Fall 2021 Sustainability Fellow: Lauren Mayou
Partner: FSU Planning & Space Management
Project: Visualizing Green and Open Spaces
Student: Lauren Mayou, Fourth Year Undergraduate in Environmental Engineering
In Fall 2021, Lauren worked with FSU Planning & Space Management to georeference AutoCAD data in ArcGIS and conduct an analysis of campus irrigation. Lauren joined the Fellows program to expand upon her experience with flow bed mapping.
Lauren worked with Morgan Runion, GIS Manager, and Melanie Jenkins, GIS Analyst, to develop a better understanding of where current irrigation systems are most efficient and where they are in need of improvement.
“I had some experience with ArcGIS already,” said Lauren, “but it was mostly creating maps. This semester, I got more experience with analysis and working in a remote environment, which I know is important moving forward as the workforce changes to being more remote-based versus in-person-based.”
Over the course of the semester, Lauren imported existing data from AutoCAD and georeferenced it using ArcGIS. Next, Lauren evaluated water infiltration rates, creating a two-foot buffer around paved areas to represent total land area that was likely to be compacted and prone to runoff.
Lauren then conducted a hot spot sight selection analysis to determine the areas on campus that contained the highest concentration of irrigation systems and compared her findings to a map displaying the land areas in most and least need of irrigation. Overall, her maps helped to illustrate which campus areas are receiving too much irrigation and which areas are receiving too little.
“We were very impressed with Lauren’s ability to georeference all the CAD data so quickly without any questions or issues,” said Runion. “That’s a really hard task a lot of people don’t have much experience doing.”
Jenkins noted Lauren’s project was an interesting opportunity to show the types of uses of GIS analysis and how projects can take many different directions and solve all sorts of problems. In the future, the team hopes to utilize the data that Lauren has georeferenced for further analysis.
To learn more about FSU Planning & Space Management, visit facilities.fsu.edu.
To learn more about the Sustainability Fellows program, visit sustainablecampus.fsu.edu/sustainability-fellows.