Introduction to GIS – Fall, 2003
Final Project: Land Development Analysis for Circle T Ranch
Due: No later than 5:00 pm, Friday December 12th.
(Projects submitted after that time will not be accepted)
Objectives
Approximately 10 years ago, the GIS research group at UNT was contracted to conduct a study on the Circle T
Ranch in the Roanoak, Texas area on Hwy 114. The ranch had been purchased by a local developer who
wanted to build homes and a small retail area on the 1,200-acre property. The property is one of the more
unique areas of Tarrant County. One part has rolling topography and another part is one of the highest points in
the county. There are numerous ponds and a creek, draining across Hwy 114 to the north.
The initial concern of the developer was manifold: to develop the property in such a way that did not increase
the water runoff onto the Trophy Club development on the north side of Hwy 114, to protect the creeks and
water bodies from erosion and runoff pollution, and to build in such a way to maintain the natural features of
the land.
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Your goal is to identify total areas that should be excluded from development in the old Circle T
Ranch.
Your task is to create two GIS layers containing the results of your analysis – one layer showing
non-development for environmental and aesthetic reasons and another for setback from highway.
Data Description
Seven feature classes are provided in r:\csam\class\Intro2GIS\Final_Project, including:
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Boundary – the boundary of the Circle T Ranch, used to define the study area
Ponds – ponds and lakes in the area
Streams – streams of the area
Soils – soils series of the area, including the flood prone (FLOOD_FREQ) rating
Elevation – contour bands with highest elevations in the ELEV attribute
Landcover – general land cover and land use types
Roads – highways, roads, and dirt trails
All feature classes except Roads are stored in the CircleT geodatabase under the Circle T dataset. These feature
classes are projected into the State Plane Coordinates (SPC) (check them out in ArcCatalog). The Roads dataset
is provided in ArcView shapefile format. The spatial reference of this layer is geographic coordinates using
NAD27, but its projection information is not provided as part of the shapefile. At this point, you know the
appropriate steps to be able to use this layer with the geodatabase layers.
Read this next section very carefully
The following are the criteria for your analysis. You must read these very carefully and use the
appropriate steps and/or functions to conduct the analysis.
Water – Water bodies should be protected from erosion and pesticides by maintaining riparian vegetation
buffers along the banks of steams and lakes. The EPA recommends the establishment of vegetative bufferstrips no less than 100 feet in width. In this project you will use a 100-ft. buffer around the streams and a 200ft. buffer around the ponds. These buffered areas, along with streams and ponds themselves, will be excluded
from development.
Highest elevation – The Elevation is a polygon feature class. Each polygon represents a range of elevation
values – the value in ELEV field representing the minimum elevation assigned to each band. The elevations
(ELEV) above 750 ft. will be set aside (not developed) for small parks that everyone can enjoy.
Land cover – There is very little wooded area on the Circle T and it should be left non-developed. Also, it
would be ideal to have a linear park at least 200-ft. deep around the woods. Create a 200 ft. buffer around the
“WOODS” value in the NAME attribute in the Landcover layer to be added to the non-developed class.
Soil type – The FLOOD_FREQ (frequently flooded soils) attribute in this layer will be used to identify areas
where the soils are not suitable for development. Specifically, soil polygons with values “Freq” or “Occas”
should be added to the area of non-development.
Roads – There should a setback of 50 ft. from Alliance Blvd. This will be a separate layer.
Requirements:
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All feature classes must be projected in the State Plane Coordinate system and stored in the CircleT
geodatabase
All the data analyses and mapping must be done within the clipped extent of the boundary layer
The total area (in acreage) of the lands reserved for non-development (environmental and aesthetic)
must be computed and the setback layer separately. The formula for calculating acreage is (Area in feet /
43560).
Create one layer that contains all the polygons that should not be developed around the streams, ponds,
highest elevation, wooded spaces, and flooded soils. Create a second layer for the Alliance Blvd. setback.
What to turn in
Prepare a map as though you were presenting it in a meeting. Create a map in landscape format on an 8.5” x
11” page in the layout view. You can be creative in your map making but the map must be comprehensive to a
novice reader with appropriate elements and must contain the following information:
 The boundary outline
 A data frame containing two layers
o The non-development area (environmental and aesthetic).
o The highway setback
 A legend showing the Circle T Ranch boundary, non-development and highway setback
 Text with the total acreage of Circle T Ranch, acreage of non-development and setback.
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A second data frame showing the roads, ponds, streams, woods, buffer around woods and high
elevations as parks space. Label appropriately.
All map elements, your name and date of mapping (to be placed at the lower-right corner of the map).
You will create this map in the layout view and export it to high-resolution jpeg-formatted image file. You will
then copy this image file into r:\csam\class\Intro2GIS\students\(yourTA)\yourname for collection by your
instructor or TA.
The project will be graded on the correctness of the analysis and on map readability and aesthetics. At
this point you should be able to conduct simple GIS analyses and present the results in a manner
acceptable for a professional report or presentation.
**Notes**
There are several things you might like to pay attention to
1. You need to read the above text very carefully and make sure you fully understand the objective,
criteria, and tasks of this project.
2. Before doing the actual computer work, it is a good idea to first examine all the data layers and their
attributes in ArcCatalog and ArcMap. Flying by the seat-of-your-pants could set you back and has
proven to be the least efficient way of doing GIS (or anything).
3. After you get familiar with the data and tasks, you might like to pencil in a flow diagram, plan and keep
a log of the steps and output layer names that you will create in your analysis. This flowchart and
logging can guide you through the entire process and save you a great deal of time when backtracking
mistakes should you make any along the way.
If there is something that you don’t understand in the instructions, contact Bruce at hunter@unt.edu
before Dec. 5th. I will not advise you on how to do the work but will clarify the instructions, if needed.
This work is to been on your own.
Bruce