Description

This report is a reflection of the work of numerous students in Geography courses at SDSU which incorporate real–world issues into the classroom curriculum. The City of Santee, in collaboration with the Sage Project, developed three focus areas for this project: park asset geodatabase creation; storm water inlet collection and hydrological analysis; and using geospatial technology to improve compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The park asset portion of the project is a large portion of this document. Improvement of process management is a key feature of this section. Creating a geodatabase of park assets across eight different parks and over 70 acres of land is difficult and technical. This document provides a step–by–step approach for future users to recreate the process for any geotagged image collection project, not limited to park asset data. A majority of the process is reliant on technology produced by Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI), using their line of Arc products. As a result of this project, over 2,000 data points now have representation in the custom geodatabase for the city. In addition to the park asset project, storm water inlets also incorporated the concepts and technology for geotagged data collection. Using a set of boundaries defined by Santee, students split up to collect data on missing storm water inlets. The San Diego River divides the City of Santee, making tracking of waterborne pollutants across the surface a hot topic. Using the data collected on missing storm water inlets, the city is better prepared to manage their runoff and track sources of pollution. In addition, advanced datasets were created, including a Digital Elevation Model (DEM) and hydrological analysis toolboxes. Finally, the City of Santee placed adaptation to the new standards set out by the ADA revision in 2010 as a high priority. Looking at over 115 roadways ranging in size and age, the group conducted a sweep to identify issues with ADA compliance standards, such as missing sidewalks or sidewalk ramps. The report concludes with considerations for environmental responsibility and social and economic equity.