Geographic Information Science (GISc) Labs and Projects Completed by Cory

Remote Sensing Projects

***Disclaimer**** Due to Data Storage Size Limitations on Weebly.com, and privacy protection, all of the following images are of very little quality. ​A PDF Version of the Portfolio with higher quality imagery is available upon request. 

​These are a sample of maps and models I have completed in my graduate and undergraduate careers as a geography student. As you can see, not all of the classes I created these maps and models are not all necessarily GIS, or even Geography. Throughout my academic career, I have studied a variety of subjects, and have explored how GIScience can create an analysis for all of these subjects. I believe that is what the beauty of GIScience is, it is interdisciplinary, and can be used to analyze any spatial information that may pertain to any subject. 

Enjoy!

Completed for Planning 5814-Planning for Sustainable Communities. I used Raster Calculator and Reclassify in ArcGIS to show the most vulnerable areas for landslides in Boone, NC. I took into consideration, political boundaries such as zones, and land use, as well as physical features such as slope, soil, and hill shade. All of these features can contribute to landslides. This map ranks each feature on a scale of most to least likely to create a landslide. The use of Raster Calculator and Reclassify created a raster image showing how each of these feature affect one another in that given location. The image, as you can imagine was pixelated, taken all layers used had a cell size of 30. This map was going to be used by the planning department for the Town of Boone and needed to be visually appealing. I applied a Raster to Point to the raster layer creating a point shapefile. Each point had a ranking, according to the rank I gave each layer in the previous steps. I then applied an appropriate symbology with a yellow to red color scheme to better show the readers which areas are more or less vulnerable to landslides. 
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Completed for Geography 5814-Principles of Geocomputation- This is an environmental model of the flooding extent in Greenville, North Carolina. I used Hec-Ras, Hec-GeoRas and ArcHydro in ArcGIS to create this map.

Completed for Geography 5112-Digital Image Processing- The following two maps illustrate urban heat islands (UHI's) in north Atlanta. 

Created in Geography 5200-Adanvced Qualitative and Quantitative Methods-This map shows Cellular Tower Reception in White County, Georgia

In the Winter of 2017, I completed this  project independently to showcase the  knowledge of remote sensing I have gained in my previous position as a Technical Specialist at the USGS EROS prior to a promotion as a Remote Sensing Scientist. I used data from the US Geological Survey and  the Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LP DAAC), located at USGS/EROS, Sioux Falls, SD including Landsat 8 OLI/TIRS, Aster Global DEM, National Landcover Database 2011 (NLCD), and Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) Soil Survey geographic layers to determine burned areas from a recent forest fire in North Georgia, and the vulnerability of future forest fires in the area. Below are my results.

GIS Projects

For this research project, I collaborated with the United States Public Health Services to  complete a spatial analysis of a Norovirus Outbreak in Yellowstone National Park. I presented my findings at the Annual Southeastern Division of the Association of American Geographers Conference  in the Honors Poster Competition. 

Created GEOG 4200-Advanced GIS
Pedestrian accidents occur anywhere cars and people are. Milledgeville, GA is no exception. Between the years 2000 and 2012 there were 80 reported automobile accidents with pedestrians involved. Looking from afar, this number is somewhat miniscule, however, looking further into the picture, and comparing Milledgeville, Georgia with towns of similar sizes, one might see many areas of demanding safety hazards, and many areas to improve the safety of this towns pedestrians. 
My objective of this project was to map out the pedestrian accidents in the city of Milledgeville. With this, I wanted to gather data on information of the accidents such as, time of day, number involved, frequency, fatalities, and what sector the accident was taken place. 

Completed for Geography 5000-Geographic Research Themes and Methods-This map shows the spatial variability of Influenza A Outbreak in the summer of 2012 in Ohio

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Completed for Sociology 4945-Urban Change and Community Development-This map shows all the senior citizen assets of Milledgeville, GA

Completed for Geography 3100-This map shows potential running routes for students at Georgia College and State University

Completed for Kinesiology 4100-Introduction to Epidemiology-This map shows the diffusion of a Legionaries Disease outbreak 

Created for Geography 3100-Introduction to GIS-This is a lab where I began to learn the Select by Location, and Buffer Tool and its importance in Thematic, as well as Reference Maps

I was asked by the Appalachian State University ROTC Department to create an historical map of the Fall Blue Operation in Eastern Europe. Below is one of these maps. 

This map was not created for a class. I created this map independently, and donated it to a Cellular Tower Company. This map shows the geographic territory of a particular branch of this company, and where all of the cellular towers are in that area. With that I provided a road system, major cities, a distance table between major cities, and an elevation profile of each state represented in the territory (Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina). I created this map during the summer in between Undergraduate and Graduate School. At this point in time, I wanted to practice my skills in cartography and use my skills for the benefit of a real company. The company reports they are still enjoying and using this map to this day!

Gecomputation-Programing, Scripting

In the Spring of 2015, I took a Principles of GeoComputation Class, for my final project, I created a Visual Basic for Application (VBA) and Python script to help fire fighters in the City of Helen, Georgia better locate fire hydrants in the area. This script created a combo box with every address in the city with a house, when the user clicked on the combo box, the list of addresses came, once they navigated to the address they wanted, the clicked on it, and the screen instantly zoomed into that exact address showing where the nearest fire hydrant was. The following is a sample of the script I created for this project:
Private Function MxDocument_OpenDocument() As Boolean
   
    cboAddress.EditText = "<Pick Address>”
 
       cboAddress.AddItem "1285 Bahn Innsbruck"
       cboAddress.AddItem "1289 Bahn Innsbruck"
       cboAddress.AddItem "1291 Bahn Innsbruck"
       cboAddress.AddItem "1292 Bahn Innsbruck"
       cboAddress.AddItem "1294 Bahn     Innsbruck”cboAddress.AddItem "1497 Bahn Innsbruck"
End Function
Results
Private Sub cboAddress_SelectionChange(ByVal newIndex As Long)
   Dim pMxDoc As IMxDocument
   Set pMxDoc = ThisDocument
   
   Dim pMaps As IMaps
   Set pMaps = pMxDoc.Maps
   
   Dim pParcelMap As IMap
   Set pParcelMap = pMaps.Item(0)
   
   Dim pInset_MapMap As IMap
   Set pInset_MapMap = pMaps.Item(1 )
Dim pInnsbruck_ParcelsLayerDef As IFeatureLayerDefinition
       Set pInnsbruck_ParcelsLayerDef = pParcelMap.Layer(0)
  
       Dim strQuery As String
       strQuery = "Street = '" & cboAddress.EditText & "'"
   
       Dim pParcelActiveView As IActiveView
       Set pParcelActiveView = pParcelMap
   
       Dim pInset_MapLayer As IFeatureSelection
       Set pInset_MapLayer = pInset_MapMap.Layer(0)
If cboAddress.EditText = "<Show All>" Then
   'This code runs when the user clicks <Show All>
       pInnsbruck_ParcelsLayerDef.DefinitionExpression = ""
       pAddressLayerDef.DefinitionExpression = ""
       pInset_MapLayer.Clear
       pParcelActiveView.Extent = pParcelLayer.AreaOfInterest
   Else
   'This code runs when the user clicks a state
       pInnsbruck_ParcelsLayerDef.DefinitionExpression = strQuery
     
       Dim pFilter As IQueryFilter
       Set pFilter = New QueryFilter
       
       pFilter.WhereClause = strQuery
       pInset_MapLayer.SelectFeatures _
           pFilter, esriSelectionResultNew, True
     Dim pRedColor As IRgbColor
       Set pRedColor = New RgbColor
       pRedColor.Red = 200
       
       Set pInset_MapLayer.SelectionColor = pRedColor
       
       Dim pInnsbruck_ParcelsFLayer As IFeatureLayer
       Set pInnsbruck_ParcelsFLayer = pInnsbruck_ParcelsLayerDef
       
       Dim pInnsbruck_ParcelsFClass As IFeatureClass
       Set pInnsbruck_ParcelsFClass = pInnsbruck_ParcelsFLayer.FeatureClass
Dim pFCursor As IFeatureCursor
       Set pFCursor = pInnsbruck_ParcelsFClass.Search(pFilter, True)
       
       Dim pFeature As IFeature
       Set pFeature = pFCursor.NextFeature
       
       Dim pEnvelope As IEnvelope
       Set pEnvelope = pFeature.Extent
       
       pEnvelope.Expand 1.1, 1.1, True
       
       pParcelActiveView.Extent = pEnvelope
       
       Dim pSelectionSet As ISelectionSet
End If
   
   Dim pInset_MapActiveView As IActiveView
   Set pInset_MapActiveView = pInset_MapMap
 
   pInset_MapActiveView.Refresh
   pParcelActiveView.Refresh
End Sub