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Lab 6| Geographic Information Systems (GIS)

1 Introduction

In this assignment you will dive into using ArcGIS, mapping and spatial analysis software. The lab will introduce you to the some of the basic features and tools in ArcGIS, including working with spatial data and navigating through the GIS environment.

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4 Instructions

Based on the topic from this week’s lecture and reading, you will learn the basics of the ArcMap software and create a map. Be sure to save your work often!

6 Deliverables

Follow the instructions below to complete the exercises. Answer the questions throughout the lab (numbered). Your lab document should be typed, well organized, and submitted based on the “How To” guidelines provided in the course syllabus.

PART I – GIS Introduction

*This lab is derived from ESRI’s “GIS Tutorial for Health” text*

Open document & add data

• Download and unzip Lab6Data folder from the course website

• Open the BreastCancer.mxd by double-clicking on the file

• The map should already have two data layers included – Major U.S. Cities and Breast Cancer Deaths

• Add more map layers by clicking on the ‘Add Data’ button

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• Add the BreCounty_7094 shapefile from your Lab6Data folder.

ArcMap randomly assigns a color to the newly added dataset – we will come back to this and change the color.

Changing the display order

The order of the layer’s in ArcMap dictates how they are drawn on the map. The layers are drawn from the bottom up – so if larger features are on top of smaller features, the smaller ones will not display. Let’s test this out.

• Click on hold on the left mouse button on the Major U.S. cities layer; drag it to the bottom of the table of contents, and release.

1| What happens to the cities layer?

• Drag the cities back to the top of the table of contents.

Rename a layer

When you add a layer to your map, ArcMap uses the name of the shapefile as the default in the table of contents. You can change the name to something that is more easily understood.

• In the table of contents, click on the BreCounty_7094 layer name twice – a ‘soft’ click. Click one to highlight the layer and once to change the layer name to Breast Cancer Deaths by County, 1970-94.

Change the Boundary layer’s color

Change the color properties of both the county and state layers.

• In the table of contents, click on the layer symbol just below the layer name.

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• In the resulting Symbol Selector window, click on the Fill Color button in the Options frame.

• In the color palette, click on the Arctic White tile.

• Now, change the outline color to Gray 20% and click OK.

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• You are going to change the outline width for the Breast Cancer Deaths by State layer. Click on the symbol just below the layer name.

• Change the Outline Width to 1.25.

• Change the Fill Color to ‘No Color’ and click OK.

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• Move the Breast Cancer Deaths by State above the county layer in the Table of Contents.

Tools Toolbar – Zoom, Pan, Identify, & Full Extent

The Tools Toolbar contains the basic tools for viewing features in your map.

Zoom In Zoom Out Pan Full Extent Identify

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Fixed Fixed Return to Go to Next

Zoom In Zoom Out Previous Extent Extent

Zoom (In or Out). Enlarges or reduces the display of your map.

Pan. Shifts the display to reveal different areas on the map.

Full Extent. Zoom back to view the entire map.

Identify. Interact with the layers on the map to get information.

• Take a few minutes to try out the zoom, pan and full extent tools – as well as the others on the toolbar.

• Click on the Identify button from the Tools Toolbar.

• In the Table of Contents, turn off all layers EXCEPT Breast Cancer Deaths by State 1990-94.

• Click on the state of Texas with the Identify tool. The state outline will temporarily flash and the results will appear in the resulting Identify dialog box.

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2| How many white & black women died from Breast cancer in Alabama between 1990-94?

3| How does that compare to Maine?

Creating Spatial Bookmarks

Spatial Bookmarks save your current display similar to the way Bookmarks work in an Internet browser. It allows you to easily return to the saved area by accessing the bookmark. This is useful if you want to use GIS for a presentation and move quickly to study areas, regions, or area of interests.

• Click on the Full Extent button on the Tools toolbar.

• Turn on all three layers in the Table of Contents.

• Click on the Zoom In tool and zoom into the state of Florida.

• On the Main Menu, go to Bookmark and click on ‘Create’

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• Name the Bookmark ‘Florida’ and click OK.

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• Click the Full Extent button on the Tools Toolbar

• Click on the Bookmark Menu and select ‘Florida’.

4| What happens when you select on the Florida Bookmark?

Selecting Map Features

GIS links the geographic features on the map with associated attributes in a table. When you select features on a map, you can correlate them with the records in the table. You can perform functions on a subset of features and records, such as generate statistics, create new layers, or run analytic tools.

• Turn off the Breast Cancer Deaths by County, 1970-94 layer and turn on the U.S. Major Cities layer.

• From the Tools Toolbar, click on the Select Features button and click inside the Texas boundary.

• To select multiple features on a map, hold the shift key and click inside each of the state surrounding Texas.

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• Click on the ‘Clear Selected Features’ tool on the Tools Toolbar.

Attribute Tables

Every map layer has an associated feature attribute table that contains data associated with each feature in the layer. To explore the attributes of a layer on the map, open its attribute table. The attribute table provides information that you can use for queries. You will use the attribute tables to determine with U.S. counties had the highest number of breast cancer deaths between 1970-1994.

• Open the attribute table by right-clicking the Breast Cancer Deaths by County 1970-94 layer and click on ‘Attribute table’

The table contains one record for each county in the U.S. Every layer has a table with one record (row) per geographic feature on the map.

• Scroll down until you find Snyder County, PA.

• Click the gray box at the far left of the table (record selector) to select that entire row.

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Snyder County, PA is the county with the highest number of total breast cancer deaths from 1970 to 1994.

• Resize, move (or both), or dock the Attribute table so that both the map and table can be viewed simultaneously. (Below is an image of the attribute table is docked).

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• Spend some time clicking on counties in the attribute table to see them highlighted on the map. You can also click on features on the map with the Select tool to highlight them in the attribute table.

Sorting Features allows you to rearrange any column in the attribute table from largest to smallest numbers (or vice versa). The Advanced Sorting option allows you to sort based on multiple fields.

• Open the attribute table for Breast Cancer Deaths by County

• Right-click on the ‘CTotal7094’ field name and sort descending.

5| What five counties led the country in Breast Cancer deaths between 1970 and 1994?

• Select the top five counties by holding down the ‘ctrl’ key and clicking on clicking on record selectors for the top five counties.

• To make the selected features the only ones visible in the attribute table, click on the ‘Show Selected Records’ button at the bottom of the table.

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• Close the attribute table and click on the ‘Clear Selected Features’ tool on the Tools toolbar.

Create new layers

Sometimes just a subset of features is needed in a map layer. For example, here you will select the most populated cities in Texas and make a new layer of just these cities.

• Open the attribute table of Major U.S. Cities.

• Click on the State (ST) column heading. Hold the CRTL key and click on the POP2000 column heading to highlight both fields.

• Right-click on the ST field and click Sort Ascending.

• Scroll down until you find the records for Texas.

• Select all cities in Texas with a population greater than 500,000

6| What cities in Texas had a population greater than 500,000 in 2000?

• Close the attribute table (but make sure the features are still selected).

• In the Table of Contents, right-click the Major U.S. cities layer and scroll down to ‘Selection’ and then select Create Layer from Selected Features.

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A new layer of just the selected cities will be added to the Table of Contents.

• Right-click the selection layer and scroll down to Properties.

• Click on the ‘General’ tab and change the name to Most Populated Texas Cities

• Click on the Symbology tab and then on the Symbol button.

• Change the symbol to a solid black circle and set the size to 8. Click OK (twice).

• Turn off the Major U.S. Cities layer off to show only the major cities in Texas.

• Right-click on the Most Populated Texas Cities and click on ‘Zoom to Layer’.

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• Use the Zoom out tool on the Tools toolbar to zoom back to the full extent of Texas.

Add labels

Sometimes labels are needed to inform the map-reader about features they are seeing on a map, such as the major cities in Texas. Because GIS features are connected to attribute data in tables, you can easily label map features with any data found in the tables.

• In the Table of Contents, right-click the Most Populated Texas Cities layer and scroll down to click on Properties.

• Click on the ‘Labels’ tab.

• Click the box beside the ‘Label Features in this Layer’

• Change the font to Verdana and the symbol size 8.

• Change the font color to ‘Fire Red’ and make sure the Label Field is set to ‘AREANAME’. Click OK. (make sure it matches the screen shot below.

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• To remove the labels, right-click the Most Populated Texas Cities layer in the Table of Contents and click on ‘Label Features’.

• Using the same procedure, click Label Features’ again to turn the labels back on.

7| Export your map as a .jpg and insert it (as a pic) into your lab document.

Part II – Create Lung Cancer Mortality Maps

Problem. The National Cancer Institute (NCI) has a variety of Web site to access cancer statistics and build interactive maps. Their Cancer Mortality Maps & Graph Web site, , provides interactive maps, graphs, text, tables and figures showing geographic patters and time trends of cancer death rates for the time period 1950-1994 for more than 40 cancers. GIS maps and data can also be found on . These are excellent sites to build maps using predefined variables provided by the NCI. If you want to create a more detailed or customized maps you need to use a desktop GIS application.

In this problem, you will use ArcMap to build a map showing lung cancer mortality for U.S. states and counties. You will use GIS attribute table to determine the states and counties with highest number of lung cancer deaths and then display them on a map.

• Open the LungCancerMortality.mxd doc by double-clicking on it.

The fields in the attribute table contain the following lung cancer statistics:

|Attribute |Definition |

|RWM90_94 |Mortality rate per 100,000, white males, 1990-1994 |

|CWM90_94 |Number of lung cancer deaths, white males, 1990-1994 |

|RWF90_94 |Mortality rate per 100,000, white females, 1990-1994 |

|CWF90_94 |Number of lung cancer deaths, white females, 1990-1994 |

|RBM90_94 |Mortality rate per 100,000, black males, 1990-1994 |

|CBM90_94 |Number of lung cancer deaths, black males, 1990-1994 |

|RBF90_94 |Mortality rate per 100,000, black females, 1990-1994 |

|CBF90_94 |Number of lung cancer deaths, black females, 1990-1994 |

|CTot90_94 |Number of lung cancer deaths, all, 1990-1994 |

Create a Cancer Mortality Map for the U.S. States

• Change the LungState5_9094 layer to a ‘no color’ fill and a 1.5 black outline.

• Using the Attributes of the LungState5_9094 table, select the following 10 Southeast, Mississippi Valley and Gulf Coast states:

o Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas.

• Show these in a bright red selection color

• Label these selected states only with the state name or abbreviation and number of lung cancer deaths.

1| Export your map as a .jpg and insert it (as a pic) into your lab document.

2| Fill in the following table by right-clicking in each field in the attribute table and clicking ‘Statistics’ (for just the 10 selected states).

|Variable |Total (sum) |Maximum |Minimum |Mean |

| | | | | |

|White Male | | | | |

| | | | | |

|Black Male | | | | |

| | | | | |

|White Female | | | | |

| | | | | |

|Black Female | | | | |

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