GIS Applications for Environmental Management

I am interested in the GIS application for Environmental Management, or more specifically Wildlife habitat management. This application would fall under the Natural Resources Industry.  The problems that can be addressed with this application are aiding in the determination of the amount, location, and varying degrees of habitat productivity, and how all these factors affect the population of the species involved.  Using the data provided from these applications managers can make decisions that will positively affect species population in the future. GIS is used in many ways in this application, from mapping habitat boundaries retrieved from GPS units to tracking an individual animal’s movement with the use of remote sensing, to name just a few. I am interested in this application because I enjoy the outdoors and all the plants and animals found there.  Earth has a limited number of resources and we need to be good stewards of these resources.   As a grandfather, I also believe we owe future generations the same or better opportunities to experience these things that we now enjoy.  I would like to learn more about remote sensing to better determine habitat ranges of certain species.  Animals behave more naturally when they have little or no interaction with humans, so I believe remote sensing is the best way to observe without influencing behavior.   

Photo Source: http://www.fws.gov/lafayette/images/GIS_LA_Black_Bear_Habitat.jpg

GIS Programming Screen Shot

This is a screen shot of my "S" drive.  These folders were all created by running a Python script provided by the GIS Programming course I am currently enrolled in. This is the first assignment for the course, I have no background in programming or scripting and I am hoping to keep my head above water and learn as much as possible.

Link to Summary for GIS Final Project

http://students.uwf.edu/prc7/Intro2GIS/GIS_final_summary.pdf

Link to Final Project for Intro2GIS

http://students.uwf.edu/prc7/Intro2GIS/GIS_final.pptx

Cartography Final Project

This map is for my final project in Cartography. We were not given much step by step guidance or data with this project, but were required to use skills and data we had previously utilized in the course. I believe I have learn several skills in this course, although I had some problems creating this map I was able to complete it, something I could not have done prior to taking this course.

Goggle Earth Screen Shot

Above is a screen shot of a map I created on Google Earth using my map from last weeks Cartography lab.  I have used Google Earth on several occasions in the past, however until this weeks lab I was not aware of all of the operations that Google Earth is capable of doing. I will explore this further as time permits.

ArcScene

This map was created in ArcScene, then exported to ArcMaps where map essentials such as a title, text and a Legend were added.  Did not spend as much time with ArcScene as I would have liked, when time permits I plan to further explore ArcScene as this exercise was enjoyable.