University of Texas at Austin
CE 397: Geographic Information Systems in Water Resources
Spring Semester 1997
Course Curriculum
Table of Contents
Unique No: 13355
Instructor: David R. Maidment
Class Hours: MWF 10-11, RLM 5.114
Telephone: (512)471-4620, 471-0065
Office Hours: MWF 11-12, ECJ 8.612
Email:
maidment@crwr.utexas.edu
Grading:
- Midterm Exam = 20%
- Homework = 20%
- Final = 20%
- Term Project Report = 30%
- Term Project Presentation = 10%
Letter grades will be based on the weighted average specified above
and assigned as follows:
- A = 90-100%
- B = 80-90%
- C = 70-80%
- D = 60-70%
- F < 60%
There will be no make-up exams or incomplete grades in this
course. I reserve the right to change the date of a quiz with
notice in advance. Course instructor evaluation will be by the
usual College of Engineering procedures.
Understanding GIS, the Arc/Info Method,
produced by Environmental SystemsResearch Institute, Redlands, CA,
92373, Tel: (909) 793-2853. This book can be ordered through
Internet at
ESRI home page
http://www.esri.comunder "Books and Publications /
Bookstore catalog". There are different versions for PC and
workstation Arc/Info.
The version for workstation Arc/Info is the one that you need.
Handout notes and readings on Internet will also provided by
the instructor.
The homework in this course will mostly be computer exercises
and I expect you to turn in the output of your exercise and a
sufficiently good separate explanation of what you have done so
that I can follow your output. I do not want the result turned
in alone. I want to have you explain in writing how you got the
result, much as you would explain to somebody who was approaching
this task as a new exercise for the first time.
- To teach the principles and operation of geographic
information systems, focusing in particular on the Grid system
of the Arc/Info GIS and on ArcView
- To show how spatial hydrologic modeling can be done by
developing a digital representation ofthe environment in the
GIS then adding to that functions simulating hydrologic processes
- To develop individual experience in the use of GIS in water
resources through execution of a term project, and presenting it
in both oral and written form.
The purposes of the term project are:
- to enable you to explore in-depth some aspect of the subject
of personal interest to you and to develop experience in use of
the technology to solve that problem.
- to provide experience in the formulation, execution and
presentation of original research, including the documentation
of a GIS project.
- to provide experience in publishing a report in html format
on the world wide web.
- to produce a report that you can carry with you into the future
on your chosen subject.
The steps in carrying out the project are:
- Establish a home page on the Dept of Civil Engineering server
- Prepare in html format a 1-page type-written proposal by
Feb 12 specifying the objective of your project and outlining how
you plan to go about executing it. (I will give you an example html
file to work from to do this). Once I've approved the proposal,
mount it on your home page.
- Give a brief presentation of the progress you have made with
your project in class on Monday March 17.
- Present a final report orally in class near the end of the
semester (you will have about 15 minutes for your presentation).
- Present your written report in html format on your home page
by the last day of classes (May 2).
The written report will normally be about 15-20 pages long and will
include any plots you made as a result of doing your project
and a listing of your data sets in GIS format.
If you would like to work in a group to pursue a term project,
that is fine, but you must carry out a particular section of the
project on which you will present your oral and written report.
Course Computer Environment
The software used for the course exercises will be
operational in the Civil Engineering Learning Resource Center on
the 3rd floor of ECJ using Windows NT machines and the Dec Alpha
workstations. You will be learning Unix to run programs on the
Dec Alphas. The software used will be Arc/Info and ArcView.
You may want to get a magnetic card to enter thelaboratory in
the evenings or weekends. At the moment we have only one digitizing
setup and one plotting setup and the digitizing in particular could
prove to be a bottleneck.
Go back to
Dr.Maidment's Home Page