Slope and Aspect

Calculated from a grid of elevations (a digital elevation model) Slope and aspect are calculated at each point in the grid, by comparing the points elevation to that of its neighbors
usually its eight neighbors but the exact method varies in a scientific study, it is important to know exactly what method is used when calculating slope, and exactly how slope is defined

Slope Definitions
Slope defined as an angle or rise over horizontal run or rise over actual run various methods
important to know how your favorite GIS calculates slope

Slope Definitions (cont.)

Slope and Aspect

measured from an elevation or bathymetry raster
compare elevations of points in a 3x3 neighborhood slope and aspect at one point estimated from elevations of it and surrounding 8 points number points row by row, from top left from 1 to 9
1 2 3

4
7

5
8

6
9

Typical Slope Calculation

tan (slope) = sqrt (b2 + c2) b = (z3 + 2z6 + z9 - z1 - 2z4 - z7) / 8D c = (z1 + 2z2 + z3 - z7 - 2z8 - z9) / 8D
b denotes slope in the x direction c denotes slope in the y direction D is the spacing of points (30 m)

find the slope that fits best to the 9 elevations minimizes the total of squared differences between point elevation and the fitted slope 1 2 3 weighting four closer neighbors higher
4 7 5 8 6 9

Aspect
tan (aspect) = b/c Angle between vertical and direction of steepest slope Measured clockwise add 180 to aspect if c is positive, 360 to aspect if c is negative and b is positive
1 4 7 2 5 8 3 6 9

Spatial Analysis: Transformations

Longley et al., chs. 13 and 14

Transformations
Create new objects and attributes, based on simple rules
involving geometric construction or calculation may also create new fields, from existing fields or from discrete objects

 Transformations - New Data

new objects and data sets from existing objects anddata sets BUFFERING POINT IN POLYGON POLYGON OVERLAY SPATIAL INTERPOLATION DENSITY ESTIMATION

Buffering
buffering takes points, lines, or areas and creates areas every location within the resulting area is either:
in/on the original object within the defined buffer width of the original object

Applications
find all areas of Siuslaw National Forest beyond 1 mile from a road find all households within 1 mile of a proposed new freeway
and send them notification of proposal

find all liquor stores within 1 mile of a school

and notify them of a proposed change in the law

Variants
vary the object's buffer width according to an attribute value
e.g. noise buffers depending on road traffic volume

vary the rate of spread according to a friction field Thiessen polygons for point objects

Point-in-Polygon
Determine whether a given point lies inside or outside a given polygon
assign a set of points to a set of polygons e.g., count numbers of accidents in counties e.g., whose property does this phone pole lie in?

Algorithm
draw a line from the point to infinity count intersections with the polygon boundary inside if the count is odd outside if the count is even

Point-in-Poly Algorithm
inside if the count is odd outside if the count is even what if the point lies on the boundary?

Polygon Overlay
Create polygons by overlaying existing polygons how many polygons are created when two polygons are overlaid? Discrete object find overlaps between two polygons creates a collection of polygons

Overlay Issues
in raster the values in each cell are combined -- binary, rating models?? major computing workload
Indexing

swamped by slivers
tolerance

Spatial Interpolation & GIS

to calculate some property of a surface at a given point model all the REAL intricacies of a surface to provide contours highlight general spatial trend of data for decision-making

Whats A Wildlife Manager to Do?

23 animals assumed everywhere? pitfalls of applying classical statistics to spatial data give spatial characterization to the mean (23) lets interpolate!

Spatial Interpolation
need to estimate values at locations where there are no explicit data estimates must be determined from surrounding values

X
X

Spatial Interpolation - cont.

We need to be able to model a surface based on the sampled points. A predictive numerical model of Z values Can be conceptually very simple but it requires an a priori assumption
Can the numbers in each successive step be determined by a simple mathematical procedure?

Linear interpolation
a priori assumption
Assigning values between known points
Create an isarithmic (contour map)

Contouring a TIN

Nonlinear Interpolation
When things aren't so simple Cant assume linearity of features Basic types: 1. Trend surface analysis 2. Minimum Curvature Spline 3. Inverse Distance Weighted 4. Kriging