GEOG 90 Technical Report

A. Project Summary

This project provided the opportunity to take techniques learned in the GEOG 90 course and apply them to organizational needs outlined by my employer. For my final project I created a Web mapping application to be used on my originations website. The web map app illustrates both known and potential hydraulic mines and mine features within the Sierra Nevada mountain range. Additionally, the map illustrates California waterways and county divisions within the region. Data for this map came from a range of sources; The Sierra Fund, United States Forest Service, Sierra Nevada Conservancy, California Department of Conservation, and CalWater.

B. Purpose

I work for an NGO called The Sierra Fund, and we have focused on raising awareness around hydraulic mining impacts to both humans and the environment for the last 15 years. One issue we come across frequently is the ambiguity around numbers, location and extent of contamination associated with hydraulic mines. Because these mines are remnants of the historic gold rush that happened over 150 years ago, the current conditions of these mines are largely unknown. By compiling both known hydraulic mine sites from CA DOC (PAMP) and potential mine sites generated from a geospatial algorithm using LiDAR, this map is the beginning of hydraulic mining inventory for the publics use. Ideally this inventory will provide the ability to prioritize remediation efforts off variable such as proximity to urban areas, distance from major waterway, or concentrations of heavy metals. Potential hydraulic mine identification using LiDAR is a part of a new study to be released in 2019 that is a proof of concept.

C. Description

To create the datasets necessary to populate the hydraulic mining inventory, I first compiled the various sources of known Hydraulic mines. I then created a file geodatabase and created separate tables within it to display the lat long data onto the map projection. Next I loaded the shapefile outputs from the LiDAR based algorithm into the map projection. After loading the locations of these mining features I styled the points and polygons to distinguish the different sources (Figure 1).

Figure 1 Data loaded and styled before publishing

At this point I published the map to ArcGIS Online as a service. Once on ArcGIS online I added layers from CalWater (CA waterways) and Sierra Nevada Conservancy (Sierra Nevada counties). Once all the data I needed was uploaded to the web map, I shared the projection as a web map application. To design the web map app, I used the Web AppBuilder for ArcGIS. In the AppBuilder tool I styled the web app with a default theme, added 4 widgets (measure, attribute select, Draw, and basemap gallery). Finally, I made the finished web application map available to the public for use on my organizations website.

D. Difficulties/Issues

Originally I wanted to use the LiDAR scan as a layer in this web map application but unfortunately I wasn’t able to gain the USFS Tahoe National Forests permission to use in this project. Another issue I encountered was farming all of the Hydraulic mining data from sources, converting the received data into consistent data formats, i.e. GPS datum’s, was difficult to achieve.

E. What I Learned

One thing I learned was types of data can be published to ArcGIS Online, originally, I had the entire map created and the tried to publish the map but was met with multiple errors. I learned that any data that I didn’t generate myself could not be uploaded as a part of my map. For example, the CalWater waterways layer and generic base layers were not allowed to be loaded prior to publishing. The main

skill I earned from this exercise was the process required to create the web map application. Ever since it was mentioned in class that such a map was possible, I knew that it would be my final project. The fact that we didn’t go through a lab in class that was focused on web map applications, made the creation process difficult but rewarding.

F. FINAL MAP