LAB 02: CLASSIFY! Redefining “Urban” Watersheds > ASSIGNMENT

For Lab 02, we want you to compose a map critically engaging the broad notion of an “urban watershed.” Your map should i) demonstrate that you can work with multiple raster and vector (point, line, and polygon) datasets and geometries in QGIS (and maybe Illustrator).  Your map should also ii) carefully consider how the selection and representation of different kinds and classes of urban and hydrographic features change the ways we understand those features to be related.

DELIVERABLES

Post a PNG of your QGIS->Illustrator work-in-progress (WIP) to the Work-in-Progress channel on Are.na, including a short write-up of about 300 words. Follow the formatting guidelines in the syllabus, and the detailed drawing and write-up guidelines below.

Drawing Guidelines

• compose a map that approximates the precedent drawing of the Great Lakes basin and urban areas from the Third Coast Atlas

• use and manipulate multiple raster (e.g., Global Human Settlement Built-up Areas and Settlement Model Grid) and vector (e.g., Populated Places and various hydrologic features) datasets

• show that you’ve successfully used selection and geoprocessing tools to clip your raster (e.g., built-up areas) and vector (e.g., cities) datasets
  

• include stylized raster and vector geometry from each of the datasets, and labels where appropriate
  


• show that you've experimented with composition and symbology (for both raster images and vector geometries) in QGIS

If you're ready to experiment further:

• experiment with the additional ways of classifying “urban” spaces beyond “Built-up areas” in the Global Human Settlement Layer data collection. 
• experiment with additional hydrologic datasets in the “Additional Data” folder (you can also access them via Dropbox). Make sure to read the documentation to learn more about the data!

• FFR: Free-flowing rivers (St. Lawrence and Mississippi)
• NationalWetlandsInventory_IL: Illinois wetlands (caution: very detailed!)
• USGS_Principal-Aquifers: Major ground water (subsurface) basins in the US
• USGS_Watershed-Boundary-Dataset: Watershed boundaries for hydrologic units in Mississippi and Great Lakes Basins. For each top-level basin (”HU2” or Hydrologic Unit level 2), you’ll find several lower-level basins in the “Shape” folder (e.g., WBD_04_HU2_ShapeShapeWBDHU4.shp).

• Clipped a subset of the North American Rivers and/or other hydrologic datasets by watershed; use the same process as raster clipping, but using “Clip Vector” functions

• try using selection and vector geoprocessing tools (hint: dissolve) to generate a new, unique urban watershed that reflects the areas you’re interested in. Try using different hydrologic unit levels here. 

• explore letting one or more vector datasets “break” the boundaries set by your watershed. How might allowing some geometries to break a bounded unit/polygon make a point about the relationship between urban and hydrologic systems?
  


• work more extensively in Illustrator to graphically refine your design decisions
  

Write-up Guidelines

Recall from last lab: Write-ups should generally offer a short (around 300 words) but critical reflection on your technical and conceptual workflow. This means thinking about your experience with the technical process, design decisions regarding tools used and graphic choices, and a broader, critical consideration of how the exercise connects to themes, genres, and questions of spatial media.

Here are a number of possible prompts to guide your reflections; you do not need to answer them directly, nor do you need to answer each one.

As you work through the tutorial, consider a set of questions regarding your  technical workflow: 

• What do you know about the data you're working with? How does that knowledge inform your design decisions regarding symbological manipulation in QGIS (or graphic manipulation in Illustrator)? 


• How does working with raster and vector data differ? In other words: thus far, what can you do with raster data that you can’t with vector data; what can you do with vector data that you can’t with raster?

• How are urban features defined in these datasets? How are hydrologic features defined? 

• Are there any "break-downs" in your workflow? If so, what kinds? Are these break-downs traceable to knowledge-based constraints or tool-based constraints?

Consider a further set of questions regarding your conceptual workflow.

Recall the basic journalistic “5W+H” questions regarding the genealogies of these datasets; make sure to explore metadata and documentation when available, or track it down:

• Who made these data, and for whom?


• What exactly do these data represent?


• When was the dataset originally made? Has it been modified, or is it entirely new? How many versions have there been? Are there plans to update it?


• What geographic extents (where) does the data cover, and how are those extents determined?


• Why were these data made, and with what purposes and users in mind?


• How are the data made in the first place? How are those representations geometrically and graphically constructed from the data? How are they classified, and what are the bases for those classifications?

In light of your genealogical interrogation of the data and reflection on your technical workflow, consider:

• For these particular datasets, how do technical definitions of “urban” and “hydrologic” features represent their spatial and conceptual relations? 


• What relationships between urbanization and bodies of water are revealed by your drawing, the data, and our technical methods? What relations are hidden or left unexplored? 


• Given the radical reengineering of watersheds within or connected to the Great Lakes Basin through the “fluid ecologies and economies” of urbanization summarized in the Third Coast Atlas, how might you define an urban watershed?


• What technical and conceptual work might you need to do to reimagine and remap entangled territories of urbanization and water relevant to this week’s readings? 


• How does urbanization “unmap” water? How does water unmap urban form? What kinds of unmapping might water allow us to pursue in imagining alternative geographic stories (past, present, and future) running through the 3/4 Coast?