Creating Shapefiles from Google Earth

I was working on a research paper on the South Saskatchewan River Basin in Alberta, Canada and I needed to show all the major water reservoirs and lakes in the basin map. I tried to get that information through different sources; however, I did not able to collect all reservoir polygons.  Then I thought, why don't I try to extract those reservoirs maps from Google Earth and then find some way to convert those polygons to shape file format in ArcGIS. As Google Earth extracted map has geo-referencing in it, I thought definitely there are some ways to do it. Then I browsed through net and find a very useful tool which can convert the Google Earth extracted polygons/lines/points to relevant shapefiles with the aid of ArcGIS. As I find it helpful, I'll try to explain the procedure with example so that other fellows working on similar problem may get help from this post.

Ganges water treaty: Dead or just dying?

Zahidul Islam and Md. Khalequzzaman

Although India and Bangladesh share 57 trans-boundary rivers, the Ganges Treaty signed in 1996 is the only water sharing treaty between these two neighbouring countries. Proper implementation of the treaty is important for both Bangladesh and India. Water-flow and sediments carried by the Ganges River are essential for economic activities for more than 40 million people living in the southwestern coastal region in Bangladesh, and for environmental functioning of the Bengal delta, including the survival of the Sunderbans – a World Heritage site. The Ganges’s watershed encompasses Nepal, India and Bangladesh. From an integrated water resources management perspective, all stakeholders in co-riparian countries need to make plan for optimal uses of water resources while safeguarding the environment and ecosystems that the rivers support. However, watershed-scale planning and management schemes do not exist for any shared river in South Asia. 

Hydraulic Modelling of Mackenzie River at Ft. Province, NWT, Canada

Hydrologic Engineering Centers River Analysis System (HEC-RAS) is a very powerful tool for 1 Dimensional Hydraulic Modeling. The program was developed by the US Department of Defense, Army Corps of Engineers in order to manage the rivers, harbors, and other public works. HECRAS has found wide acceptance by many others since its public release in 1995 (Wikipedia). Here I tried to explain how I modelled a river subjected to ice condition. Though the study is very much related for cold region engineering, I still believe this will help a lot to improve our understanding in Hydraulic Modeling using HECRAS. 

 

Figure 1: Mackenzie River (circle showing the study reach)

Source :http://www.aquatic.uoguelph.ca/rivers/mac1.htm

SRTM: An Excellent DEM Data Source

Digital Elevation Model or DEM is the digital representation of  earth surface. For instance, if we divide a 100 meter by 100 meter area into 100 by 100 square grids or 101X101 grid points,  we'll end up 10000 squares. Now, if we know the elevation of those 101X101 ( or 10201) grid points with respect to a datum we can easily develop a DEM of that area. The Figure 1 shows a DEM of an 100 m by 100 m area generated by MATLAB.

Figure 1. A MATLAB generated DEM

Determination of Flood Extent Using Remote Sensing

Introduction

Flood is a relatively high flow of water that overtops the natural and artificial banks in any of the reaches of a stream. When banks are overtopped, water spreads over flood plain and generally causes problem for inhabitants, crops and vegetation. During extreme flood event it is important to determine quickly the extent of flooding and landuse under water (Wang et al, 2002). Flood map can be applied to develop comprehensive relief effort immediately after flooding. There are varieties of issues and uncertainties involved in flood mapping. Remotely senses data can be used to develop flood map in an efficient and effective way. In this paper the different techniques of flood mapping using active and passive remote sensing system applied by different researchers will be presented with their specific application. Finally a comparison of different methods will be made.

Contacting North American Academicians for Admission

In the admission process of North American University, the best way to contact a faculty member is writing an email.  Previously I have been requested so many times to answer questions and suggestions regarding this issue. I tried to write a very brief and very casual  writeup which eventually some of the suggestions regarding writing email to academic professors.