8th Street Fire Project

Classify & Symbolize Data

By Charlla Adams

Boise State University

 

Level of difficulty: Intermediate-Advanced Beginner

Prerequisites: A working knowledge of ArcView

Estimated time to complete: 3-5 hours depending on experience

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Objectives:

• Create legend files (.avl)
• Classify features based on their attributes
• Symbolize features based on their attributes

General Instructions:

1. Before proceeding read the Background document on the 8th Street Fire and the Eighth Street Data Dictionary to get an understanding of the data and its contents.

2. Open a new map document and save it.

3. Code descriptions for labeling in the TOC can be found in the Eighth Street Data Dictionary. Label the classifications based on this information. If the classifications are not in the data dictionary you should be able to figure them out from the theme attribute table.

4. Add the artist.avp (artist palette) to the Symbol Manager

5. Create four views and label as follows:

• Land Ownership
• Burn Intensity
• Geomorphic Soil Groups
• Trails

6. Add the themes to the views and rename as indicated. The data can be found in the GISData folder.

7. If symbolization is not specified it is your choice. EXPERIMENT and be creative!

8. Remember to save your project periodically.

 

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The view name is italicized and the themes to classify and symbolize are in bold text.

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1. Land Ownership View -- add the following themes to the View:

• Gps.shp: Rename to Fire Boundary
• streams.shp: Rename to Streams
• Roads.shp: Rename to Roads
• Own2.shp: Rename to Land Ownership

Land Ownership theme:

Classify the Land Ownership theme: Classify based on the ‘ownno’ field

Symbolize the theme, your choice of colors; remove the outlines on the polygons:

• a. Ownno ‘2’ code
• b. Ownno ‘4’ code
• c. Ownno ‘3’ code
• d. Ownno ‘1 & 99’

Label the ownership classifications as follows:

• a. Ownno ‘2’ code: label USFS Lands
• b. Ownno ‘4’ code: label State Lands
• c. Ownno ‘3’ code: label BLM Lands
• d. Ownno ‘1 & 99’: code label Privately Owned Lands

Fire Boundary theme:

Symbolize the theme as follows:

• Fill: Transparent
• Outline Color: Red
• Outline Size: 1.5

Streams theme:

Symbolize the theme as follows:

• Line Style: Select a Stream style

Roads theme:

Symbolize the theme as follows:

• Line Style: Select a road symbol of your choice

Label: Boise City’s location

 

Save each themes legend. Give the legend the same name as the shapefile name and save the legends in the same directory as the shapefile.

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2. Burn Intensity View -- Add the following theme to the View:

 

Bis.shp: Rename to Burn Intensity

Add the following theme files to the Burn Intensity View:

• Fire Boundary
• Streams
• Roads

Burn Intensity theme:

• Classify based on the ‘burn_int’ (burn intensity) field
• Symbolize the classifications using a color ramp style appropriate to the classification.
• Label the burn intensity classifications as follows:
• a. burn_int ‘l’ code: label Low Burn
• b. burn_int ‘m’ code: label Moderate Burn
• c. burn_int ‘h’ code: label High Burn
• d. burn_int ‘u’: code label Unknown Burn

Save the burn intensity legend. Give the legend the same name as the shapefile name and save the legend in the same directory as the shapefile.

 

Zoom to the Burn Intensity theme

Label: Boise City’s location

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3. Geomorphic Soil Groups View -- Add the following theme to the View:

 

soils.shp: Rename as Soils

 

Add the following theme files to the Geomorphic Soil Groups View:

• Fire Boundary
• Streams

Soils theme:

• Classify based on the ‘Group’ field.
• Symbolize the classifications using a color ramp style appropriate to the classification.
• Label the soil classifications. The codes for the soil groups can be found under in the data dictionary document.

Save the soils legend. Give the legend the same name as the shapefile name and save the legend in the same directory as the shapefile.

Zoom to the Soils theme

Label: Boise City’s location

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4. Trails View -- Add the following theme to the View:

 

trails.shp: Rename as Trails

 

Add the following theme files to the Trails View:

• Fire Boundary
• Roads

Trails theme:

• Classify based on the ‘Subject’ field.
• Symbolize the classifications using line styles appropriate to the classification.
• Label the trail classifications. The codes for the trails can be figured out from the abbreviations in the ‘subject’ field.

Save the trails legend. Give the legend the same name as the shapefile name and save the legend in the same directory as the shapefile.

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Tables

Objectives: Edit data tables

1. Open a new map document and save it.

2. Check the properties of the shape files and remove the Read Only properties.

3. Add a Code_Desc (Code Description) field to the following shapefile attribute tables.

• Own2.shp
• Soils.shp
• Trails.shp
• Bis.shp

4. To fill in the Code_Desc field use the data dictionary

Hint: To fill in the fields Start Editing the table; query the code and then using the Field Calculator type the code description.

 

Map layouts

 

Create 8.5” x 11” layouts for each of the views. Print them and turn them in to the instructor.