The parcel maintenance solution has three key parts. First is the Parcel Editor toolbar, which is included with ArcGIS Desktop at the ArcEditor and ArcInfo license levels. This toolbar contains the tools needed to access and work with parcel data. The second part of the solution is the parcel fabric. This dataset manages the spatial and topological relationships inherent in parcel point, line, and polygon data. The third and final part of the solution is the Tax Parcel Editing map. It supports local government workflows and is a multiscale editing map that organizes the survey framework (Public Land Survey System [PLSS] and control), subdivisions, lots, tax parcels, and encumbrances in a fabric data model that can be used with the Parcel Editor toolbar.

Recently, we’ve authored a series of videos to help you get started with the Tax Parcel Editing map and Parcel Editor toolbar. Each video guides you through a different parcel editing workflow and is accompanied by a PDF document describing the required steps.

The nine workflows described in the videos include the following:

• Updating parcel corners (video) (PDF)
• Splitting acreage parcels using the geometry of an existing parcel (video) (PDF)
• Splitting acreage parcels from area descriptions (video) (PDF)
• Shifting adjacent parcel boundaries (video) (PDF)
• Merging parcels (video) (PDF)
• Dedicating public rights-of-way (video) (PDF)
• Subdividing parcels using CAD data (video) (PDF)
• Splitting acreage parcels from measurement descriptions with a monument start point (video) (PDF)
• Splitting acreage parcels from measurement descriptions with a floating start point (video) (PDF)

You can download the Tax Parcel Editing map here and check out more Land Records videos at video.arcgis.com/series/69/land-records/.

Finally, we’d like to thank Larry Young for this contribution to the Land Records community, and we hope you find the videos valuable as you begin to leverage the ArcGIS parcel editing solution.

Imagine being able to have an idea of where flooding issues are at the outset of a project. What if we could squeeze government dollars a bit harder and quickly map flood risk for a whole nation?

Making good use of available GIS data and new tools in the armory of our profession are rapid flood inundation models like Halcrow’s ISIS-FAST. The tool provides a quick assessment of flooding using simplified hydraulic principles to provide results up to 1000 times quicker when compared to other tools and methods available for flood inundation simulations – i.e. providing results in minutes as opposed to hours or days.

ISIS-FAST works by first identifying depressions on the floodplain before routing water through these depressions. Water depths in the depressions are determined by: volume of water flowing into that depression; level at which water can spill into neighboring depressions; and water level in neighboring depressions. ISIS FAST represents connectivity and volume filling effects on the floodplain, without having to represent detailed hydraulics.

A model is very quickly constructed using ArcGIS to develop the input components:

• a digital terrain model (DTM);
• model area of interest polygon feature class;
• rainfall/runoff extent polygon feature class;
• boundary condition location feature classes;
• feature classes to modify the DTM – polylines to define levees etc

Hydrologic inputs can be entered directly; by copying from Excel or developing input data files.  ISIS-FAST’s output is provided in raster and shapefile format that can be easily brought in to ArcMap to facilitate discussions in the team or to develop mapping products for clients.

Applications to date:
The ease of setup coupled with the availability of robust GIS input data available to our industry mean that rapid flood inundation modeling and mapping tools can be used at all scales of projects.

The ability also to batch run models drawing on these GIS datasets means that high-level strategic flood mapping from pluvial/storm sewer related sources could be undertaken swiftly at a County scale for the Fingal East Meath Flood Risk Assessment and Management Study in Ireland. The same tools were also used to develop a National Pluvial Flood Map of Scotland (some 30,400 square miles) in only 3 months. These maps of flood risk are being used to plan and target flood management solutions and work programs.

In Florida, at the watershed level, ISIS-FAST rapid flood mapping is being used to help identify areas with issues early on in watershed management planning projects for South West Florida Water Management District (SWFWMD) and their co-operating partner governments.

The image below shows the good match between a flood depth raster grid output from ISIS compared to the red and green dots of known issue areas.

Figure 1

ISIS-FAST will also provide shapefile output for the probable flow paths over the DTM, providing us with a good idea of the likely flood flow mechanisms (the arrows on Figure 2 below are scaled in proportion to the flood flow volume moving through the area).

Figure 2: Probable flow paths

Having preliminary flood maps, like these, means that we can better target field data collection to areas of concern. We can more easily discuss and understand flooding issues with government staff who know the area and can better leverage their institutional knowledge. Also, these maps will provide an additional tool in back-stopping or peer reviewing detailed modeling and mapping work in support of FEMA objectives.

More information on ISIS-FAST

Special thanks to Paul Robinson for providing this post. Questions for Paul: PaulM.Robinson@ch2m.com

This week’s blog will discuss how the mosaic dataset can help you put your bands together. A mosaic dataset can put these scenes together into one logical geodatabase entity.  Furthermore, it can mosaic all the scenes together as well.

A mosaic dataset can composite bands and also mosaic scenes.

There are two steps to creating a mosaic dataset:
1) Create an empty mosaic dataset
2) Add data to your mosaic dataset

Create a mosaic dataset
Create a new mosaic dataset, using the Create Mosaic Dataset tool.
The only compulsory fields are the Mosaic Dataset Name and Coordinate System.
Once you create the new mosaic dataset you need to add rasters into it.

Add Rasters to your mosaic dataset
Use the Add Rasters to Mosaic Dataset tool
- Choose the raster type that describes the sensor type for your data.
- Click the Browse button for the Input Data, and choose the parent folder of all your scenes.
- Run the tool
Your output should now contain all the raster scenes and all the bands in one mosaic dataset. You may need to refine your mosaic dataset, to be able to see all the images in your mosaic dataset with the proper rendering.

The demonstration of these capabilities occurred during an Explorer Desktop customization workshop at the conference. Mark started the session by reaching into his pocket to pull out a thumb drive, the same one pictured above, and plugged it into his laptop. On the drive was an entire 3D virtual city stored in a geodatabase. The thumb drive also included the setup installation for the still-in-development ArcGIS Explorer Desktop 2012, scheduled for release in August.

This new version of Explorer Desktop leverages technology evolved from the ArcGIS Runtime project to enable the application to run directly from the portable drive, without needing to install any software.

Double-clicking the map document on the thumb drive started up Explorer Desktop, and opened the 3D map document showing the entire virtual city of Philadelphia, shown below:

Since Explorer Desktop is a locally running application it includes functionality not yet practical in lightweight browser-based applications, including the ability to add local data to the cityscape, connect to enterprise databases, use built-in query and spatial analysis tools, and also potentially include advanced GIS and geodesign tools made possible via Explorer’s add-in architecture.

Explorer Desktop 2012 is scheduled for release in August and will contain many new features including the capabilities mentioned above, as well as enhanced presentation capabilities, table views, popup size and placement control, integrated ArcGIS Online search, updates to support new features in ArcGIS 10.1, and more. We’ll be covering these additions and more new capabilities in future blog posts.

Map tips are enabled when you use Explorer Online, and are currently not supported in the ArcGIS.com map viewer (though with just a click you can display what you see in the map tip and more). Map tips work with feature layers, including “map notes” and other feature layers you create, derive, or connect to.

In this first example, we’ve opened a new map using Explorer Online. New Explorer Online maps automatically include a feature layer using the Map Notes feature template. We added a pushpin and configured its pop-up with a title as shown here:

The title is what is displayed as the map tip, so when a user hovers over the pushpin with their mouse the title is displayed as the tip:

In this next example we’ve created a feature layer from one of the ArcGIS Online demographic services. Hovering over one of the counties we see the following:

To understand how this works we can view the Title in the pop-up configuration and can see that it’s composed from two attribute fields (indicated by the name within curly braces) and a comma:

With this knowledge, we can do even more interesting things with map tips. For example, adding the string shown below to the Title leverages a combination of text and attributes to create a more informative and conversational tip:

The population density here in {NAME}, {ST_ABBREV} is {POPDENS_CY} people per square mile, with a total population of {TOTPOP_CY} in 2010.

The map tip now looks like this:

By being creative you can improve the user experience by offering interesting and informative map tips.

For more information on map notes and other available templates see About feature templates.

For more information on configuring pop-up windows, including the Title, see Feature pop-up windows.

Q. What types of services does your organization provide? 

 A. We support the entire city/county GIS Enterprise through data management and maintenance, local government GIS project support, and hosted Web mapping services to support the local government mission.  We currently manage close to 300 features classes and/or tabular data associated with those features in SQL Server via ArcGIS Server.

Q. How has the Community Maps Program benefited you and your organization, and has the Community Maps Program aided in more efficient dissemination of information to your region? 

 A. In terms of efficiency we have benefited already through the quick use of ESRI Topo Basemaps for a few of our web mapping applications. We maintain a presence through the ArcGIS online community with both a county and city group.  Within these groups we have posted a number of public applications and services that use Esri Basemaps. My long-term vision is that our local level data is utilized via the Community Maps Program by developers using Esri services.  For example, if a site is developed promoting economic development in the region by an outside vendor and they use Esri Basemaps, then I know our data is being used and represented.

Q. Describe how citizens in your community have benefited from your use of the Community Basemap.

 A. We were able to quickly and effectively respond to a grass-roots community driven request for a proposed bike route comment site.  Using the ArcGIS for Flex API and the ArcGIS Online Basemaps, this office developed an interactive service that allowed community members to log their comments in regards to a series of proposed bike routes in the Helena area.

Q. Last April you gave a Societal GIS presentation at the 2012 Intermountain GIS Conference in Kalispell, MT. Can you tell us a little bit about the presentation?

 A. I was approached by a conference committee track chair, specifically the Societal GIS track chair, asking if I could provide a presentation on our local government experience with Esri’s Community Maps Program. During that presentation I shared our reasoning why we did it, the workflow involved, and the end benefits. Specifically the improved level of detail made available at the city scale of the Topo Basemap

Q. In this presentation, what was one of your main messages regarding the Community Maps program?

A. It came down to this – if Esri is going to do this and promote it to outside developers, then those developers should be using the best data available…ours! Developers using ArcGIS Online and Topo Basemaps should be representing our data in whatever applications they develop; from mobile cadastral apps to economic development business apps.  If it is done on Esri Basemap services then we know our data is being represented.

 Q. Would you recommend the use of the Community Maps Program to similar organizations?

 A. Yes I would.  Our experience with the Community Maps Team has been, and continues to be, nothing but positive!  The Esri team have been very professional to deal with and very flexible to meet our needs.  From the training webinar all the way through to our final published product.

See the many ways that Lewis & Clark County and the City of Helena is using Community Map Apps by visiting the Community Maps App Gallery, and the Helena Montana Maps.

This tiny little flash drive is packed with loads of new data (not just demographics… but business locations, shopping center locations, streets and geocoding data)… and it’s all in the newly released Census 2010 geography. Also in the update are… some maintenance fixes to the 10.0 software.  More detail can be found in the What’s New document…

In order to provide the most accurate data, we used Census 2010 data as the base for our 2011 updates (rather than using Census 2000 data).  Since the last of the Census 2010 counts were released at the end of August 2011, we revised the 2011/2016 update roster to allow enough time to incorporate a new census base and new source data in 2011.  See the 2011 Business Analyst Variable and Report List  to see what is available.  Should you prefer to continue using the 2010/2015 Esri data, you can still download and install the software updates from the Patches and Services Packs section of the Business Analyst Resource Center.

Thanks and, as always, please contact us with questions or comments at businessanalyst@esri.com.

Due to its great success and in an attempt to enrich and improve data resolution, the Ocean Basemap  is now open to receive bathymetric data contributions from data providers such as Hydrographic Offices and academia,  for bathymetry and named features. If you want to learn more details please contact oceanbasemapteam@esri.com .

Tourist trail maps engage people new to an area and guide them to sights of importance or interest, often using a particular theme.  The Esri story maps team recently published a trail map of New York City’s High Line and also a short walking tour around Esri’s Redlands campus.  Both examples illustrate the way in which web maps allow you to combine basemaps, route information, point of interest markers and multimedia (e.g. photographs) to tell a rich visual story.  Web maps like these can be used either as a virtual tour to give a narrative without actually visiting the area, or as a navigation aid as users follow the trail in reality using a hand-held device. In this blog entry, we’ll look at how you can make a walking trail web map.

The Valletta Historical Trail web map (figure 1) shows how ArcGIS Online can be used to author and publish a useful tourist trail.  It provides a window on the rich cultural landscape of Malta’s capital city in The Mediterranean, highlighting points of interest along a short, accessible pre-defined route to either use for pre-trip planning, navigation while on vacation or reminiscing about a place previously visited.

Figure 1. Valletta Historic trail web map (click to launch ArcGIS Online web map)

Data were collected for waypoints and the trail route using a GPS receiver.  The GPX trail route collected by the receiver was edited using ArcGIS for Desktop (to correct distortions in the data as a result of GPS receiver error) and then importing to ArcGIS Online as shapefiles.

At each waypoint during data collection, a geotagged photograph (and video for waypoint 11) was collected and uploaded to Flickr.  A spreadsheet was created using the GPX waypoint file and additional columns were added for titles, description, cumulative trail time (based on GPS receiver data) and URLs for the location of the related media on Flickr. This included links to smaller thumbnail images to optimize display (see Tips for displaying photos in pop-ups). The spreadsheet was dragged into the ArcGIS Online map as a CSV file. Unique symbols were created based on the style of a Maltese Cross, saved online and then applied to the Points of Interest layer so that each waypoint had a symbol indicating the stop number.  This gives a sense of order to the route.  Additional graphics were added as editable layers including a trailhead label, a graphic of the flag of Malta and the Maltese Coat of Arms.  the latter contain links through to further details on Wikipedia.

Popups are used for each waypoint to identify the location, the total trail time estimated to reach that point of interest and a link to the Flickr content. The route itself is used twice, once as a single line and a second time, classified by value and symbolized using a single hue color ramp to show trail gradients.  This gives an indication of how steep certain parts of the trail are. The OpenStreetMap basemap is used with 50% transparency to provide useful contextual information at street level to help people locate and navigate and minimum and maximum visibility ranges have been set so that the operational overlay content is only visible at appropriate scales (Trails at 1:36,112; POIs at 1:10,000; Gradient & graphics at 1:4,514). Additionally, operational layers turn off when the maximum OpenStreetMap basemap scale is reached (1:2,255).  See Using scale visibility ranges for symbology in ArcGIS Online web maps for details.

Trail maps are a great way to tell a story of an interesting route. ArcGIS Online provide an easy way of authoring and publishing your web map to share it widely. The Valletta Historic Trail web map is designed to be viewed in ArcGIS Online.

Thanks to my former Kingston University GIS students whose fieldwork forms the basis of this web map.

Download VZMOD

What does it do?

Nitrate, as a commonly identified groundwater and surface-water pollutant, is associated with a number of adverse health and environmental impacts. One major source of nitrate in the environment is due to wastewater treatment using Onsite Sewage Treatment and Disposal Systems (OSTDS) (a.k.a., septic systems), whose effluent is directly discharged into soils and subsequently groundwater. Therefore, it is important to simulate nitrogen transformation and transport in the vadose zone and groundwater due to septic systems. We have developed an ArcGIS-based Nitrate Load Estimation Toolkit (ArcNLET) to simulate nitrate fate and transport in groundwater and to estimate nitrate load from septic systems to surface water bodies such as lakes and rivers (read the ArcNLET blog). In this blog, we introduce VZMOD, Vadose Zone MODel, a recently developed software for simulating nitrogen transformation and transport in the vadose zone. VZMOD can be used as a pre-processor of ArcNLET to provide source plane concentrations of individual septic systems from the vadose zone to groundwater.

VZMOD is based on ArcGIS 10.0 and developed using the Python programming language. The software simulates

• one-dimensional (1-D) unsaturated, steady-state flow in the vertical direction,
• nitrification process for transformation of ammonium to nitrate and denitrification process for transformation of nitrate to nitrogen gas, and
• steady-state transport of ammonium and nitrate.

The end-product of this model is vertical profiles of ammonium and nitrate concentrations for either one, or multiple septic systems.

What ArcGIS input files does it need?

The software can be used for the following four modeling scenarios:

1. a single septic system,
2. multiple septic systems with heterogeneous hydraulic conductivity and porosity (other parameters being homogeneous),
3. multiple septic systems with heterogeneous depth to water table (other parameters being homogeneous), and
4. multiple septic systems with heterogeneous hydraulic conductivity, porosity and depth to water table, i.e., combination of scenario (2) and (3).

When running VZMOD for the latter three modeling scenarios, functions of ArcGIS 10.0 are used to handle spatial variability of septic system locations, hydraulic conductivity, porosity, and depth between the drainfield of septic systems to the water table.

Scenario 1
When running VZMOD for scenario (1) with a single septic system, you do not need to prepare any ArcGIS layers. In the graphic user interface (GUI) of VZMOD shown below, you select the type of soil below the drainfield of the septic system, and VZMOD activates literature values of a number of input parameters specific to the soil type (such as soil hydraulic parameters and parameters related to nitrification and denitrification processes). You may adjust these values when site-specific measurements are available.

Scenario 2
When running VZMOD for multiple septic systems with heterogeneous hydraulic conductivity and porosity (scenario (2)), in addition to selecting the soil type, you need to check the boxes of “Multiple sources” and “Heterogeneous Ks and θs” in the GUI, which will activate three boxes for inputting three ArcGIS layers:

1. the ArcGIS point layer of septic system locations,
2. raster layers of hydraulic conductivity and
3. raster layers of porosity.

Scenario 3
When running VZMOD for multiple septic systems with heterogeneous depth to water table (scenario (3)), in addition to selecting the soil type, you need to check the boxes of “Multiple sources” and “Calculate depth to water table” in the GUI, which will activate three boxes for inputting three ArcGIS layers:

1. the ArcGIS point layer of septic system locations
2. a raster layer of digital elevation model (DEM), and
3. a raster layer of smoothed DEM that represents the shape of water table and can be obtained by running Groundwater module of ArcNLET.

Scenario 4
Since scenario (4) is a combination of scenarios (2) and (3), you need to check all three boxes for inputting all five ArcGIS layers for scenarios (2) and (3). This is the most complicated modeling scenario that VZMOD can handle.

Figure 1: VZMOD GUI

Example Scenario: Using VZMOD to simulate spatial distribution of ammonium and nitrate concentration

VZMOD was used to estimate spatial distribution of ammonium and nitrate concentration in the Julington Creek neighborhood located in Jacksonville, FL, USA, where nitrate due to septic systems is believed to be one of the reasons for nutrient enrichment. We present below the modeling procedure and results for this neighborhood under modeling scenario 4. (The data used for this example is available on the VZMOD webpage.)

Step 1: Determine soil types and prepare ArcGIS files for septic system locations

The first step in VZMOD is to determine soil types of the modeling domain. As shown in Figure 1 above, VZMOD considers twelve soil types based on soil texture information that can be extracted from the Soil Survey Geographic (SSURGO) database available at http://soildatamart.nrcs.usda.gov/. The clay, silt, and sand contents of SSURGO horizons are first aggregated to the component level, and subsequently components are aggregated to the map unit level. Thickness of horizons and percentage of components are used as weights during the aggregation. The clay, silt and sand percentages at the map unit level are used to determine soil types. As shown in the figure below for Julington Creek, the soil type for most of the septic systems is sand; only three septic systems are located in soil of type sandy loam. You thus need to prepare two ArcGIS point layer files of septic system locations for the two soil types. The GUI above shows the ArcGIS layer file for the sand soil.

Figure 2: Julington Creek

Step 2: Prepare four more ArcGIS input files

Next, prepare four ArcGIS raster files for heterogeneous hydraulic conductivity, soil porosity, DEM, and smoothed DEM for the entire modeling domain. (The former three files are also input files of ArcNLET, and the file of smoothed DEM is an output file of the groundwater flow module of ArcNLET.) The figure above shows the delineation of the soil units for the Julington Creek area; within each unit, the hydraulic conductivity and soil porosity (labeled in red and purple, respectively) are homogeneous. The raster files (hydrau_con.img for hydraulic conductivity and porosity.img for porosity) are generated from the SSURGO database. The LiDAR DEM file (DEM.IMG) is used in the Julington Creek modeling, and it is the background of the figure above. The LiDAR DEM has a horizontal resolution of 5 × 5 ft2. If a LiDAR DEM is not available, alternative DEM raster files can be used. One alternative is the NED, which is a DEM raster file with horizontal resolution of 1/3 arc seconds. The smoothed DEM (smoothedDEM.img) is generated by running the Groundwater flow module of ArcNLET (more details can be found at the Esri Hydro blog).

Step 3: Run VZMOD and post-process modeling results

After selecting the soil type and inputting all the ArcGIS files, specify the output folder to save the modeling results and then click the Run button shown in the VZMOD GUI to run VZMOD for each soil type. Information of the model run is written to the rightmost window of the VZMOD GUI.

The vertical profiles of ammonium and nitrate concentrations in the vadose zone can be plotted by clicking the “Check Results” button. You can view the profiles of different septic systems by changing the FID of the septic systems and then clicking the “OK” button. The figure below shows the profiles for two septic systems located in sand (FID 100) and sandy loam (FID 391). The profiles show that during the downward transport, ammonium concentration decreases while nitrate concentration increases because ammonium becomes nitrate due to nitrification. The process of nitrification is faster in sandy loam (FID 391) than in sand (FID 100) because of the different degrees of saturation for the two soil types.

Figure 3: Simulated ammonium and nitrate concentration profiles.

The simulated ammonium and nitrate concentrations are saved in the default output file “results.txt” located in the output folder specified by the users at the bottom of VZMOD GUI. As shown in the figure below for a small segment of the output file, the data are organized by septic systems. You can use this file for more post-processing of the modeling results.

Figure 4: VZMOD results.txt

VZMOD also directly generates ArcGIS files for visualization and post-processing. The figure below plots the simulated nitrate concentrations at the water table for the entire modeling domain. This also updates the ArcGIS file of septic systems used as a VZMOD input file by creating a new field in the attribute table to save the simulated nitrate concentrations. The updated ArcGIS file can be used directly for ArcNLET modeling, because the simulated nitrate concentrations are the source plane concentrations used as inputs of ArcNLET.

Figure 5: Simulated nitrate concentrations at the water table.

Download VZMOD
The site provides the user’s manual, sample data and even technical support of VZMOD!

Special thanks to Ming Ye for providing this post. Questions for Ming: mye@fsu.edu