Geography 476 Project assignment 3: Implementation plan.

Making the transition from project topic ideas to traction and progress means investing in organization and strategy: implementation plan.

GIS projects are always works in progress and need constant adjustment to succeed.  Your goal with this assignment is to establish some shared understanding of what you need to accomplish as a team and set targets to complete. 

Data resources and analysis operations will become better developed as you invest in the steps to complete the project.  If you have places in the implementation plan where you are uncertain you should recognize those and say something like "We need to learn how to do (fill in the blank here) before we can complete this step."  Schedule your need to learn objectives into your project and include them in your timeline for completion.

The major numbered items in the outline below are required content in your implementation outline.  Below each major item are examples and suggestions of what you should address for each.  Provide enough detail for each item so your plan presents a complete picture of what you intende to accomplish with your project.

  1. Team members and email addresses

    1. Name, email (team leader)
    2. Name, email
    3. etc.

  2. Project objective (Consider using a traditional introductory paragraph style)

    1. Problem statement
    2. Description
    3. Analysis area - place-names and coordinates of extent rectangle corners
    4. Analysis approach overview

  3. Expected data and sources (oasis directory or web download location)

    1. SSURGO Soils (source location:......)
    2. USGS 10 meter DEM (source location:......)
    3. Wisconsin Land Cover (source location:......)
    4. Portage county roads database (source location:......)
    5. Portage county parcels (source location:......)
    6. NASA Landsat 7 2009 near-infrared and visible red bands (source location:......)

  4. Analytical procedure

    1. Calculate slope using the USGS 10 meter DEM (SLOPE)
    2. Isolate SLOPE greater than 12 percent (STEEP)
    3. Overlay STEEP and SSURGO Soils to identify sandy soils on steep soils (STEEP_SAND)
    4. Isolate built areas (residential, urban and commercial) from Wisconsin Land Cover (BUILT)
    5. Use NDVI using Landsat data to exclude vegetated areas from BUILT (BUILT_NO_VEG)
    6. Calculate flow direction from USGS DEM (FLOW_DIR)
    7. Intersect Portage County Roads with FLOW_DIR to identify roads at risk of washout from failure of built surfaces on sandy soils on steep slopes.

  5. Team member responsibilities

    1. Team leader: Boris
    2. Project report coordinator: Gretchen
    3. Database manager: Jose
    4. Presentation coordinator: Boris
    5. Boris - Data: 4a, 4b Analysis: 5c, 5d
    6. Gretchen - Data: 4c, 4d Analysis: 5a, 5e
    7. Jose - Data: 4e, 4f Analysis 5b, 5f, 5g

  6. Timeline for completion - hypothetical dates/objectives as example only

    1. Nov 10. All data acquired and clipped to analysis area
    2. Nov 12. Data projected to the same coordinate system
    3. Nov 17. Complete data suitability for use assessment
    4. Nov 19. Analysis of slope and sandy soils
    5. Nov 23. Landcover and ndvi isolation and exclusion
    6. Nov 27. Perform 'Flow Direction' analysis
    7. Nov 25. Complete overlay operations
    8. Nov 30. Identify roads at risk for runoff damage
    9. Dec 1. Class presentation
    10. Dec 10. Submit final report