Nicole's Geographic Journal

Part 1 Part 2 This week's lab studied storm surge in New J ersey and Florida.  I found this lab very interesting because I have lived through many major hurricanes, and it was interesting to see how the data from those storms is portrayed. I lived through Hurricane Sandy in 2012, so I understand the significance of storm surge. In part 1 of the lab, I created a map that shows an aerial image of Mantoloking, New Jersey. This map shows the change in topography before and after hurricane Sandy. Red areas show erosion and destruction, white blue areas show buildup, like sand or piles of debris. This map really shows how storm surge can decimate an area. For part 2, I compared LiDAR and USGS data of storm surge in Florida. This map did not turn out how I would have liked, though, because the workspace was running so slowly that certain geoprocessing tools would not run.  

      For this week's lab, I enrolled in Esri's "Get Started with Visibility Analysis" learning plan. I completed 4 of the courses in this learning plan, which were Introduction to Visualization, Performing Line of Sight Analysis, Performing Viewshed Analysis in ArcGIS Pro, and Sharing 3D Content Using Scene Layer Packages. This learning plan exposed me to more 3D maps and 3D tools in ArcGIS. I enjoyed this week's module because the lessons were very informative, and the directions for each exercise were very detailed. 

      In this week's lab, I used LiDAR data to create a map of an area in Shenandoah National Park. This area specifically is highlighting the Little Hawksbill Creek and the Appalachian National Scenic Trail. I acquired the data from the Virginia LiDAR application. After converting the LAS file, I used several geoprocessing tools to calculate forest height and biomass density. I enjoyed this lab because it exposed me to a lot of new geoprocessing tools for converting and combining data.