Priory Navigation Maps: Part One

Introduction

Navigation is one of the most useful skills to have.  Today the most common way of using navigation is from a smartphone app or from a GPS.  There is not so much asking for directions anymore due to being lost. Creating a map for navigation has a few key elements that are needed to make sure it is accurate and readable.  Therefore creating maps needs to have a detailed constructed map.  This doesn't mean it needs to look fancy and have all the bells and whistles; this just means that the map needs to have all the correct information laid out to help aid in direction.  This means it needs to have a proper coordinate system to make sure the person reading the map will not be many meters to miles off from their actual location.  For this activity maps of the Priory, near Eau Claire, Wisconsin were created.

Methods

This week two navigation maps were created to guide us for next week through the forest.  The first was created using degrees minutes and seconds grid, whereas the other was created using a UTM grid style.

With most of the needed data supplied from Professor Joe Hupy, the maps were set up.  To get them set up each needed a little amount of tweaking.  Each map needed to have an essential list of elements that included a north arrow, scale bar, RF scale, legend, source, Title, Projection used, and a watermark.  The RF in these maps allows a little more information to understand what the measurements are on the map.  This will help to understand pacing and distance while walking through the woods.  For the UTM map the projection was NAD 1983 UTM Zone 15N Wisconsin Transverse Mercator. The other was put into WGS 1984 to accuretly represent the degree minutes and seconds.  The UTM map was also changed to have a grid marking every 50 meters.  The grid labels were also changed to make it more readable by making the first few numbers smaller because they do not change. The decimal degree grid was made using 5 second intervals.  The UTM navigation map is in Figure 1 and the Decimal degree map is in Figure 2.

Figure 1: UTM Map

Figure 2: Decimal Degrees

Discussion

Creating maps like these are crucial to navigating around unknown terrain.  They are important for a few reason.  First,  it shows detailed elevation of the region.  This is very helpful because it can help you avoid having to go up and down hill constantly.  Another reason is because there was a technique taught in the geology department at UWEC for finding your own location on a map.  This is based on triangulation.  To do this one would need to be able to pick out three points from the navigation map and then determine azimuth directions from all three points to where the person standing is.  This gives a triangle of intersection to give the location.  Therefore, these kind of maps are important to understand how to use. The projections used are important because they need to reflect the surface accurately.

The UTM coordinate system is broken up into roughly 10 zones throughout the United states.  This is important because it helps shape the zones into the shape of the earth.   The other coordinates system was chosen because WGS84 is common for GPS to use.  This will allow ease when navigating through the Priory location.

Conclusion

This excercise is important to understand how to accuretly create navigation maps to be alble to use in the field.  It also was important to teach how the different coordinates systems and projects affect the look of the map.  Even if it is very slight, it is important to have an accurate map because an easy day in the field can turn into a nightmare, and these maps will be great to use next week for our field experience with them.