Midterm So LN
Midterm So LN
Midterm So LN
Name:__Key________________
GIS in Water Resources Midterm Exam Fall 2012
There are five questions on this exam. Please do all five.
Question 1
(a) You have worked with the location of Utah State
University in Logan in Geographic Coordinates (41 44 54N,
111 48 30W). If a line is drawn directly South from Logan,
it will eventually cross the Equator. Calculate the length of
this line in km assuming a spherical earth with a radius of 6371
km. = 3.1416.
4144S4" = 41 +446u +S4S6uu = 41.748
(b) Define the term Latitude and use a diagram to illustrate your definition recognizing that the
earth is represented as a rotated ellipsoid.
In terms of the spheroid or rotated ellipsoid latitude is the
angle between the surface normal and equatorial plane
(not center of the earth)
Eccentricity exaggerated
I = 2nR
S6u
= 2n 6S71
41.748
S6u
= 4642.2 km
Page 2 of 6
Question 2
(a) In this class, we have used several national datasets. Briefly describe the content of the
these datasets and give the form of geographic data (vector or raster) that each uses.
Dataset Contents Form
National Hydrography Dataset Stream lines, Water bodies, Canals and
other flow paths. Stream gage locations
Vector
National Elevaton Dataset Topographic elevation values
Grid
Watershed Boundary Dataset Watershed divides demarcating the nation
into hydrologic units or HUCs
Vector
SSURGO Soil Dataset Soil classes and their properties
Vector
(b) The properties of a feature class examined in ArcMap indicate the following information.
Labels
X
o
Y
o
o
(i) Label the rows of this description with the coordinates (
o
,
o
) and (X
o
,Y
o
) in the column to
the right above.
(ii) What earth datum does this projection use?
NAD 1983 (North american datum of 1983)
(iii) Give a brief explanation of the following terms:
Feature Class
A geographic representation of vector objects such as points, lines and polygons used in GIS
Feature Dataset
A collection of feature classes all with the same spatial reference (or coordinate system)
Geodatabase
A relational database holding geographic data including feature classes and feature datasets
Page 3 of 6
Question 3
The following ArcMap screen shot illustrates Precipitation stations labeled (single digit) with
their station identifier staid and subwatersheds labeled (double digit) with their HydroID
Following are the attribute tables for
1. Precip. Annual precipitation (AnnPrecip_in) in inches at precipitation stations identified by
the field staid
2. Wshed. Subwatersheds identified by the field HydroID, with area in square kilometers.
3. Thiessen. The result from application of the Thiessen, then Intersection tools giving the
intersection of Thiessen Polygons with subwatersheds, with the area in square kilometers.
(a) In the map, label each gage with its annual precipition and label each of five polygons of
the Intersected Subwatershed and Thiessen coverage with its area in square kilometers.
35.9
40.5
34.3
36.8
177.3
441.1
724.5
93.4
522.4
Page 4 of 6
(b) Describe the join operation that would be required to obtain a field in the Thiessen table
containing AnnPrecip_in for each Thiessen Polygon. Your description should indicate the tables
and key fields involved.
Join the Precip table on to the Thiessen table using staid as the key field for both tables.
(c) In the table that results from this join, an annual precipitation is associated with each of the
five subareas. Fill in the resulting values in the table below and calculate the Product of the
AreaSqKm and AnnPrecip_In fields
ObjectID Staid HydroID AreaSqKm AnnPrecip_In Product
1 1 11 522.4 35.9 18754
2 2 21 177.3 36.8 6524
3 3 21 441.1 34.3 15130
4 4 11 93.4 40.5 3783
5 4 21 724.5 40.5 29342
(d) Calculate the areally averaged annual precipitation in inches in each subwatershed
Subwatershed 11
187S4 +S78S
61S.8
= S6.6 in
Subwatershed 21
6S24 +1S1Su +29S42
1S42.9
= S8.u in
(e) Suppose you were interested in the health of the vegetation in these subwatersheds.
Describe how you would use remote sensing to determine a grid of Normalized Difference
Vegetation Index (NDVI) values over this region.
Use the appropriate bands from Landsat in the NDVI formula (below) in a raster calculation
NII =
NIR RE
NIR +RE
NIR = Near Infra Red
Page 5 of 6
Question 4
The following diagram illustrates a set of flow directions evaluated in a digital elevation model
with cell size 50 m.
A
(a) Calculate the flow accumulation for all grid cells for which flow direction is given (in the
inner block). Write your answers in the left hand side grid below.
Flow Accumulation Watershed and Stream Cells
0 0 0 0
A 8 7 4 0
1 0 0 0
A
(b) Determine the stream cells draining to and including grid cell A using a threshold
contributing area of 4 grid cells. Shade these cells in the right hand grid above.
(c) In the right hand grid above, draw a border around the watershed draining to and
including grid cell A. What is the area of this watershed (square meters)?
Area = 9 x 50 x 50 = 22,500 m
2
Page 6 of 6
Question 5
The following is a grid of elevations in meters in a digital elevation model with 50 m cell size.
(a) Determine the Hydrologic Slope of the center cell with
elevation 42
To right
42-38
50
= u.u8
To bottom right
42-37
502
= u.u7u
The slope to the right is largest, so select it
Hydrologic slope = 0.08
(b) What ArcGIS Flow Direction does this cell have? 1. The encoding of right or east is 1
(c) Use the ArcGIS slope method to determine the x and y components of Terrain Slope of this
grid.
X-Component, dz/dx
Su +46 2 +42
8 Su
4u +S8 2 +S7
8 Su
= . 775
Y-Component, dz/dy
42 +4u 2 +S7
8 Su
Su +4S 2 +4u
8 Su
= . 525
(d) Determine the overall Terrain Slope
u.u77S
2
+u.uS2S
2
= . 93
(e) Briefly explain how the Hydrologic Slope and Terrain Slope are different from one another.
Terrain slope is an average considering all surrounding cells. Its forumlae can be justified
based on fitting a smooth surface to all 9 points. Hydrologic slope only considers adjacent
grid cells that are lower in elevation and is the slope towards the grid cell in the single
steepest downwards direction.
50 45 40
46 42 38
42 40 37