another. You can then use the additional information to query your data in new
ways.

1. Open a new ArcMap session and add your new “HealthCenters” layer that you
created in the previous exercise.

2. Before you begin this exercise, you may need to add the spatial toolboxes to your

datascreen. If the list of toolboxes (see left) is not on your screen click on the
button in the center of the toolbar.

3. Now, let’s make sure that your “HealthCenters” layer has a defined projection by
going to the toolbox “Define projection” (see graphic Right).

4. Define the projection in the “Select a Coordinate System” box, choose the
following path:
Predefined
Geographic Coordinate Systems
World
WGS 1984

5. Press OK. Now that we have defined all of our

projections we can do a Spatial Join!

6. Add your “Regions” and “Lakes” layer from your Lab01 folder.

7. Right click on the “Regions” layer. Go to “Joins and

Relates” > “Join”

8. In the first drop down menu (see right), change the

option to “Join data from another layer based on
spatial location”. This choice will change the look
of the wizard layout.

9. Use the graphic to the right to select the correct

options.

10. For Option 2: make sure the first radio button is

selected (it should be by default), and that the “Sum”
check box is ticked.

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11. Save the new file to your Lab06 folder, and call it “Region_HealthCt”.
12. Click OK.
13. The join process may take several seconds, as ArcMap must count the number of health
centers located in each region, and report that data in the attribute table of your new file
“Region_HealthCt”
As you can see, there are many other options within the Spatial Join tool. It can be used to
determine how close an individual point or polygon is to another point or polygon in a
different layer, and report its distance. You will use this function in a later exercise.
14. “Region_HealthCt” should automatically add to your table of contents, if not, go to the
“Add data” button, and from your Lab06 folder, add the new “Region_HealthCt” layer. Re-
organize your layers so you can see the “Lakes”
15. Open the attribute table of “Region_HealthCt”, and scroll right until you see “Count_”.
16. The field that you are interested in is the “Count_” field. Right-click on the field
heading, and choose the “Sort by Descending” option. You will see that the maximum
number of health centers for any one Region is 26.

17. Close the Attribute table for now, and let’s create a thematic map.
18.Double click on the “Region_HealthCt” layer. This will take you to the “Layer
Properties” dialog. Click on the “Symbology” tab. In the “Show” menu to the left, Click on
Quantities > Graduated colors.

19. In the “Value field”, click the down arrow and scroll to “Count_”.

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20. In the “Color Ramp” field click on the down arrow and choose a color scheme that you like.

21. Click OK when complete.

22. Before you progress too far in your map production, let’s once again save your map as an
ArcMap Document file (.mxd) so you won’t loose your work to date. Go to “File/Save As”,
navigate to your “Lab06” folder, and name the Project file: “Lab06_YOURNAME”.

23. Now make sure that your “HealthCenters” shapefile is above your “Region_HealthCt” file in the
table of contents so you are able to see both layers.

24. Given that the Regions are geographically quite large in Ethiopia, would it be better to look at
statistics on a more disaggregated level. You can do the same spatial join on your Zone layer to
understand health center placement at a finer level.

25. Create a map with one of the joins that you did in order to count number of hospitals for each
administrative unit

Think about how you would aggregate similar data such as road data – you could do a spatial
join, and average road lengths by Woreda in order to arrive at a road density figure.

Here is the difference between the Region and Zone level statistics!

Region Level Zone Level

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26. Now you will export this data to excel for graphing purposes.

27. Open the “Region_HealthCt” attribute table again. On the bottom right hand corner of
the attribute table, click on the “Options” button. From the menu, choose the “Export”
option.

28. Export your table as “Region_HealthCt” to your Lab06 folder. Although the file carries a .dbf
extension, you will be able to open it in Excel, and save it to as regular .xls file from which you will
create your graphs.

29. Go to Microsoft Excel, and from your Lab06 folder open the “Region_HealthCt.dbf” file.
Note, you have to change the “Files of Type” dropdown to “All Files” in order to see those files
with a .dbf extension (see below).

30. Now you can save your table as an .xls file (excel) and graph it if you would like.

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 46. Lab 07 – Data Integration and Thematic Mapping
Exercise Overview
You have received detailed Household Census information from the Central Statistics
Agency of Ethiopia. The data is in Microsoft Excel format, and you need to integrate this
information into ArcMap to create a thematic map.

To achieve this you must conduct a Table Join. A table join appends attributes of a non-
spatial table, to the attributes of a map table. (Non-Spatial means “without geography”,
i.e.: without map attached). In order for this join to be successful there must be a way to
match records in one table with appropriate records in another. This is done with an
attribute common to both, such as a name or ID code.

47. Data Integration

1. Open a new session of ArcMap. From your Lab07 folder, add the layer “Woreda_pop”.
2. Right click on the “Woreda_pop” file to open the “Attribute Table”. This table contains
some basic demographic information, including population count and population density.

3. Open Microsoft Excel. Go to File > Open > navigate to your Exercise07 folder and
open the file: PopAgeGroups.xls

4. You will see that this table has more population variables disaggregated by age
group.

5. In order to import this information correctly into ArcMap, a number of formatting rules
must be observed:

 ArcMap will NOT accept field names longer than 11 digits. If field
names are longer than 11 digits, they will be automatically truncated.

 ArcMap will NOT accept spaces in field names; this will usually result in
an error opening the file in the ArcMap environment. (Use an underscore
_ instead of a space).

 Numerical fields must be designated as such, and text fields must be

designated as such. (Field’s carrying general formatting are open to
interpretation in the switch from a regular .xls file to a .csv or a .dbf file.
This is an excel issue, not a GIS issue)

 Occasionally, data is prone to truncation in the switch from a regular .xls

file to a .csv or a .dbf file (again, this is an excel issue, not a GIS issue),
therefore it is advisable to over-widen the columns to allow for slight
truncation.

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6. Make sure that the table is formatted correctly with only 11 characters for each variable
name. When finished, remember that you must resave the table to a .csv file in order to
import it into ArcGIS (make sure none of your fields were truncated during the save).
7. Once you have saved the file in .csv format into your Lab07 folder, close excel and return
back to ArcGIS.
8. Now add your database file “PopAgeGroups.csv”

9. You will notice that the original excel table “AgePopGroup.xls” is also visible in the “Add
Data” window. Newer versions of ArcMap have incorporated the ability to read regular .xls
files, and their individual worksheet components. Unfortunately, beyond the read capability, we
have found this new function to be slightly inconsistent, and basic data management operations
(such as table joins) seem to work best using .dbf and/or .csv files.

10. Right-click on your “AgePopGroups.csv” table to open it. Make sure that all field names
carried through correctly, and that all data appears in working order. If it looks good, close the
attribute table and move on!.

11. The next step is to join the “AgePopGroups.csv” table to the “Woreda_pop” layer so that
you can utilize its spatial properties to visualize the population/poverty info.

It is always preferable to use codes, rather than place names to conduct joins. Place names can
vary in spelling and accent (which contribute to the unique nature of a particular name), and
these may not always transfer from one software to another.

12. In this case, the joining variable is called “LINK”.

13. Right click on the “Woreda_pop” layer, Scroll to

“Join & Relates” > “Join”. Make the following
dropdown selections, and click OK.

14. When complete, open the attribute table of the

“Woreda_pop” layer to make sure the join was
successful. As you will see, some of the fields will
say <null>, this is okay for this specific join because
data were not collected for these specific Woreda.

15. Before continuing, save your map to your Lab07

folder as “Lab07_YOURNAME”.

16. Double click on “Woreda_pop”. The “Layer

Properties” Window should now pop-up. If the tab
“Symbology” is not selected, then select that tab.
17. In the box labeled “Show”, select the option
“Quantities”, and click on the sub-option “Graduated Colors”.

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18. In the drop down menu “Value:” scroll to the end of the list, and choose the field
named “MF_All_All_Ages”: This stands for Male and Female all ages.

**The variable labels follow a pattern, and are disaggregated by ages. Note that each
group of variables are labeled as such:
- MF_All_All_Ages: Male and Female all ages
- M_All_All_Ages: Male all ages
- F_All_All_Ages: Female all ages

19. Once this field has been selected, choose a color ramp that you like by clicking on
the down arrow next to the color ramp. Now click, Apply, and OK.

20. Look at how the colors are distributed. The classification brackets chosen by ArcMap are
based on their default statistical classification; “Natural Breaks”.

21. Reopen the “Layer Properties” dialog for the “Woreda_pop” layer. Return to the
symbology tab. Under the Classification menu (top right-hand corner), Click the
“Classify” button.

22. In the “Classificaton Wizard” you will see a histogram illustrating the data distribution
along the number line.

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23. In the “Method” drop down list, you will see several classification alernatives to the “Natural Breaks”
system. You also have the opportunity to change the number of classes that you use. (See graphic below)

24. Experiment with the different classification schemes, and look at how they alter the
classification breaks (blue lines) on the histogram data. By clicking OK on both wizards, you will
see the effect of your class scheme changes on the map itself.

25. For something as simple as population count, “Natural breaks” is not a bad starting point. To
make the interval ranges a little more “user friendly” it is advisable to begin with “Natural
Breaks”, then switch to “Quantiles”, and modestly round up/down the break values of each
category.

26. Obviously, this decision will be determined by the nature of your data, and a classification
method such as “Standard Deviation” may be more appropriate in certain cases.
27. Return to the “Classification Wizard” screen. Choose first the “Quantiles” scheme, next
change the number of classes to 7.
28. In the “Break Values” box to the right hand side of the wizard, set the break values to the following
numbers, by simply typing over the existing values.

29. When done, click OK. Now you are back at the “Symbology” window. The “Label” side of
the menu will reflect the changes that you make to the “Range” side, but you may also use text in
your labels.

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30. There are a number of Woredas with “Null” or “0” values. (You should always
account for these in your mapping). Given that we have only done a Table Join,

117
And we haven’t exported our data as a new shapefile, our values reflect “Null”, we will
show these by adding another layer.

31. Add the “Woreda_pop” layer again. Organize your “Table of Contents” so they look
like the graphic below. Also, choose the underlying Woreda_pop layer to be a grey color
to reflect “Null” data.

32. Now return back to your “Woreda_pop” layer with the table join. Double click on
the layer and return to the Symbology tab.

33. Modify the label options with

some additional text, and
commas by clicking on the value
under the Label column. (This
will determine the look of your
legend, and reads better than the
default categories).

34. For a softer more subtle style,

you will remove the boundaries
from between the individual
woredas. Click on the word
“Symbol” above the colored
category symbols, and in the
pop-up menu, choose “Properties
for all symbols”. (see right)

35. In the “Symbol Selector” dialog,

change the outline color to “No color”.

36. Click OK.

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37. To distinguish the boundaries of the higher order administrative units, add the
“Regions” layer from the Lab01 folder, and symbolize as hollow with an appropriate
outline thickness. Remember how to do this? (hint: double click on colored box symbol
below the layer name in the Table of Contents).

38. Switch to the layout view, by clicking on the layout symbol in the bottom left and
corner of the map window.

39. Using the “Insert” menu, add a legend, and other appropriate cartographic
elements to your map (North Arrow, and simple scale bar)

Save your map if you haven’t recently!

41. In the layout window, resize the map, so that

it is roughly one-half the size of the page by
clicking once on the map and then dragging one
of the corner sizing squares to diminish the size
of the map. (You will also have to resize the
legend and other elements). Move them to the
top right hand corner of your layout.

42. From the “Insert” drop down menu, choose

the “New Data Frame” option. This will add a
new empty map window to your layout. (see
below)

43. Now to add data to your new map window.

In the table of contents, right- click on the
“Woreda_pop” layer in your first Data Frame
that you have been working with up until now
and scroll to “Copy”.

44. Now right-click on the “New Data

Frame” listing, and scroll to “Paste”.
Repeat the process to add the “Region”
layer to your second map window.
45. Right now, each window looks

Identical. To help distinguish between the windows, double click on the “Woreda_pop”
layer for your new map (leave the first map as is), and return to the “Symbology” tab of
“Layer Properties”. In the “Show” box click once on the word

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“Quantities”, and then “Graduated Colors”. In your “Value” drop down list, choose any of
the variables you are interested in the drop down list. You can choose a specific age group,
or if you want, to aggregate population at a specific age group, you can add a field and sum
columns. I chose “MF_All_30-34” to map “total population of ages between 30-34”, but it
may be interesting to look at male versus female population.

46. Once you have chosen your variable, press OK to map that variable and see how it
looks spatially across the Woredas of Ethiopia. How does it vary from your other map?

47. In a multi-map set-up such as this. Only one map may be

considered “Active” at any given time. This means that you
can only work on the elements of one map at a time. To
“Activate” a map, you can simply click on it in the layout
view, or, you can right-click on the title of its corresponding
set of layers in the table of contents, and scroll to “Activate”.

48. On switching to the “Data View” (remember, the little

globe symbol), you will notice that only the active
map is shown.

49. Test this by switching to the “Data View” and

activating (from the table of contents) each map in turn.

50. After understanding varying “Data View” interfaces,

put the final touches on the maps that you chose to make and export them as a
.jpeg by going to the “File” button in the upper, left corner. Scroll to export and save as
.jpeg in your Lab07 folder!

Your layout window should now look something like this (of course yours may be mapping
different variables):

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51 121
 48. Lab 08 – Spatial Proximity Analysis

Exercise Overview
A transportation economist would like to know where gaps exist in transportation
infrastructure in order to create a project that facilitates goods to Agricultural Coops.
You have been asked to determine distance relationships of each Agricultural Coop to a
major road.

49. SPATIAL JOIN – Measuring distance

1. Open a new ArcMap session.

2. From your Lab01 folder, add the “Regions”, “Lakes” and the “Cities” layers. From
your Lab02 folder add the “Roads” layer. From your Lab08 folder add the “AgCoop”
layer.

3. For the moment, turn off the “Cities” layer. First you will determine the distance of
Agriculture Cooperatives to a major road.

4. The roads layer contains various types of roads by surface type (SURFACE_TY). We
are mainly interested in the primary roads, so we will create a new shapefile by “Selecting
by Attribute”. The abbreviations in the roads dataset are as follows:

Abbreviations in Roads Dataset: SURFACE_TY

AC Asphalted Concrete (Standard road)
ST Surface treatment
Earth Earth roads
Gravel Gravel road
‐ Unclassified roads

For this exercise, we will assume that primary

roads are the ‘AC’,‘ST’, or ‘Gravel’ classified
roads.

5. From the “Selection” drop down menu, choose the

“Select by Attribute” option. In the “Layer” dropdown
menu, choose the “road” layer. By default the “Method”
option should be “Create a new selection”, if not,
choose that.

6. The scroll menu under the “Method” drop down, lists

all the fields in the Road attribute table. The field you
are interested in is “SURFACE_TY”. This indicates the
relevant road type for each road segment in the layer.

7. Using the field names, and query operators, build

the following query:

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 SURFACE_TY" = 'AC' OR "SURFACE_TY" = 'ST' OR "SURFACE_TY" = 'Gravel'

Your interface should look like the graphic above:

8. You may wish to check the syntax of the query before you finish. Then, Click OK.

9. The primary roads in Ethiopia should now be highlighted in your map (see below)

10. To export this selection as a new file, right-click on the “road” layer, scroll down to
“Data” > “Export Data”.

11. Save the output to your Lab08 folder as “PrimaryRd.shp”

12. The new layer should automatically add to your map.

13. Now let’s take a moment to Save your map file. Save this map as
Lab08_YOURNAME.mxd

14. Now that you have identified the geographical extent of your study area, you may remove the
original “road” layer from the table of contents, by right clicking on it, and selecting
“Remove”.

15. Now we will be able to complete a “Spatial Join” in order to measure the distance of each Ag
Coop to a primary road.

16. But, remember, that first we need to project our data to a projection that will accurately
measure distance in Ethiopia. A good projection to use for Ethiopia is projection UTM 37N.
We will need to project our Roads layer and our AgCoop layer.

53

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17. Under your toolboxes, click on the box “Data Management and Tools” and scroll to
Projections and Transformations, Feature, Project

18. Double click on the “Project” toolbox to

open the Project window. You will need
to fill out this window like the graphic
to the right. The Input
Dataset and Input Coordinate System will
already be filled out for you.

19. In order to fill out the Output

Coordinate System, left click on the
box to the right and a Spatial Reference
Properties window will open, navigate
the following path:
Select
Projected Coordinate Systems
UTM
WGS 1984
WGS 1984 UTM Zone 37N.prj

20. Press Add after you have found your Zone.

21. The Spatial Reference Properties window will show

again displaying the projection that you have chosen (see
right). Press OK if it is the correct projection.

22. Under Output Dataset or Feature Class in the Project

window, make sure that you Save your new projected
shapefile into your Lab08 folder and save as
“AgCoop_UTM.shp” (see graphic above to make sure
you have filled out each category correctly and then press
OK

23. It will take a moment for the layer to reproject, and then
the projected shapfile should add to your table of
contents.

24. Now, do the same steps to project your

“PrimaryRd” shapefile.

25. When you have both your “PrimaryRd” and your “AgCoop” shapefiles projected into the
UTM 37N projection, we can move onto measuring distance!

26. Right-click on the “AgCoop_UTM” layer. Navigate to “Join & Relates” > “Join”. In the first
dropdown list, change the option to “Join data from another layer based on spatial location”.

27. For the Criteria 1 dropdown, choose the “PrimaryRd_UTM” layer.

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28. For the Criteria 2 option, choose the second
radio button – “each point will be given all the
attributes…….and a distance field showing
how close that line is (in the distance units of
the target layer)”

29. Unlike a regular table join, a spatial join creates

a new file. Save the output file to your Lab08
folder as “AgCoop_dist”.

30. Check that your wizard looks like the one to

the right, and click OK.

31. The new file will be automatically added to

your map window.

32. Right click on the new “AgCoop_dist” file to

open the attribute table.

33. Scroll to the far right of the table and you will see
a “Distance” field. The units of this field are in
meters, as the units of the target file (the
AgCoop_UTM layer) was in meters.

34. How do we know this measurement is in meters? To check the units of any of your
layers, go to “Layer Properties” for that layer, click on the “Source” tab, and scroll to
the bottom of the “Data Source” information. The layer units will always be determined
by the layer’s projection, which in this case is UTM 37N. UTM projections are always
measured in meters. Return to the attribute table of your new “AgCoop_dist” layer.

35. You can create a new field, and recalculate the

distances in kilometers, by dividing by 1000. Go to
the “Options” tab at the bottom right hand corner of
the attribute table, and from the pop-up menu choose
the option “Add Field”.

36. In the “Add Field” dialog, name the new field

DistKm.

37. For “Type” select “Double”

38. For the “Precision”, type 15 (This relates to the

length of the allowed cell content), and for “Scale”
type 4 (This relates to the number of decimal places
allowed from the above 15 spaces).

39. Then click OK.

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40. You will notice that a new field has been added to the far right / end of the “AgCoop_dist”
table.
41. To populate this field, right-click on the field name “DistKm”, and from the pop-up menu,
choose “Field Calculator”.
42. You may get a warning message to inform you that you are about to perform a calculation
outside an edit session. Just click Yes/OK, and the Field Calculator Wizard will appear.
43. You are going to use the values from the “Distance” data fields to calculate values for the
“DistKm” field. Using the field names from the scroll list (You will have to scroll down to see
the “Distance” field), and the mathematical operators, build the following simple equation (you
will need to double click on the field name to add them):
44. When complete, click OK. The “DistKm” field
should now be populated with the km distance
values for each Ag Coop.

45. You can from 0 to 204 kilometers from a primary

road!

46. As a last step, we are going to use our “DistKm”

attribute information to color code your mines by
distance to the nearest major road.

47. Exit out of the attribute table and double click on

your AgCoop_dist layer. Go to the
“Symbology” tab.

48. You have worked with Symbology before, but in

case you need a hint, see below.

49. Now you are ready to put the final touches on your map. Make sure that your “Regions”
polygon are an appropriate color, and make sure that your “Primary Roads” are clearly visible.

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Save your Map in your Lab08_YOURNAME Folder again!

You map should look similar to the below map, of course, you may choose different colors to
represent your attributes.

Why might the projection

that you used UTM 37N
not be the perfect
projection for this type of
measurement?

What would be a better

projection?

Explore the different

options in the projection
dropdown menu to see if
there are projections
specifically for Ethiopia or
the region.

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 50. EXERCISE 09: Buffering for distance calculations and area definition

The Buffer tool is used to identify or define an area within a specified distance around a
feature. For example, you may create a buffer to define an area around a river to identify
land that should not be developed, or, you may want to create a buffer to select features
within a specified distance of a feature (Rural Access Indicator – 2 km from a road).

In this section we will create exclusion zones around the rivers and streams in Ethiopia. A
national agency wants to evaluate areas where natural water areas should be cleaned to
preserve freshwater and increase water fowl. and would like to know how many cities are
within 5 km of a stream or river, and what the total population of these cities is in order to
analyze affected population and model economic impact.

1. Open a new ArcMap session. Click on the new map icon .

2. Add the “Cities” and “Regions” from your Lab01 folder and the “Main_Rivers” from your Lab09
folder.

3. Since you are starting a new Exercise,

save your mapfile as:
Lab09_YOURNAME.mxd

4. Activate ArcToolbox by clicking on the

toolbox icon. Choose Analysis Tools >
Proximity > Buffer.

5. Populate your buffer wizard following the

example to the right, making sure to save your
output to your “Lab09 folder” as Main
Rivers_buffer”. (This should be the default
name).

6. Click OK.

7. The output should automatically add to the data frame.

8. Now that you have determined the 5km buffer zone.

9. If you display your “Rivers” layer on top of the buffer layer and you zoom
to a specific area, you will see how the buffer has created a 5 kilometer area
around the river (see right).

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10. Now you will now isolate the communities that lie within this 5 km of this buffer zone.

11. Go to the “Selection” dropdown menu, and

choose the “Select by Location” option.

12. Using what you learned from the previous

exercise, select features from “Cities” that intersect
“MainRivers_buffer”

13. Click OK.

14. The appropriate cities should now be

highlighted in your map.

15. To export these as a separate file, right click

on the “Cities” layer, scroll to
“Data” > “Export Data”, and save to your
Lab09 folder as “Cities_5km”

16. Now turn off all layers except the

“Regions”, River_buffer”, and
“Cities_5km”.

17. We will now compute some simple

statistics to answer the questions
proposed at the beginning of the
exercise.

18. First let’s see how much population per

Region will be affected.

19. Open your “Cities_5km” attribute table.

Right click on the column title
“SCHADMNM” and click on
“Summarize”. Fill out the summarize
window as you see to the right.

20. Save your table to your Lab09 folder as

pop_sum. When finished, click OK.

21. Now right click on your table that you

added to your screen and opent the
attribute table and look at the various
columns that were created.

22. The Count_SCHADMNM column tells

you how many cities per Region are
within 5 km of a river. The remaining 4 columns gives you the minimum,

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 maximum, average, and sum of populations in the cities that are within 5 km of a major
river by Region. (see below)

23. Save your project again. Now you can export your table, and relax for a moment before
starting the last exercise.

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51. Exercise 10: Travel Time Raster and Market Access Visualization

Understanding distance to key markets is important in understanding possible marketing

and import / export opportunities. There are several ways to measure distance. In the
previous exercise, we measured distance by kilometers to a primary road. In this exercise,
we will measure distance by travel time. For some analyses, this may be a better
measurement because you take into consideration road types and conditions, as well as
travel speeds.

1. Open a New ArcGIS session.

2. You may need to enable an extension in order to complete the following analysis,
so go to the toolbar and click on “Tools”, scroll to “Extensions” and enable the
“Spatial Analyst” extension.

3. From your Lab01 folder, add your “Regions” shapefile and make it hollow with a
black outline (double click on the colored square below the layer name, this will
take you to color options).

4. Add the shapefile “tt50k” to your data screen from your Lab10 folder.

5. In order to better
understand this
shapefile, you
should “classify”
the values in the
“Symbology” tab
within the
“Layer
Properties”
window. See
example to the
right.

6. Click OK when your

“Layer Properties”
window looks the
same as the one to the
right.

7. Now, on your
dataframe you are
looking at a travel time raster dataset that was
built using a Cost Distance function.

8. The Cost Distance function calculates

accessibility to a given target (in this case,
cities of 50,000 people or more.) In order to
extract these data, we built a raster dataset at a
1 kilometer resolution where each pixel records
the time in minutes to 61
131
 travel from a specific pixel to a city of 50 thousand or more.

9. There are several components in this model: A friction grid layer is produced in order
to assess speeds over a geographic surface. The Cost Distance function is then run on the
Friction grid. Incorporated in the friction grid is:

1. Primary, secondary, and tertiary roads (each with varying travel speeds)
2. Rivers and water bodies
3. International borders
4. Elevation

10. As you can see, the Southeastern regions of Ethiopia have very low accessibility.
This is due to the fact that there are limited transportation networks in these
areas, but also because there are very few cities of 50,000 people or more in
Somali region.
11. Now we will use this raster to do some visualization and analysis.

12. Add your “Cities” layer from your Lab01 folder. Perform a selection query that
will show only the cities of 50,000 or more.

13. In order to perform the selection query, double click on the “Cities” layer and click on
the “Definition Query” tab in your “Layer Properties” window.

14. Click on the “Query Builder” tab in the lower left corner of the “Definition Query”
window and build the below query:

15. When finished, click OK

several times until you return
to your main data
frame. You should now see
only the “Cities” greater than or
equal to 50,000. By
doing a definition query, you
are not changing your dataset,
but merely isolating
and displaying the features
you are interested in. (If you
want to see all of your “Cities”
again, enter into the “Query
Builder” and delete the
‘ES00POP’>=50,000 query.
Then press OK and you will see
all of your data again)

16. For now, let’s keep just the

50,000 population “Cities” in
our dataframe.

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 17. Zoom into one of the cities, do you see how it is the target of the Travel time grid?
You can see that at the city center is the target input to the Travel time grid.

18. So, let’s change our “Symbology” again to see what areas are within 5 hours travel time
to a major city of 50,000 people or more. Do you remember how to do this? (Make your
“Symbology” tab look like the below).

19. Why did we choose 300 as a break off point? Well, because this grid is calculated in
minute travel time, so there are 300 minutes in 5 hours. Now we can see which areas
within in the country have access to a 50k city within 5 hours.

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20. If you would like, you can add your “HealthCenters” or “AgCoop” layer and see how
well-connected “HealthCenters” are from major cities.

21. Now we will run a “Zonal Statistics” command in order to average travel time to
nearest city of 50,000 population by Woreda.

22. Add your “Woreda” layer from your Lab03 folder to the data screen and make the color
of the layer hollow with a black outline (double click on the colored square below the layer
name, this will take you to color options).

23. Now you can see by Woreda the travel time grid and which Woredas are connected to a major
city within 5 hours travel time.

24. Now go to the Zonal

Statistics tool under the Spatial
Analyst > Zonal toolbox.

25. Open the “Zonal Statistics as a

Table” tool.

26. Fill in the window as you see

to the left. We want to average
travel time by State.

27. Make sure to save your table

in your Lab10 folder under your
name. Save as: tt50k_woreda

28. When finished, press OK.

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29. Zonal Statistics will run for a while, so you will have time to fill out your evaluations for the
course while you are waiting!

30. Add your zonal statistics table from your Lab10 folder to the data frame and then open the
Attribute table. You will see that the travel times to the nearest city of 50k or more have been
averaged by Woreda. The Minimum, Maximum, Range, Standard Deviation (STD) of travel time
by Woreda has been calculated as well.

31. You can merge these data to your

“Woreda” shapefile as you did in Lab07 (Part
1, Step 11.) See right for a hint

32. Then you can symbolize the data by color

to view Woreda differences of market access.
See map below.

33. You can do the same type of table merge

with the “Regions” or “Zones” layer and
create statistics on a more aggregated level.

34. Do the same analysis using your Zone

shapefile and compare the two maps spatially
to see if you gain any further knowledge.

35. How you choose to display and

analyze data spatially will change
your results considerably depending
on the richness of your data source.
Try to think through what challenge
you may have spatially, and how you
can overcome those challenges by
the millions of interesting geospatial
datasets that exist, and that you can
now create!

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 Reference:
Web referance
http://essp.ifpri.info/files/2011/04/GIS_Training_Manual_20111221_lab1-4.pdf
http://www.ce.utexas.edu/prof/maidment/gishydro/meetings/santafe/santafe.htm
http://doc.arcgis.com/en/arcgis-online/
http://iridl.ldeo.columbia.edu/

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