Learning ArcGIS Online

Introduction

This project was undertaken as a way to learn how the program ArcGIS worked to better get to know the program. As the tutorial that was chosen to follow was based on the online version ArcGIS online was the one used. In this particular example, it was used to determine evacuation routes around Houston, TX before a hurricane.

Method

As the tutorial held the user's hand for the project it was pretty straight forward and walked the user through all the steps in order to have a developed map with all the features needed to asses where to focus resources. First, it took the routes which are published by the federal government and had them be overlayed onto the map. Second, it had the user look for Bayous, seen in Figure 1, which has a tendency to flood quickly during a hurricane.

Figure 1

After the Bayous were identified the next thing to see is the percent of households without a car. This is also important because those families will be needing extra assistance to be evacuated. This was obtained using census data collected by the government and then overlayed over the map once the desired subject (percentage of households without a vehicle) was selected. On the full map view, the dark blue parts are where the highest percentage of these families are and where most of the families are at risk seen in Figure 2

Figure 2

Discussion/ Results

This program can be a little tricky, by following the tutorial it allowed the user to not get confused by the complicated procedures that the program requires in order for data to be displayed properly. This program can be used to plan and design many different scenarios. Using all the data that was displayed after following the tutorial it is possible to plan an evacuation if needed.

Conclusion

As one uses this program it becomes apparent that it doesn't have a great user interface which can make using the program difficult as many things are not intuitive. Once the user follows the tutorial and gets a good understanding of the program it is possible to do all sorts of interesting comparisons and data analysis.