Water and GIS

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Hello, I would like to know how many water professionals use GIS and in what capacity. I am currently a Water Conservation Technician student in Oregon USA and am adding GIS familiarity with my education. What opportunities does a student have with this kind of background. I also have a BS in Social Science and 10 years of teaching experience. I would enjoy some feedback and suggestions for myself and my classmates.

4 Answers

  1. With i-TREE's 'Hydro' module, you can calculate the benefits of a watershed using aerial maps. I use them all the time; especially to calculate the damage caused by clear cuts by calling up maps prior to the clear cut and then afterwards. Canopy cover is a substitute for a tree by tree analysis but it's a pretty good proxy.

  2. Thank you both Claudia and Fabian. I am back in the network after finishing school. So currently I am wondering about using the data that is collected to educate the public. How do we use the data from GIS or water quality to build say a "Report Card" for a watershed. Any samples of places doing that kind of thing?? I hope you are both well and welcome to 2014!!!

  3. Well I use it too. Mostly to keep my sampling organised, and connect to temparature and rainfall information etc. Often however I see that the data I would need are so small scale, that I dont really find them. As for programmes I use QuantumGIS, its good, and free, and runs on many OS. Not quite ArcGIS but okay, licences are expensive. For your purpose could be ideal. Best Fabian

  4. Hello Brenda and thanks for your very interesting question! I am finishing my PhD in river basin management and in my experience GIS data have facilitated my research and improved the accuracy of my work. GIS has been a precious source of information to model river flows, try to assess the location of water wells and boreholes, estimate the cropped areas (and related crop-water requirements) at basin and sub basin level, assess land degradation, and work on water quality issues. Most of the hydrologists and water resources managers tend to integrate GIS in their models. You can find a very broad literature on line, but I would suggest two interesting review papers: - Daniel et al., 2010. Watershed Modeling Using GIS Technology: A Critical Review. JOSH 2010, Vol. 10, No. 2 - Becker, 2006. Potential for Satellite Remote Sensing of Ground Water. Ground water, Vol. 44, No. 2. Also, on The Water Network there is a GIS group: maybe the group members can give you some more feedback. Have a nice day, Claudia