Enhancing Data Analysis With GIS - Esri · Enhancing Data Analysis With GIS Barbara Mento, Ted...
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1 Enhancing Data Analysis With GIS Barbara Mento, Ted Gaiser, Rudolph Hon, Rani Dalgin, Constantin Andronache and Anthony Schreiner Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, USA Abstract. As the complexity of available data increases, GIS becomes an integrating technology that provides a strong foundation for solving contemporary social and environmental problems. The paper illustrates the collaborative effort of several departments to use GIS for teaching and research projects. Students are involved in: a) Census and other government data analysis to study various aspects of social dynamics in New England, making use of GIS and other statistical tools; b) GIS use in analysis of natural hazards and assessment of environmental impacts of contamination in New England. Overview of GIS at Boston College Geographic Information Systems (GIS) use at Boston College has grown over the last several years through a collaborative program developed between the Boston College Libraries, Academic Technology Services (ATS) and the Geology and Geophysics department. While GIS has been a component of the Geology and Geophysics department for over ten years, the goal of the program is to support the expanded use of GIS across disciplines in both research and teaching. The group involved in this project spearheaded a successful effort to secure university maintenance for a campus wide license for several ESRI products and a server to support data distribution. Outreach to academic departments began by identifying faculty with an active interest in GIS. The group met with key faculty members in departments to determine the goals, data needs and instructional needs of the programs. Data collection is viewed with an eye on cross disciplinary applications to fulfill current and future needs in teaching and research. Social Work was one of the first programs which outlined a plan to include GIS in their graduate curriculum. A focus on community analysis information, primarily in Massachusetts, was identified as a key element of the program with specific interest in demographic data and social indicators. There was also a smaller demand for city data outside Massachusetts and a few international requests were supported. Data available through ESRI were identified and customized for classroom presentations and hands-on workshops. On campus access to ESRI GIS software was expanded from the Geology and Geophysics department and two library workstations to workstations in the Social Work computer lab and in a graduate study area. A listserv was established to distribute information about GIS workshops and conferences and updates on software and other campus activities.
Transcript of Enhancing Data Analysis With GIS - Esri · Enhancing Data Analysis With GIS Barbara Mento, Ted...
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Enhancing Data Analysis With GIS
Barbara Mento, Ted Gaiser, Rudolph Hon, Rani Dalgin, Constantin Andronache and Anthony Schreiner
Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, USA
Abstract. As the complexity of available data increases, GIS becomes an integrating technology that provides a strong foundation for solving contemporary social and environmental problems. The paper illustrates the collaborative effort of several departments to use GIS for teaching and research projects. Students are involved in: a) Census and other government data analysis to study various aspects of social dynamics in New England, making use of GIS and other statistical tools; b) GIS use in analysis of natural hazards and assessment of environmental impacts of contamination in New England. Overview of GIS at Boston College
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) use at Boston College has grown over the last several years through a collaborative program developed between the Boston College Libraries, Academic Technology Services (ATS) and the Geology and Geophysics department. While GIS has been a component of the Geology and Geophysics department for over ten years, the goal of the program is to support the expanded use of GIS across disciplines in both research and teaching. The group involved in this project spearheaded a successful effort to secure university maintenance for a campus wide license for several ESRI products and a server to support data distribution. Outreach to academic departments began by identifying faculty with an active interest in GIS. The group met with key faculty members in departments to determine the goals, data needs and instructional needs of the programs. Data collection is viewed with an eye on cross disciplinary applications to fulfill current and future needs in teaching and research. Social Work was one of the first programs which outlined a plan to include GIS in their graduate curriculum. A focus on community analysis information, primarily in Massachusetts, was identified as a key element of the program with specific interest in demographic data and social indicators. There was also a smaller demand for city data outside Massachusetts and a few international requests were supported. Data available through ESRI were identified and customized for classroom presentations and hands-on workshops. On campus access to ESRI GIS software was expanded from the Geology and Geophysics department and two library workstations to workstations in the Social Work computer lab and in a graduate study area. A listserv was established to distribute information about GIS workshops and conferences and updates on software and other campus activities.
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Current GIS Data Resources at Boston College The Boston College O'Neill Library is a Federal Depository Library which supports access to Census Data and other government data that can be easily visualized and analyzed with ArcView and other GIS tools in a variety of teaching and research campus wide projects. One of the frequently used data sets is the ESRI Census Data and Maps, a collection of demographic data and software which now includes several years of Census Data. Students can quickly create reports and maps and illustrate trends in population and other demographic indicators. Census Data can be exported to ArcView shape files and manipulated with the ESRI ArcView desktop mapping package or can provide a starting point for more specific projects. Another collection owned by Boston College is the Census CD’s series from GeoLytics, a collection of data that includes all layers of data from Tiger/Line files. The most current data purchase includes the Census 2000 Long Forms. The Tiger layers contain information about roads, railroads, ground transportation, landmark lines, physical features, and hydrographic lines. Geolytics data can be used to extract geographic data that can be used in ESRI ArcInfo, ArcView as well as in ArcGIS for a variety of projects. In addition these data can be manipulated in spreadsheets and other statistical software (such as Stata, SPSS and SAS) and then can be used in ArcView for further analysis and presentation. Massachusetts GIS data are also available along with a collection of econometric data and specific geophysical and environmental data. Another recent acquisition is an Area Resource File with county based data on health care system. In addition, various departments build data collections for research projects. Software, license and hardware Currently Boston College uses the ESRI ArcView 3.x and ArcGIS for classroom use and research. The distribution of the software is made through a Windows NT server and a Windows 2000 server supported by the Academic Technology Services. Current installations include: O'Neill Library, Bapst Library graduate study area, School of Social Work lab, Law School, department of Geology and Geophysics, department of Economics, several instructional classrooms, ATS and individual faculty members who develop GIS examples for their classes. Boston College supports a campus wide license for most of our applications at Boston College with technical support from ESRI. Local support is provided by technology consultants, and ATS staff. Currently the GIS data of general interest and data for special projects is housed on several computers on campus: i) Sun Fire 280R Server, two 750MHz UltraSPARC-III processors, 8MB E-cache, 2GB memory, 420 GB disk space; ii) a NT server and, iii) a Windows 2000 PowerEdge 4400 Dell server. In addition, other departmental computers hold data for specific projects. GIS projects The Geology and Geophysics department uses GIS technology to introduce students to real world environmental applications. ArcGIS is used for teaching and research and many projects employ the Spatial Analyst and the 3D Analyst from ESRI
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and data from the USGS as well as detailed geological data for the New England region. Here are two examples of recent uses of GIS in the Geology and Geophysics Department: 1) Study the elevated levels of dissolved Arsenic (As) found in groundwater in Central Massachusetts. The goal of this study is to answer several questions related to arsenic in soils and waters: Are natural soils As sources? Where does As originate? What processes control As mobility? What is the role of environmental conditions in influencing As mobility? What are the As receptors? The study is of great environmental interest and combines specific methods of sampling and chemical analysis with GIS data representation and analysis (Figure 1).
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Arsenic in Public Water Supplies >10 ppb
10 - 15 ppb15 - 30 ppb30 - 60 ppb60 - 130 ppb
130 - 1100 ppbMunicipalities
Figure 1. Preliminary study of Arsenic concentration in public water in several areas in Massachusetts. 2) Study of the earthquake activity in New England. The New England Seismic Network of Weston Observatory of Boston College is a regional network of seismic stations to monitor all earthquake activity in New England and vicinity (Figure 2). The purpose of this earthquake monitoring is to compile a complete database of earthquake activity in New England to as low a magnitude as possible in order to understand the causes of the earthquakes in the region, to assess the potential for future damaging earthquakes, and to better constrain the patterns of strong ground motions from earthquakes in the region.
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Figure 2. Map with the New England Seismic Network of Weston Observatory of Boston College GIS technology is also used in the Graduate School of Social Work and in the Department of Sociology. The use of GIS is beginning to affect social work practice, particularly in the planning and policy area, in a major way by adding significant power to the way data are analyzed. Thus the School of Social Work promotes community analysis of population change, race, age, family structure, housing and economic indicators for locations in New England. Several courses make use of compiled data from the U.S. Census, and from federal, state and municipal government agencies, and from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) and utilize GIS to map results. Classes are co-taught by ATS members and librarians. Some recent projects are: 1) Community studies, focused to understand community dynamics in the Boston area; 2) Examine the relationship between property values and demographic characteristics in 352 cities in Massachusetts. Without going into details, here are some maps related to these projects. Figure 3 shows area with population increase and areas (census tracts) with more significant increase in the state of Massachusetts. Overall, in the decade 1990-2000 there was a trend of population increase in the eastern part of the state.
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Population in year 20000 - 25362537 - 44744475 - 64676468 - 94029403 - 16245
Yellow indicates areas with[Pop 2000 –Pop 1990] > 0
Yellow indicates areas with[Pop 2000 –Pop 1990] >1000
Figure 3. Population changes between 1990 and 2000 in the State of Massachusetts (by census tracts).
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Yellow indicates areas with home median value > 200,000 $
Home median value in $0 - 5500055001 - 146100146101 - 216200216201 - 339700339701 - 500001
Figure 4. Home median value distribution in the State of Massachusetts in year 2000 (by census tracts).
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Analysis of the home median value in year 2000 distribution shows higher home values in the Boston area (indicated by census tracts) and in areas near the shore. Figure 4 shows home median value distribution in the State of Massachusetts in year 2000 as well as areas with median home value greater than $200,000. In several projects by the Social Work students, home median value was used as an economic indicator of various communities. For instance, Figure 5 shows detailed maps of median home value greater than $200,000, $300,000, $400,000 and $500,000 for the Boston area.
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Matrct.shp0 - 5500055001 - 146100146101 - 216200216201 - 339700339701 - 500001
Mards.shpPrimary road with limited accessPrimary roadSecondary and connecting roadAccess rampFerry crossing
Marivers.shp
Matrct.shp0 - 5500055001 - 146100146101 - 216200216201 - 339700339701 - 500001
Mards.shpPrimary road with limited accessPrimary roadSecondary and connecting roadAccess rampFerry crossing
Marivers.shp
Matrct.shp0 - 5500055001 - 146100146101 - 216200216201 - 339700339701 - 500001
Mards.shpPrimary road with limited accessPrimary roadSecondary and connecting roadAccess rampFerry crossing
Marivers.shp
Matrct.shp0 - 5500055001 - 146100146101 - 216200216201 - 339700339701 - 500001
Mards.shpPrimary road with limited accessPrimary roadSecondary and connecting roadAccess rampFerry crossing
Marivers.shp
(b)
(c)
(a)
(d)
Figure 5. Home median value (V) in Boston area in year 2000. Yellow indicates areas (census tracts) with (a) V > $200,000; (b) V > $300,000; (c) V > $400,000; (d) V > $500,000. Recently, the Boston College’s Urban Ecology Institute is using GIS to understand the historical changes of urban communities in Massachusetts and to study the migration of various animal species in New England. The Law school has introduced GIS concepts to the students in Property Law classes and to the members of the Environmental Law Journal. Future developments
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The GIS team plans to expand on campus GIS services and training to students, faculty and staff to allow them take advantage of the GIS technology. A recent presentation at Academic Technology Week at Boston College highlighted the support services and current teaching and research projects to faculty attendees. There are plans to create a Virtual Data Center newsletter, primarily online, with GIS news highlights. The team also plans to create online tutorials to assist students. These instructional modules could be integrated into WebCT, the web courseware used on campus. In the area of teaching support, there is interest in further integration of GIS into the Social Work program, introduction into the Biology classes of Urban Ecology and Animal Behavior. Additional meetings are planned with Law, Nursing, Economics and History department faculty. Using the co-teaching approach and graduate assistants, the group plans to increase the use of GIS ESRI software in classes and integrate training into more areas of the curriculum. Another goal is to expand access to GIS datasets via the server and web. Collection goals include enhancing data in the areas of human health care and the environment. Finally, the group plans to expand the use of GIS technology in combination with other powerful analytical tools such as SAS, SPSS, and programming languages and use ArcGIS to integrate data from multiple sources. Acknowledgments The authors thank ESRI for support and the Boston College students and faculty members for their participation in the GIS projects. Author Information: Barbara Mento, Ted Gaiser, Rudolph Hon, Rani Dalgin, Constantin Andronache and Anthony Schreiner. Address: Boston College, Gasson Hall 012, 140 Commonwealth Ave, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467, USA; Tel: 617-552-6215, Fax: 617-5522836, email: [email protected]
