The IL Hydro Project Providing Multiscale Hydrography Data for the Masses

Presentation Type: Lightning Talk (5 minutes)

Skill Level: Beginner, Intermediate

Intended Audience: GIS User, GIS Instructor, Student

Abstract

The availability of multiscale hydrography data is becoming increasingly important for a wider range of data consumers. As data size and complexity increases so to does the computing power and skills necessary to process this hydrography data. This puts casual consumers of data at an increasing disadvantage. It is the goal of the IL Hydro Project to provide hydrography data for the state of Illinois at multiple levels of detail to strengthen the ability of the lay person to engage with the geography of their state and produce maps relevant to their individual purposes. The IL Hydro Project accomplishes this by providing seven initial levels of detail containing the attribution needed to enable the user to further customize the provided feature layers to suit their purposes. While there are generalized hydrography datasets available for the state of Illinois, in many cases they lack key aspects important to data consumers, such as attribution, a wide variety of levels of detail, or the ability to further select features relevant to the consumer. The IL Hydro Project uses a workflow capable of being widely applied to any NHDPlus dataset to create a repository of multiscale data. The IL Hydro Project contains attributes that enable users’ greater ability to select and filter data to suit their needs. The feature layers produced by the IL Hydro Project also enable the preservation of main stems during the filtration process.

Presenter(s)

Cameron Clark

Graduate Student, Eastern Illinois University

Cameron Clark is a recently graduated student at Eastern Illinois University.