Accessing Watershed and Water Quality Information with the Indiana GIS Atlas

Flash Videos by Jane Frankenberger, Purdue University

 

The Indiana GIS Atlas, developed by the Indiana Geological Survey, is an excellent tool for accessing digital information, including environmental data. To access it, go to http://igs.indiana.edu/arcims/, then click on Indiana GIS Atlas, then click on “Go to interactive map”.

 


 
These videos were originally created for the Indiana Watershed Leadership Academy, but can also be used by others.

If you have any questions or comments please contact Jane Frankenberger at frankenb@purdue.edu


Notes for all videos: Make sure you are able to listen to sound, either through speakers or headphones. (The sound starts a few seconds after the start of the video.) The navigation bar at the bottom lets you rewind, pause, and replay the video as often as you want. You cannot "fast forward" until you have watched it the first time, but after that you can. When the video is over, just click "Back" in your browser window to come back to this page. These are Flash videos, which should be viewable in almost all browsers.


1. Indiana GIS Atlas - Getting Started (14:48)  
2. Indiana GIS Atlas - Investigating and Mapping a Watershed (14:17)
3. Indiana GIS Atlas 3: Measuring Lengths and Areas (8:05)


Correction: In Video 1, at 8 minutes,  the population density is in people/square km rather than /square mile as the video says)

 

Note: Participants in the Indiana Watershed Leadership Academy were asked to use the Indiana GIS Atlas to answer the following questions. The videos demonstrate how to complete these and other tasks.

 

Select an 11-digit Hydrologic Unit Code (referred to here as a watershed, and in the GIS Atlas as “Watershed HUC11”) that includes or is included by your watershed, and answer the following questions.

1.    What streams in this watershed have been determined to be impaired by IDEM? What are their causes of impairment?

2.   Are there any outstanding waters?

3.   What is the total area (in acres) of this watershed?

4.   How many dams are in your watershed? (Are there any that you did not know about?)

5.  Give a rough estimate of population density.

6.  Make a map of your watershed displaying at least the following layers:

·         NPDES permit sites

·         Confined feeding operations

·         Septage waste sites

·         Leaking Underground Storage Tanks

·         Floodplains (DFIRM)

7.  Zoom into a small area, and measure the riparian buffer width at two or more locations. Make a map of this smaller area showing the riparian buffer you have measured.