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Scenario: An epidemiologist (Jane) studying rodent vectors of
human disease has many traps distributed over a large area (several
football fields) in New Mexico. She is conducting a study of the
relationship between features of the landscape (soil type and ground
cover), rodent species found, and infected animals (and type of
infection). She checks her traps daily over a period of several months.
Jane has remotely sensed data to help her determine soil and ground
characteristics, and elevation. These consist of satellite image maps.
Questions:
- How might Jane record the locations of her traps, and
correlate the satellite data with her ground data? Can you imagine
how a GIS can take data from images and assign it to point locations?
- Propose a structure for Jane's data (if you were doing the
study, how would you set up your data files?):
- What variables will be associated with each trap location?
- What is the nature of each variable in her study
(e.g. continuous versus
discrete; categorical versus ordinal; point versus vector)?
- How might time be handled in the data set?
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