GIS in Water Resources

Fall 2005

General Course Information:

CEE6440 GIS in Water Resources

Tuesday, Thursday, 11:30-1PM

ENGR 401

CRN Index Number: 49831

Principal Instructor:

David Maidment

Office Address: CRWR Bldg. 119 PRC

Telephone Number: (512) 471-0065

Fax Number: (512) 471-0072

E-mail:maidment @ mail.utexas.edu

Office Hours: Tuesday - Thursday, 2-4 PM

Web Page: http://www.ce.utexas.edu/prof/maidment

Cooperating Instructor:
David Tarboton

Office Address: ENGR230, Utah State University

Telephone Number: (435) 797-3172

E-mail:dtarb@cc.usu.edu

Office Hours: Monday 11.30 – 12.30, Wednesday 11.30 – 12.30, Thursday 1-2.

Web Page: http://www.neng.usu.edu/dtarb/

Course Description
Application of Geographic Information Systems in Water Resources. Digital mapping of water resources information. Spatial coordinate systems. Terrain analysis using digital elevation models. River and watershed networks. Soil and and land use mapping. Flood hydrology modeling and flood plain mapping. Terrain analysis for hydrologic modeling.

Integration of time series and geospatial data.

Prerequisites
Graduate standing in engineering or a related discipline.

Course Objectives

The six course exercises are intended to enable you to be able to:

n Plot a map of a hydrologic region including measurement sites and associate it with time series of data measured at those locations;

n Create a base map of a study region including watersheds, streams, and aquifers by selecting features from regional maps;

n Manually create and edit points, lines and areas, and associate attributes with those features;

n Interpolate measured data at points to form raster surfaces over a region, and spatially average those surfaces over polygons of interest;

n Do hydrologic calculations using map algebra on raster grids;

n Build a geometric network for streams and rivers;

n Apply the Arc Hydro data model to a set of streams, watersheds, water bodies, monitoring points and time series of information measured at those points;

n Analyze a digital elevation model of land surface terrain to derive watersheds and stream networks;

n Develop a workflow model in ArcGIS ModelBuilder;

n Apply a workflow model of nonpoint source pollution;

Besides these six course exercises, you will learn about:

n sources of geospatial data on the internet

n 3D representation in ArcGIS and ArcScene

n ArcGIS Geostatistical analyst

n Georeferencing aerial photographs on base map images

Course Web Sites

There are two web sites maintained for this course at the University of Texas. The public web site is http://www.ce.utexas.edu/prof/maidment/giswr2005/giswr2005.htm which contains the course outline, powerpoint presentations and class exercises for the course. A private web site accessible only to students registered in the course is maintained at http://utwired.engr.utexas.edu/cms/index.cfm using the Blackboard web information system. This site contains an archive of the video of each class. A parallel course is held at Utah State University under the direction of Dr David Tarboton, whose students receive a video presentation of the lecture presented here at UT Austin. Dr Tarboton will present a set of lectures in this course on spatial and terrain analysis using grids in which he is an expert. The Utah State University website for this course is http://www.neng.usu.edu/dtarb/giswr/2005

Method of Instruction
The course has six elements: lectures, assigned reading materials, homework exercises, a term paper, class interaction, and examinations. All students will have a web page where they will post their term paper proposal and final term paper. Part of the final examination will involve synthesis of the term papers presented in the class to provide an assessment of the state of knowledge in particular subject areas. The course material is divided into modules with each module having one or two lectures and a homework exercise involving extensive use of GIS software.

Method of Evaluation

Course grades will be based on a weighted average of results as follows:

Homework 20%

Term Project Written Report 30%

Term Project Oral Presentation 10%

Midterm Exam 20%

Final Exam 20%

Letter grades will be assigned as follows:

A = 90-100%

B = 80-90%

C = 70-80%

D = 60-70%

F < 60%

There will be no make-up exams or incomplete grades in this course. I reserve the right to change the date of a quiz with notice in advance.

Students with Disabilities

Students with disabilities that require accommodation should contact the instructor so that the necessary arrangements can be made.

Term Project

The purposes of the term project are:

To enable you to explore in-depth some aspect of the subject of personal interest to you and to develop experience in the use of GIS technology to solve that problem.
To provide experience in the formulation, execution and presentation of original research, including the proper documentation of a GIS project.
To make an oral presentation and produce a report in html on the world wide web that will be informative to you and to your classmates.

The steps in carrying out the project are:

Establish a web page on the Geomatics Lab Server.
Prepare a 1-page proposal in html on your website by Thurs Sept 29 specifying the objective of your project and outlining how you plan to go about executing it. Notify the instructor by email that your proposal is available and you will receive a response by email containing an assessment of the scope of work that you propose. After making any revisions in your proposal that seem necessary in the light of this assessment, this proposal defines the scope of your term project.
Present a report orally in class and have a progress report presented on your web page by Thurs Oct 27. You are expected to make some progress by mid-semester but the main effort on your term project in the later part of the course once you've learned more about the methods in the course.
Present a final report orally in class near the end of the semester (you will have 10 -12 minutes for your presentation) and present your term paper in html on your web page by the last day of classes (Dec 9). It is critical that you post your paper by this date because your classmates may need to read your paper in order to complete their final exam.

If you would like to work in a group to pursue a term project, that is fine, but you must carry out a particular section of the project on which you will present your oral and written report.

A term paper library is available showing the reports from more than 150 term papers done by students in this course from Spring 1997 to Fall 2004. See: http://www.ce.utexas.edu/prof/maidment/giswr2004/docs/termpaper.htm

Term papers from Utah State University Students are available at http://www.neng.usu.edu/dtarb/giswr.

Course Computer Environment

This course uses the ArcGIS version 9.1 software available in the Engineering PC lab. The Spatial Analyst and 3D Analyst extensions of ArcGIS will also be used in the course. These programs run under the Windows XP operating system.

Course Readings

The readings for this course will be taken from: "Arc Hydro: GIS for Water Resources” Ed by David R. Maidment, published by ESRI Press, 2002, $59.95 ISBN 1-58948-034-1, see http://gis.esri.com/esripress/display/index.cfm A recommended reference for further information is: "Modeling Our World", by M. Zeiler, ESRI Press, 1999, ISBN 1-879102-62-5 206 pages $29.95, see http://gis.esri.com/esripress/display/index.cfm