Water
Quality and Watersheds: A GIS Investigation
Downloadable
Data for New York State
Instructions
for Downloading
Please follow these instructions carefully because the GIS
software will not work unless the maps are filed in the
proper folder.
1) Before you
download the data files, prepare a folder to store them
in:
- Create a folder
called “GIS” and put it on your “Local
Disk C” drive. [From the desktop, click on “My
Computer”, then click on “Local Disk (C:)”,
then from the menu bar select “File”, “New”,
and “Folder”. Name the new folder “GIS”.]
- Now create
a new folder inside the GIS folder and name it “WaterQuality”.
[Open the file you just created called “GIS”
by double clicking on it. Now create a new folder inside
GIS by selecting from the menu bar “File”,
“New”, and “Folder”. Name this
new folder “WaterQuality”.]
2) You have just
created the proper file directory (C:\GIS\WaterQuality)
that the GIS software (ArcExplorer) will recognize. Now
you are ready to download, unzip, and place the data files
in the “WaterQuality” folder.
- From the list
of links in the Data Files section below,
click on the first data file, called "Watersheds".
- A dialog
box will appear that will ask whether you would like to
open or save the file. You want to save the file, so click
“Save”.
- Save the
file to the directory C:\GIS\WaterQuality. [A dialog
box will appear that asks you where to put the file. Click
on the folder with an “up arrow” until you
see “Save in Desktop”. Note that you may already
be looking at the desktop. From here, click on “My
Computer”, then click on “Local Disk (C:)”,
then “GIS”, then “WaterQuality”.
Now click “Save”.]
- Open the
file and un-zip it. [A dialog box will appear informing
you that the download is complete, and giving you the
option to open the file. Click “Open”.]
- Un-zip the
file and save the contents into the directory C:\GIS\WaterQuality.
[How to do this depends on what kind of file-unzipping
program is on your computer. Most are fairly straightforward.
Here are instructions for the program “Win-Zip”
since it is the most common.]
a. Select from the menu bar “Action” then
"Extract”.
b. Tell Win-Zip that you want to store the files in C:\GIS\WaterQuality
[Double click on “Local disk (C:)”, then
“GIS”, then “WaterQuality”.]
c. Click “Extract”.
- Now repeat
this process for all the data files available. There are
13 maps to download.
- Instructions
on how to use the curriculum are in the Teacher's
Guide.
3) The Watershed
GIS Project file also needs to be placed into the C:\GIS\WaterQuality
folder. This is a project created in ArcExplorer that displays
the maps properly.
- A dialog box
will appear that will ask whether you would like to open
or save the file. You want to save the file, so click
“Save”.
- Save the
file to the directory C:\GIS\WaterQuality. [A dialog
box will appear that asks you where to put the file. Click
on the folder with an “up arrow” until you
see “Save in Desktop”. Note that you may already
be looking at the desktop. From here, click on “My
Computer”, then click on “Local Disk (C:)”,
then “GIS”, then “WaterQuality”.
Now click “Save”.]
Data
Files (NYS Maps) to Download:
Watersheds
Cities
Roads
Big Rivers
Streams
Land Regions (Ecozones)
Geology
Precipitation
Agricultural Land
Forested Land
Urban Land
Percent Waters Impaired
Kind of Pollution
Metadata: (These files
are not needed to run the project, but they provide information
about how the maps were created and where the data are from.)
About
the Data (This file describes how
to access the original metadata and how these data were
modified for use in this curriculum.)
Big Rivers
and Lakes metadata
NY Land Regions
(Ecozones) metadata
NY Land Cover metadata
(This file applies also to the Forest,
Agriculture, and Urban Land maps.)
Precipitation
metadata
NY Watersheds
metadata
Please
feel free to contact Tania Siemens (tjs35@cornell.edu) with
questions, comments, and feedback.
Go
Back to the Water Quality and Watersheds GIS curriculum
resources download page.
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