Exercise 5

Assessing potential hurricane hazards

in Texas

In this exercise, you will download and use thirteen state-level public domain spatial datasets from a number of organizations to assess hurricane hazards in Texas.

Assessing Texas hurricane impact.

Exercises for The GIS Guide to Public Domain Data

Context

Hurricanes are some of the most destructive phenomena on earth. The length and width of their path, their winds, their rains, and the elevated sea levels known as storm surges combine to place at risk tens of millions of people annually around the world. In 2011, Hurricane Irene destroyed both property and infrastructure, and was responsible for the deaths of dozens of people along the east coast of North America from the Bahamas to Maine, a distance of nearly 2,500 kilometers. Hurricanes in the western region of the Atlantic Ocean and their counterparts in the western region of the Pacific Ocean, known as cyclones, are among the most well-known, but hurricanes can occur in other regions as well. Environmentally, hurricanes cause extensive shoreline erosion, destroy trees and other vegetation, and remove sand from barrier islands that formerly protected the coast.

Hurricanes also cause extensive economic destruction as well, from the burial of oyster reefs to the infusion of saltwater over previously freshwater marshes that support billion-dollar fishing industries. They can also damage marinas, boats, and entire cities along the coast. Hurricanes such as Katrina and Rita caused mass evacuations, the political and social repercussions of which will be felt for years to come. As hurricanes are spatial phenomena, GIS is a key tool in understanding their potential impacts and for creating plans that can help government agencies, businesses, and people prepare in advance and recover afterwards to mitigate the loss of life and property.

Problem

County boundaries

Superfund (hazardous chemicals) sites

Coastal shoreline

Historical hurricane tracks

Oil and gas leases

Hydrography: Streams and reservoirs

Hurricane Rita track and data

Airports

Elevations

Cities

Texas, situated along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, is frequently threatened by hurricanes, and its low-lying coastal plain is particularly vulnerable to destruction. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and the State of Texas Office of Emergency Preparedness have formed a joint operations working group to assess hurricane hazards in Texas. These three agencies have agreed on a jointly-funded position and have hired you to fill that position. Your job will be to examine hurricane hazards from a spatial perspective using GIS and prepare a final report that will provide guidance to local, state, and national agency decision-makers. You will consider the following in your assessment of hurricane impacts in Texas: Population

Resources Skills Required

Downloading and formatting data from a variety of public domain state and federal data sources for use in a GIS, including the Texas Hazard Mitigation Package, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, NOAA, the Texas General Land Office, the Texas Natural Resources Information System, and Esri Canada

Reviewing the metadata associated with public domain data

Solving some of the problems associated with a natural hazard, specifically: by spatially analyzing hurricane hazards and at-risk populations, reservoirs, toxic waste sites, and at-risk oil and natural gas infrastructure

TIME This exercise contains forty-five questions and will require two to four hours to complete. SOFTWARE ArcGIS 10.0 or later, from Esri.

Work package 1: Accessing, downloading, and formatting data Steps 1 - 11

Create a folder on your computer or network to store data. Make sure the folder has a descriptive name (so you can easily recall its contents) and choose a name without spaces to avoid problems in ArcGIS.

1) Access the Texas State Data

Center

First and foremost, hurricanes affect people, so you will need population data in your overall hurricane assessment. For the 2010 population, access the Texas State Data Center at the following site: http://txsdc.utsa.edu

Texas State Data Center website.

1.1) What is the purpose of the Texas State Data Center?

Work package 1: Accessing, downloading, and formatting data Steps 1 - 11

1) Access the Texas State Data

Center (contd.)

1.2) Which agency or agencies are responsible for maintaining the Texas State Data Center? What organization is hosting the website for the Texas State Data Center? 1.3) What is the geographic extent of the spatial data in the State Data Center?

2) Download population data

Select the Search option and search for 2000-2010 county population excel. From the results screen, select Texas Counties (MS Excel) Texas State Data Center. Save this file into your working folder. Now that you have the county population, you need the county boundaries. On the main Texas State Data Center page, under Search, search for county shapefile. On the results screen, select 2009 shapefiles. On the 2009 TIGER/Line Shapefiles page, under Downloads, select State Shapefiles. On the State Shapefiles screen, select County and Equivalent (Current). Download this zipped file and extract into your working folder. Now you have the county population and the county boundaries.

2.1) Why do you suppose that you need both the population data and the county shapefile data?

Work package 1: Accessing, downloading, and formatting data Steps 1 - 11

3) Access Superfund sites

data

Certain categories of land use, such as a Superfund hazardous waste site, are of particular concern when a hurricane passes over because of the hazardous materials that are stored above ground, on the ground, or buried at that location. Hurricane floodwaters or winds could cause those hazardous materials to be dispersed into the surrounding area, harming people, plant and animal life, and damaging the water quality of reservoirs, lakes, rivers, or aquifers. These Superfund sites are on the US Environmental Protection Agency’s National Priority List. To obtain the Superfund sites data for Texas, access the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) at http://www.tceq.state.tx.us.

3.1) What is the mission of the TCEQ?

Texas Commission on Environmental Quality website.

In the search window on the page, search for Spatial GIS Data. On the Spatial GIS Data page, select Site Layers.

Work package 1: Accessing, downloading, and formatting data Steps 1 - 11

3) Access Superfund sites

data (contd.)

3.2) What GIS-ready data layers does the TCEQ offer?

Download and extract the files containing the Superfund sites from the TCEQ.

3.3) Look at the metadata listed on the TCEQ pages for Superfund sites. What is a Superfund site?

4) Access shoreline data

Hurricanes are of particular concern for residents living near shorelines. The combination of a very long shoreline, exposed barrier islands, a low-lying flat coastal plain, and millions of people makes the Gulf of Mexico shoreline in Texas especially vulnerable to the impact of hurricanes. To obtain the shoreline data for Texas, access NOAA’s Coastal Services Center, at: http://www.csc.noaa.gov.

NOAA Coastal Services Center website.

4.1) What is NOAA and what is NOAA’s importance to the geospatial community?

Work package 1: Accessing, downloading, and formatting data Steps 1 - 11

5) Search for National Vector

Shoreline

On the NOAA coastal site, search for “National Vector Shoreline.” On the results page, select National Vector Shoreline, and then select Get It Now, and Launch Website. On the resulting website (http://shoreline.noaa.gov), select NOAA Medium Resolution Shoreline. Select the data link under Data Access. On this page (http://coastalgeospatial.noaa.gov/data_gis.html), to the right of NOAA’s Medium Resolution Shoreline, select Gulf of Mexico and download and extract the shapefile for the shoreline to your working folder.

6) Access Texas Hazard Mitigation

Package

Texas Hazard Mitigation Package website.

5.1) Why would detailed historical and current shoreline data be important considerations in a hurricane assessment?

Go back to the NOAA Coastal Services Center page.

Understanding hurricane risk requires an analysis of where they have occurred in the past. For historical spatial data on hurricane tracks, access the Texas Hazard Mitigation Package (THMP): http://www.thmp.info

Work package 1: Accessing, downloading, and formatting data Steps 1 - 11

6) Access Texas Hazard Mitigation

Package (contd.)

6.1) What is the purpose of the THMP? 6.2) What agency or agencies are responsible for maintaining the THMP? 6.3) What is the geographic extent of the spatial data on THMP?

Another concern with hurricanes is the amount of human-built infrastructure in their paths. Texas has a vast oil and gas infrastructure comprised of ships, rigs, platforms, and pipelines that extract and transport the hydrocarbon resources there. This infrastructure is not only on the shoreline, but it also extends offshore for hundreds of kilometers up and down the coast. The extensive environmental damage caused by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010 came from a single oil drilling platform. Texas contains thousands of these platforms. To assess the potential impact from a hurricane, you need access to the oil and gas spatial data. The Texas General Land Office (GLO) provides oil and gas lease data at http://www.glo.texas.gov. Search on GIS and select GIS Data.

Go to Data Layers, then Hazard Data—Weather Related, then Hurricanes, and scroll down to hurricane tracks. Click Download, save, and extract the files to your working folder.

6.1) What is the time period of hurricanes covered in this dataset?

7) Access oil and gas spatial data

Work package 1: Accessing, downloading, and formatting data Steps 1 - 11

7) Access oil and gas spatial data

(contd.)

7.1) What is the GLO and what is its importance to the geospatial community?

Texas General Land Office website.

Download the shapefile for oil and gas leases into your working folder.

8) Access hydrography data

Hurricanes can also affect water quality and quantity for municipal, industrial, and agricultural use. They can also breach dams holding back reservoirs, causing significant flooding downstream. To obtain the hydrography and reservoirs data, access the Texas Water Development Board (TWBD) at: http://www.twdb.state.tx.us

Work package 1: Accessing, downloading, and formatting data Steps 1 - 11

8) Access hydrography data

(contd.)

8.1) What is the Texas Water Development Board and what is its importance to the geospatial community?

Search on GIS and access the link to the GIS Data page. On the GIS Data page, under major rivers download the shapefile for the NHD 1:100,000 rivers in Texas. Next, from this same page, download the shapefile for the Existing Reservoirs.

9) Access Hurricane Rita

data

Understanding a recent, particularly damaging hurricane in Texas will also be helpful in assessing the current risk and plan for the future. Hurricane Rita was the most intense hurricane ever observed in the Gulf of Mexico, causing USD $11.3 billion in damage in 2005 and creating the largest evacuation in US history. To obtain the Hurricane Rita data, access the Esri ArcLessons site for a 2005 Hurricane Rita shape file. Go to http://edcommunity.esri.com/arclessons/ and search for Hurricane Rita. Download and unzip the lesson pack. This includes both the data, compiled from FEMA and NOAA sources, and a map document.

9.1) What is Esri and what is its importance to the geospatial community?

Access the home page for FEMA on: http://www.fema.gov

9.2) What is FEMA and what is its importance to the geospatial community?

Work package 1: Accessing, downloading, and formatting data Steps 1 - 11

10) Access airport data

10.1) What is the TNRIS and what is its importance to the geospatial community?

Knowing where airports are located is important as airports are critical for evacuations and emergency responses, bringing in personnel and supplies to affected areas. For the airports, access the TNRIS (Texas Natural Resources Information System) website: http://www.tnris.org.

Select Transportation, then Airports, then Download Here to download the airports data. Next, under Transportation, select TxDOT Roadways and download this dataset. Next, under Elevation, select StratMap Hypsography. On the resulting web page, under statewide datasets, select and download Spot Elevations. Next, under Boundaries, select StratMap Boundaries, and on the resulting web page, select StratMap City and download this dataset.

Search for airports. Click the Get Digital Data search result and examine the layers in the TNRIS library.

10.2) Examine the Data By Category listing. List some of the types of data that TNRIS holds in its library.

10.3) What does this layer contain?

Work package 1: Accessing, downloading, and formatting data Steps 1 - 11

11) Summarize data sources

11.1) List your datasets, the organization that each dataset came from, and the format of the data, using the format below: Data Organization Format

You have downloaded a variety of datasets from several organizations.

New datasets often appear on these and other geospatial data portals, and existing data are sometimes updated. Conversely, data available on these sites at present may not be there tomorrow.

11.2) What challenges does the transitory nature of spatial data nodes on the Internet pose for the effective use of public domain data within a GIS-based project?

End of work package

Work package 2: Analyzing hurricane data Steps 12 - 13

12) Add data to ArcMap

Now you are ready to analyze the data that you have downloaded. Access ArcMap and start a new blank map. Add your North Atlantic hurricane data, your county TIGER/Line polygons, and your shorelines.

Define the projection of your shorelines as Geographic, World, WGS 84. Add the shorelines so that you can now see it with your other two layers. Save your map document in your working folder. Open the attribute table for the North Atlantic hurricane map layer from 1851 to 2001.

12.1) Why don’t your shorelines data appear in your map along with the rest of your data?

12.2) Select the correct answer:

A—Each row in the hurricanes table corresponds to one hurricane. B—Each row in the hurricanes table corresponds to one day in the life of one hurricane. C—Each row in the hurricanes table corresponds to six hours in the life of one hurricane.

12.3) Name one advantage and one disadvantage to the data being organized in this way.

Work package 2: Analyzing hurricane data Steps 12 - 13

13) Query hurricane data

Determine how many North Atlantic hurricane tracks crossed through Texas. Using the Select By Location function, determine how many of the hurricane tracks crossed through the Texas county polygons.

Symbolize the hurricane tracks as lines with an arrow at the end.

13.1) How many of the North Atlantic hurricane tracks crossed through Texas? ___________ of ______________

13.2) In what direction(s) do most of the hurricanes move across Texas? From _____________________ to ______________________

End of work package

Work package 3: Assessing hurricane impact Steps 14 - 20

14) Identify city Select the hurricane tracks that ran from September 5 through 9, 1900, using select by attributes. Examine the path of this hurricane. Add your Texas cities and towns (Bndy Point) layer.

More people died during this hurricane than from any other before or since.

14.1) Through what city on the barrier island southeast of Houston did this hurricane pass?

15.1) Conduct some online research about this particular hurricane, using the date and city you indicated above as your search terms, and describe why this hurricane was so devastating. 15.2) Did more people perish during this hurricane or from 2005’s Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana and Mississippi?

15) Investigate hurricane

Select the city on the barrier island southeast of Houston that you have been examining. Use the Analysis Tools > Proximity > Buffer tool to create a 30 kilometer buffer around the city and then use Selection > Select By Location to determine how many Texas hurricane tracks intersect the city buffer.

16) Buffer city

16.1) How many hurricane tracks passed within 30 kilometers of this city? 16.2) What was the name and date of the most recent hurricane to pass within 30 kilometers of this city?

Work package 3: Assessing hurricane impact Steps 14 - 20

17) Access county index

Earlier, you used the TNRIS to download airports, roads, and cities. Now, go to this same site (www.tnris.org), and return to the Data Dictionary by searching on airports and pulling up the Data Dictionary. From here, select Data Search and Download. Enter the county name that has the same name as the city you have been studying. You will see an index map with cells that cover the county.

17.1) How large of a geographic area is covered by each of these cells outlined in white?

County Map Index (http://www.tnris.org).

Work package 3: Assessing hurricane impact Steps 14 - 20

18) Access NAIP imagery

Select the cell that has the same name as the city and county you are studying (it may be obscured a bit by the interstate highway). On the next screen, you will see an image of the quadrangle and image choices underneath:

NAIP Imagery for selected city.

19) Save image data

Under Galveston DOQQ Imagery select the National Agricultural Imagery Program (NAIP) 1 meter image from 2010 for the Southwest (SW) Quarter Quad. Save and unzip this file into your working folder. Add the NAIP image (naip10_1m_2994_42_3_20100428.jp2) to your map and zoom to it. You may have to move it up in the table of contents so you can view it.

Work package 3: Assessing hurricane impact Steps 14 - 20

19) Save image data (contd.)

19.1) What is the file format of this image?

Add this image to your ArcMap session and zoom to it.

19.2) From your examination of the aerial photograph, why would you say this city is so prone to hurricane damage?

20) Download DRG

From the TNRIS download page as the same quarter quadrangle, download the 24K DRG. This will download several DRGs. Add the DRG 24K Collarless DD image. Select Build Pyramids if prompted to speed up your zooming and panning of this image. Zoom to the point on the Gulf of Mexico where State Highway 342 running northwest-southeast meets Urban Road 3005.

20.1) What feature has been built along the coast here? 20.2) What is the elevation (feet above sea level) of this feature? 20.3) What is the elevation of Greens Bayou, 0.75 kilometers northwest of the highway intersection you were studying, and the elevation of much of the land surface here, in feet above sea level? (A contour line indicating elevation is numbered just north of the coastal highway number shield 3005 and also is given southeast of the label for Calvary Cemetery on Greens Bayou). 20.4) What does this information tell you about the vulnerability of the land surface to hurricane flooding and the effectiveness of the physical feature that you identified along the coast?

End of work package

Work package 4: Examining Hurricane Rita Steps 21 - 24

21) Add Hurricane Rita data

Add your Hurricane Rita track from late September 2005 and zoom to the extent of this dataset.

21.1) Describe the path that Rita took across the Gulf and across Texas.

22) Symbolize data

Symbolize Rita as graduated color or graduated symbol, first on wind speed (wind), and then on pressure (PR).

22.1) Describe Rita’s wind speed and atmospheric pressure along its journey. 22.2) How long did it take Rita to pass through Texas? 22.3) For most of the hurricane’s duration, how often were the data points updated?

23) Investigate path of hurricane 23.1) Using the Measure tool, estimate the speed at which the hurricane

was moving horizontally when it passed nearest to Houston. Show your work. 23.2) Compare the horizontal speed that Rita moved as it passed Houston to the speed it had in the Gulf of Mexico and the speed it had as it moved north out of Houston. 23.3) Discuss how the horizontal speed of a hurricane can affect the impact it has on the ground it passes over.

Examine Rita as it passed Houston.

Work package 4: Examining Hurricane Rita Steps 21 - 24

24) Change symbology

Symbolize Rita as unique values based on the category STAT.

24.1) What category of a hurricane was Rita when it made landfall in Texas?

These data points that symbolize Rita in your GIS do not tell the whole story, of course. Examine this image of Rita from NASA at: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=5879

24.2) Comparing this image to a measurement you can make in your ArcMap session, estimate the width of Hurricane Rita just before it made landfall. 24.3) What steps would be required if you wanted to examine the Rita image from the above website inside your ArcMap session? (There is no need to perform these steps. Just indicate what you would have to do to bring in the image).

End of work package

Work package 5: Analyzing cities Steps 25 - 26

25) Add elevation layer

Add the Hypso Spot Elevations layer. Symbolize it as graduated color based on the Elevation field. Change the sample size if you need to in order to see the whole state.

25.1) Describe the pattern of elevations in Texas.

Select the points having elevations less than or equal to 50 feet.

26.1) What percentage of the land area of Texas would you estimate are in this top risk of hurricanes where the elevations are 50 feet or less? 26.2) Which counties would you say are the most vulnerable to hurricanes? In which does the most land lie at 50 feet or less in elevation? 26.3) What is the largest city (in population) in this low elevation zone? You may have to do some outside research because the cities layer in this exercise thus far has no population associated with it.

End of work package

26) Identify points 50 feet or lower

Work package 6: Investigating the vulnerability of reservoirs Steps 27 - 30

27) Add rivers layer

Add and examine the major rivers.

27.1) What rivers flow into the Gulf of Mexico along the Texas coast? 27.2) Why must you consider rivers in a hurricane assessment?

Add and examine the reservoirs. None of the water polygons shown in this dataset are lakes. Rather, inland from the Gulf of Mexico, they are all reservoirs, with a concrete, earthen, or other type of dam.

28.1) How do hurricanes pose a particular risk to reservoirs, and why are reservoirs a potential problem during a hurricane? 28.2) What are the three most at-risk reservoirs and surrounding areas that you believe are most vulnerable to hurricane damage? (Consider the impact of damage to the dams holding back these reservoirs.) Why?

28) Add reservoirs layer

29) Add TxDOT layer

Add and examine the TxDOT roads layer.

29.1) How does the roads layer provide a better indication of how densely settled a landscape is?

Work package 6: Investigating the vulnerability of reservoirs Steps 27 - 30

29) Add TxDOT layer (contd.)

Symbolize roads as unique value on RTE_CLASS. Make the On System Highways a thicker line symbol than the others.

29.2) What roads could you most effectively use to evacuate people from hurricane impacted areas? 29.3) Thinking about the reservoirs you identified above as being most at-risk, name the roads that you would use to evacuate people from these areas. 29.4) Why must you consider whether a road is higher or lower in elevation than the reservoir in forming your evacuation plan?

30) Communicate results

Create a layout and include your three reservoirs and your evacuation route.

30.1) What other information do you need to add to the layout to communicate the intent of your map?

End of work package

Work package 7: Investigating cities, population, and shorelines Steps 31 - 35

31) Examine the shoreline

Symbolize roads as unique value on RTE_CLASS. Make the On System Highways a thicker line symbol than the others.

31.1) What geographic extent does the shoreline layer cover? 31.2) Why is the detail and scale at which the shoreline was collected a prime determinant of how many people may have to be evacuated during a hurricane?

32) Select Texas shoreline

Select the shoreline that intersects the Texas county polygons.

34.1) How many cities are within 100 kilometers of the coastline? 34.2) How did you determine the answer to the previous question?

33) Create 100 km buffer

Buffer the selected shoreline by 100 kilometers. Note: If buffer takes too long, consider using the Merge tool to merge the shoreline features into a single multipart line.

34) Consider cities and reservoirs

Consider the vulnerability of cities and reservoirs.

Use the same tool again to select from currently selected cities that are within 10 kilometers of reservoirs.

34.3) How many cities are within 100 kilometers of the coastline and are also within 10 kilometers of reservoirs?

Work package 7: Investigating cities, population, and shorelines Steps 31 - 35

35) Consider impact on population

Numbers of cities do not tell the whole story. You need to determine the population of the potentially affected regions along the Texas Gulf Coast. Recall that you have downloaded population data as an Excel spreadsheet and TIGER county polygons. Add your county TIGER polygons and the Excel spreadsheet to your map. Most spreadsheets are actually more than one sheet, so when adding your spreadsheet, you will need to specify that pl94_2000_2010_county$ is the required sheet. The TIGER county polygons contain some attributes, but have no population data. To combine the population data to the polygons, you will need to perform a join on the data. To do this, right click the county polygons layer, select joins and relates, and Join. Select Join Attributes from a Table, joining the Excel spreadsheet to the county polygons. Use the attribute NAMELSAD in the county shapefile attribute table and attribute NAME in the population spreadsheet. After joining the shapefile to the Excel spreadsheet, make the join permanent. Do this by right clicking your joined, updated shapefile and using the Data, Export Data function, saving your data as a new shapefile.

35.1) What was the total population in 2000 of the eleven counties that have a coastline on the Gulf?

Work package 7: Investigating cities, population, and shorelines Steps 31 - 35

35) Consider impact on population

(contd.)

35.2) What was the total population in 2010 of the eleven counties that have a coastline on the Gulf? 35.3) Which county experienced the most rapid growth in terms of percentage between 2000 and 2010? 35.4) Would you consider these rapidly growing counties to be at higher risk for adverse hurricane impact than slowly growing counties? Why or why not? 35.5) How many counties are within 100 kilometers of the shoreline? 35.6) What was the 2010 population of the counties within 100 kilometers of the shoreline? 35.7) What percentage of the Texas population lived in the counties within 100 kilometers of the shoreline in 2010? 35.8) Do you think this number is of concern? Why or why not?

End of work package

Work package 8: Investigating toxic materials and exploration Steps 36 - 40

36) Add Superfund data 36.1) If the Superfund data will not overlay your other data, what action

do you need to take on this layer? 36.2) What do the metadata say about the projection of the Superfund data?

Add the Superfind sites data.

Define the projection of the data and bring it into your table of contents.

37) Examine data Examine the Superfund data.

37.1) How many Superfund sites are in the database? 37.2) How many Superfund sites are in the lowest elevation zone?

Examine the name and “active” status of the Superfund sites in the table.

37.3) How many of these sites are active? 37.4) In your judgment, what types of Superfund sites are most hazardous in the event of a hurricane?

Work package 8: Investigating toxic materials and exploration Steps 36 - 40

38.1) What format was used to store the airport data?

38) Add and examine airports

Add the airport layer BTS_airport.dbf to your ArcMap document.

Open the airports table.

38.2) How can these data be mapped?

Right-click the airport layer and click Display XY Data. Be sure to indicate the proper fields for latitude and longitude and indicate that the incoming data are in geographic NAD 83.

38.3) Do any major airports exist within 10 kilometers of the Superfund sites? How many? 38.4) Only airports with a control tower are large enough to be used to evacuate a large number of people from the areas surrounding the Superfund sites. How many airports meet this criterion?

39) Add oil and gas data

Add the Texas oil and gas leases data.

39.1) Describe the pattern of oil and gas leases in Texas. 39.2) Describe the pattern of oil and gas leases off the Texas coast. 39.3) Estimate the land area in the bay southeast of Houston that is subleased for oil and gas.

Work package 8: Investigating toxic materials and exploration Steps 36 - 40

39.4) What are legitimate criteria and procedures that you could use to assess the risk to facilities (drilling platforms, pipelines, and associated shipping) associated with these oil and gas leases that might occur from a hurricane?

An obvious risk to the coast is an oil rig explosion and leaks in the undersea well, as was the case in the infamous Deepwater Horizon incident in the Gulf of Mexico during 2010. Have a look at the Experimental Marine Pollution Surveillance Report (EMPSR) from satellite analysts in the Satellite Analysis Branch (SAB), within the NOAA/NESDIS Office of Satellite Data Processing and Distribution: http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/PS/MPS/deepwater.html. The operations were discontinued in August 2010 but the datasets are still available on the site. These datasets represent the locations of possible detected oil on the surface of the ocean from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill that occurred in 2010.

39) Add oil and gas data (contd.)

Work package 8: Investigating toxic materials and exploration Steps 36 - 40

40.1) Name at least three reasons why oil leaks are a hazard. 40.2) Why and how do hurricanes change the nature of the hazards of an oil leak?

Under Latest Analyses, 21/1643Z, select the SHP option. Unzip the files. 40) Examine 2010 Gulf oil spill data

Estimate the total area of the spill of this particular shapefile. Open the attribute table and add a field named Area as a Float variable. Right-click the new field and Calculate Geometry in square meters.

40.3) Summarize the total area of this oil spill shapefile. Give the area in square meters and in square kilometers.

End of work package

Work package 9: Summary Steps 41- 45

45.1) Produce a layout indicating your proposed evacuation route near one reservoir along the Texas coast.

41) Assess hurricane risk

End of work package

42) Summarize your experience

43) Evaluate data portals

44) Additional data sources

45) Create a layout

Assess what you have learnt about hurricanes.

41.1) Summarize in a few sentences what you have learned about coastal hurricane hazards and risks in this exercise.

42.1) Summarize in a few sentences what you have learned about GIS and spatial data in this exercise.

43.1) Which public domain data portal did you find to be the most easy to navigate?

44.1) What other data might you like to have to even more fully assess hurricane risk along the Texas coast? Which agency might generate such data?

Evaluate what you have learnt from this exercise.

Evaluate the data sources you used in this exercise.

Consider any additional sources that may have been useful.

Consider how you will communicate your results.

1) What is Executive Order 12906 and why is it important? 2) Who is responsible for implementing the United States NSDI? 3) Name three benefits and three criticisms of the United States NSDI. 4) Name three key differences between the NSDIs in the United States and in the United Kingdom and why these differences exist. 5) What is the difference between a spatial data depository or library, and a NSDI? 6) What are four components of an NSDI? 7) Compare two state data portals in terms of data provided, ease of use, and the organizations responsible for maintaining them. 8) Compare two national data depositories in terms of data provided, ease of use, and the organizations responsible for maintaining them. 9) Do you think maintaining NSDIs will be a problem in the future if and when states or countries encounter difficulties with funding?

10)What positive and negative experiences or issues did you encounter when using state data portals in your Texas hurricane assessment?

Chapter 5 quiz