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Jamie Hayward

Dr. Carroll
GEOG 481
Final GIS Project
For my final project, I chose something that would be useful for my undergraduate thesis.

My thesis involves collecting samples from the Salinas River Mud Belt in Monterey Bay

California and sampling them to find sedimentation rates, the size of sediment grains, and

sediment provenance. The main contributor of sediment to the continental shelf that Ill be

studying, is the Salinas River. Since it will be one of the main focuses of the project I wanted to

know more about the Salinas

River and its Watershed,

specifically about dam

installations, agricultural use

within the watershed, and

about the fire history.

The first thing I wanted

to figure out was the rivers and

associated dams within the

watershed. Dam insertion

decreases the sediment yield in

rivers, so figuring out where

the dams are, is useful to know

which parts of the watershed

are not contributing sediment,


so they can be ruled out on determining sediment provenance. I used the ESRI online database to

download a world base map, the rivers of California, the Salinas River watershed shape, and

California dams. After adding all the layers to my data frame, I exported all my data as new

layers for other maps later on. Since I only wanted to know what was going on inside the

watershed I clipped the rivers with the watershed layer. The dams were a bit trickier, as I could

not clip them, I had to select by location the dams within the watershed then go into the attribute

table a figure the names of the dams on the actual river and its tributaries to make a query with

the three I needed, thus creating the first map.

Next I wanted to learn a little

more about what kind of land

use there is in the watershed.

Using the same base map,

watershed, and rivers layers, I

added a data file from the

ESRI online database

containing information on

agricultural land use. This

type of land use I am

particularly interested in

because in the 90s, drip

irrigation use became wide

spread within the Salinas

Valley. Drip irrigation is


known to decrease sediment yield to rivers since there is less run off than what a sprinkler

system would produce. The land use shape had data located outside of the watershed, and only in

the northern half, so using the clipping tool I produce a new layer showing only land use inside

the watershed. Then I opened the symbology tab of the land use to distinguish the categories of

land being used, by customizing the symbols to give it a more appropriate farmland scheme. I

found that the land along the river was all prime farmland. Unfortunately, its very hard to find

any data on where drip irrigation occurs within the valley, so this was the best I could do.

The fires maps are where it became more interesting. When a fire occurs, it burns

vegetation with the area, and when there is no vegetation to hold onto the soil, rain can come in

and wash all the soil into a

river or stream. So, fires are

known to greatly increase

sediment yield. For the next

four maps I used these same

layers: world base map,

Salinas Rivers clip, dams clip

and data downloaded from

ESRI online database on fires

in California from 1910-2007.

For the map to the left, I used

the Salinas River Watershed

to clip the CA fires layer.

Then I ran into my next


challenge. The attribute table contained a column with the fire year. So, I went to the symbology

tab to break the fires into quantities. I wanted to group them by decade because there were too

many to categorize them each on their own, but it didnt work. With a little help from Dr. Carroll

I figured out why I could not use the fire year to separate the fires by decade. It was because the

fires were in a text field rather than a numerical field. So I created a new field and transferred the

fire years into a numerical field and then easily separated them in the symbology tab. After

completing this part, I then decided I wanted to know what percent of the watershed burned each

decade. To do this I created separate columns in the


Years % of Watershed Burned
attribute table for each decade, queried the years that 1912-1920 3%
1921-1930 5%
matched the decade, and then recorded the information 1931-1940 2%
1941-1950 5%
in the appropriates columns. Then for each column I 1951-1960 7%
1961-1970 1%
summarized the acres burned, took that information, plus 1971-1980 9%
1981-1990 4%
how big the watershed in acres was, and put it in excel to
1991-2000 11%
create the table to the right. 2000-2007 1%

Next, I wanted to know what fires would be irrelevant to my study due to dam

installation. For the next three maps I used the same process for all of them. I made a query for

the rivers and dams I wanted to show. Then I selected by location the sub watersheds that flowed

into the river and made a query for those. Next, I add the fire data and clipped it to show only the

fires within the selected watersheds. Lastly, I made a second map to query the data to show only

the fires before dam installation to produce the three maps below.
Map shows fires
within
watersheds that
empty into the
San Antonio
river. The left
map shows all
fires within the
sub watersheds
from 1912-2007.
Map to the right
shows fires
within the sub
watersheds
before the dam
was installed in
1965.

Map shows fires


within
watersheds that
empty into the
Nacimiento river.
The left map
shows all fires
within the sub
watersheds from
1912-2007. Map
to the right shows
fires within the
sub watersheds
before the dam
was installed in
1957.
Map shows fires
within watersheds
that empty into the
Salinas river. The left
map shows all fires
within the sub
watersheds from
1912-2007. Map to
the right shows fires
within the sub
watersheds before
the dam was
installed in 1957.

After creating all three of these maps, I realized that some of the same areas had been

burned at different time periods. Also, about half of the fires all three maps had happened before

dam installation. Maybe for a further research on this project I can make more maps

distinguishing what other areas also have been burned more than once.

Through this project, I learned that data can come to you funky and needs correcting. I

learned that I can use GIS confidently; I could do all of the basic function like adding data,

changing symbology, adding labels, performing queries and clips, all without having to refer to

previous project. I also learned that there are many was to manipulate the things that you want

but that there are some more efficient ways than others. I feel I have gained a skill that is useful

for further work on my thesis project, and hopefully in the future for a job.

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