FAQs

How do I add the toolbox?

ArcMap - open the ArcToolbox window pane, right click in the white space, and select Add Toolbox. From there, navigate to the folder that has the arcproject code in it and choose wq-processing-toolbox.pyt (single click), then click Open. The tools will be available in a toolbox called ArcProject WQ toolbox.

ArcGIS Pro - go to the Insert tab, select the Toolbox dropdown and choose Add Toolbox. From there, navigate to the folder that has the arcproject code in it and choose wq-processing-toolbox.pyt (single click), then click Open. Afterward, the tools will be available from the Geoprocessing pane if you go to the Toolboxes view.

How do I add a water quality transect to the database?

First, the transects require two files - a raw water quality file from the sonde as well as a gps track. The gps track should be a series of points with field called GPS_Date and GPS_Time. These fields should be added by default and you won't need to mess with the file once it is exported from the differential correction software (Trimble pathfinder). These fields are important because the underlying code trys to match the water quality data with the gps point using the timestamp.

To add the transect to the database, open the ArcProject WQ toolbox, select the Add WQ Data\ Add Transects tool.

What if the data is not collected on slough with a reference transect?

There is a placeholder code WQT for all records that don't belong to a specific transect.

You can also add new transect to the database by using the ArcProject WQ toolbox\ Create New Sites \ New Transect Site tool. If you add a new transect to the database, you should also consider updating the reference line.

How to update the reference route line?

The reference line is shapefile that contains each of the transects as routes. Routes are simply linear features with measures and allow us to figure out the "river mile" for each of the water quality points. By convention, the route starts at the downstream end of the slough. The route roughly follows along the centerline of the slough.

To add a new reference route, edit the reference line located at arcproject-wq-processing\geo\ArcLinearReferenceRoute_Lines.shp in the folder where the arcproject code was installed. This file can be updated by either appending an existing route or manually digitizing a new feature. Make sure to fill out the attribute table with the SITECODE that corresponds to the new transect.

How do I change water quality points that are assigned to the wrong transect?

To change the points, generate a map layer with the problem water quality points. Then, select the problem points and use the Modify\ Modify SiteID for Selected Records to transfer the selected points to a different transect.

Can we share the layers as a shape file?

Yes, the easiest way is probably to not do a full map generation, but to use the Map Layer - Full Month or Map Layer - Single Day tools, which will output a layer into your map to review, then to use the built-in ArcGIS Export tools (from right click on the layer, then Data, then Export) to create the shapefile version.

Do any of the drop down mapping functions produce different data, or just different symbology?

Just different symbology. We partially did it this way because of ease of coding, and partially for the extra benefit of having them each serve as a form of data export.

Can we export the formatted data for numerical/spatial analysis and additional plotting?

It depends what formatted data you're referring to. If you'd like to do additional analysis of the data in a coding environment, I highly recommend that you use libraries for R (RSQLite - downloadable package) and Python (sqlite - part of standard library) that provide access directly to the database from those languages - that's going to have the least manual coding. It may also be possible to use the code we've already built to pull the data into data frames usable in each of these languages - you just need to load our code to do it - if that's something you're interested in, let's talk. Regardless, there are ways to export the data tables in ways that can be loaded in R, Excel, and elsewhere.