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Lesson 3: Assessing Online Resources

Jim Kompanek

Introduction

The primary goal of my project is to identify and map significant historic and architectural resources in Huntington, West Virginia. The West Virginia State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) is currently in the process of digitizing their architectural survey and architectural site boundaries. These boundaries have traditionally been maintained on USGS 7.5 minute topographic quadrangles. Although, this project is on going and will likely go on for many more years, great advances have been made. Primarily, properties listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) are currently available on the West Virginia web portal (www.mapwv.gov), as well as the state's ArcIMS server (www.mapwv.gov). The data obtained from these sources will provide the basis of my project.

Clearinghouses Visited

There is a great deal of GIS data available for my project. Primarily, these resources include:

West Virginia GIS Technical Center @ http://wvgis.wvu.edu/

Map West Virginia @ http://www.mapwv.gov/

Seamless Data Distribution System @ http://seamless.usgs.gov/

The National Map @ http://nationalmap.gov/

Maptech Historic Maps @ http://historical.maptech.com/

Legal and Ethical Issues

Digital GIS clearinghouses provide a great resource to the community. With the great amount of data available to the public, there are also numerous legal and ethical considerations. These considerations often come in the form of personal privacy.

The USGS is in the process of compiling 1 ft resolution digital orthophotos for many urban areas across the United States. This data will be of great service to many fields but it is not outside the realm of possibility that this data can be abused. It is not unreasonable to assume in the coming years that aerial imagery will allow even greater resolution and be more up-to-date. With this, it is likely that this data can/will be used to invade personal privacy. What was once behind fences and out of sight of the public, images of properties (albeit out dated) are available to the masses free of charge. It may be possible for would-be burglars to examine properties and buildings for gates and clear paths. In addition, many county assessors offices have property information, including photographs, owners, purchase price, etc. online. Although this data has always been public, it was once locked away at the courthouse. The assessors office could document who searched what and when. It is now possible to look up this quasi-personal information anonymously over the internet. Through some common assumptions, this data could be used to target households for theft by examining property value and the age of occupants. On a higher level, there are clear issues with security of military bases and sensitive areas such as nuclear power plants or storage facilities. For example, the U.S. Military forbids photographing fences and access points of military bases, so much so, an onlooker who chooses to take photographs, will likely find his or her camera confiscated by an MP. Ironically, numerous recent high resolution digital orthophotos are available of many sensitive facilities.

Other considerations involve accuracy and documentation. Even from reputable, government clearinghouses, metadata is often incomplete. On numerous occasions, digital orthoquads (DOQ) and digital raster graphics (DRG) are available without a defined projection and incomplete (or even incorrect) projection information. Through common sense, it's generally easy to determine what projection is used, as state plane and UTM coordinates are dramatically different, but determining the datum is often more difficult. Depending on the purpose of this data, it may be possible to be 200 m off and not even know it (NAD 27 vs. 83). This could have catastrophic consequences, both in lost time and productivity, as well potentially trespassing, if a contractor uses the data for fieldwork.

Rough Map

Figures 1 and 2 consist of two rough maps I assembled with data provided from the www.mapwv.gov ArcIMS server, the West Virginia GIS Technical Center, and the USGS seamless site. It should be noted that the road and railroad layers, although obtained from the seamless site, actually originated from the National Map. One of the biggest limitation of the ArcIMS National Register layers, is that they are contained in an image file. As such, it is not possible to change the symbology of the layer. To change the symbology of the layer, it will be necessary to manually convert it into a shape file or geodatabase layer.

Figure 1. Road Map of Huntington, West Virginia with National Register properties.

Figure 1. Road Map of Huntington, West Virginia with National Register properties, overlaid on a digital orthophoto..

Digital Rolodex

This document is published in fulfillment of an assignment by a student enrolled in an educational offering of The Pennsylvania State University. The student, named above, retains all rights to the document and responsibility for its accuracy and originality.