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Using Survey123 to Map Physical Habitat Characteristics, Watershed Activities, and Disturbances

Author(s): Lucas Ward

Rocky Mountain College

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Summary:
In this lesson, students are introduced to the idea and practice of “remote sensing” and provided with hands-on, field-based experience using standardized stream habitat assessment protocols (the National Rivers and Streams Assessment [NRSA]),…

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In this lesson, students are introduced to the idea and practice of “remote sensing” and provided with hands-on, field-based experience using standardized stream habitat assessment protocols (the National Rivers and Streams Assessment [NRSA]), publically available spatial data, and GPS/GIS technology and workflows to develop multi-scale scale profiles of the physical habitat characteristics of a small portion a selected watershed (the exercise can be adapted to focus on any watershed for which high resolution air photos are available). Students will work individually or as a team (e.g. in pairs) to use a Survey123 App adapted from the NRSA protocol for assessing the habitat and physical characteristics – particularly those that have been influenced by human activity – of the riparian area of a stream or river. This lesson requires the instructor to have access to an ArcGIS Online (AGOL) Creator or Editor account and for students to have access to mobile devices with the Survey123 App installed (which will require students to have an AGOL account). A Survey123 App designed for this lesson that can be adapted to suit the instructor’s needs is included in xml format.

Description

Students work individually or as a team (e.g. in pairs) to use a Survey123 App adapted from the National Rivers and Stream Assessment (NRSA) protocol for assessing the habitat and physical characteristics – particularly those that have been influenced by human activity – of the riparian area of a stream or river.  The Survey123 App associated with the lesson is built to allow students to enter information ‘on the fly’ – on the water, while paddling, floating, or hiking, as they encounter instances of human influence on the physical habitat of the stream  – OR in the context of a more formal lesson in which students are assigned (either individually or as teams) an approximately 0.5km sampling reach within which they use Survey123 to gather information about physical habitat at several transect locations.  Depending on the context of the lesson (e.g. whether the lesson is part of a course/ or field experience in which students will have access to the ArcGIS online (AGOL) and time post-lesson to use AGOL [or desktop GIS software] to analyze the observations collected by the group during the lesson) instructors can choose assess student understanding using a facilitated discussion, short answer responses to questions, or even student development of a more formal GIS-based poster or presentation. 

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