3/31/2010

Joshua Sisskind, University at Albany

GIS Day 2008

University at Albany

Ralph Hill, NYS OGS, Bureau of Land Management

Carola Soltau, University at Albany

 Why Utilize Historic Maps?

 Digitizing and Conversion Process

 Contributions to New York State Initiatives

 Future Uses

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 We can use historic maps within a geographic

information system as a tool for understanding the
spatial relationships between the current state of our
world and past phenomena:
 Positional accuracy can determine if features have been
moved slightly to improve clarity
 Where have lands been filled in or where has
development occurred?

Create a geographic information system

where water grants and easements can
be queried, edited and viewed with
other relevant layers and orthophotos

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 Geographic Information System (GIS)

 A mechanized inventory of geographically distributed
features
 Water Grant
 A donation of public lands under water to a subordinate
government, corporation or an individual
 Orthophoto
 a completely rectified copy of an original photograph

 Resolution
 Resolution can be expressed as the number of pixels per
inch, or PPI
 Generally, a resolution of 150-600 ppi is used
 For our purposes, we will use a resolution of 300 ppi
 When selecting a resolution, it is important to balance a
high resolution without having a large file size.
 Determine a resolution that will be able to determine the
smallest significant figures
 We will also use a grayscale to keep the file size at a minimum

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 Rotate map so that north arrow points up

 Trace each map individually
 Use consistent color scheme
 Grants and Easements = Red
 Shorelines = Blue
 Roads = Green
 Pier and Bulkhead Lines = Magenta
 Other Features = Yellow
 Convert maps to State Plane 1983 (Feet)
 Displace the traced map to actual location based on aerial imagery and
common features
 Lighthouses
 Railroads
 Streets
 Can use shoreline as a guide but not as truth, because of coast line
erosion and filled-in land

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 Select out each color and save as individual layer once all maps
have been digitized, converted and displaced.
 This is done using a custom program to select colors from all layers
 Save using consistent nomenclature, which is based on the attribute
layer and the county’s four character county code (FCCC)
 COUNTY FCCC_LAYER NAME
 WEST_Roads
 Fine tune all layers
 QA/QC grants and easements to remove any attributes that have
been saved within the layer accidentally
 Link features from the grants and easements layer with the
database where the grants and easements information is stored
 New York State Lands Under Water projects

 Grants were found to be within the approximate

locations of their actual boundaries
 Areas of grants and lengths of easements can be
visually estimated and interpreted in relation to
surrounding structures
 The areas where significant growth and development
has occurred can be determined
 Especially when there is a question of if this
development is allowed

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 Marina and Development Studies

 Hudson River Estuary Program
 New York State Coastal Atlas

Beneficial Enjoyment
Authority Grants Grants
 The grantee can build  The right of the grantee
within limits set within to fill in lands making
the patent between the uplands out of foreshore
state and the patentee and thus extinguishing
jus publicum

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New York State

Marina Studies

The Water Grant

GIS can also be used
to determine which
grants are
“Beneficial
Enjoyment” and
which are
“Authority” to
determine if it is
allowed for filled in
lands.

New York State

Marina Studies

The Water Grant

GIS can also be used
to determine which
grants are
“Beneficial
Enjoyment” and
which are
“Authority” to
determine if it is
allowed for filled in
lands.

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 Complete the same process with land grants

 Utilize grants for marina growth students
 Utilize maps in historical research
 Development along the Hudson River
 How Albany changed the shoreline of the Hudson
 Google Earth and ArcGIS integration
 Online database for real-time view

 The map layers can be overlaid onto aerial photos,

quad maps and other base maps and source data
 As new grants and easements are issued, the GIS can
be modified to show them
 New grantees can view the location of their grants or
easements in real time
 Queries can be run showing lands under water
transactions
 The original maps can be archived properly