Population Mapping and Modeling for Manhattan

Introduction

Worldwide, the coastal zone, which is vulnerable to sea level rise, tsunamis, and storms, is currently home to 1.2 billion people, a number that might grow to as much as 5.2 billion people by the 2080s (IPCC 2007). One globally significant city in the coastal zone is New York City, located at the mouth of the Hudson River and currently inhabited by nearly 8.5 million people (US Census 2008). As the attacks of September 11, 2001, showed, any major upheaval in this city causes global shockwaves.

Every city works to enable and secure the livelihoods of its people. Part of doing that requires that people apply what they know from the past and present to project a reasonable image—a model—of the future. This lab addresses one element of that model, population, to answer the question, What is the estimated population of Manhattan in 2100 at the census tract level?

Location

Manhattan or New York County, New York, USA

Time to complete the lab

30–45 minutes

Prerequisites

Intermediate to advanced GIS experience

Data used in this lab

Census tract data for New York in projection Latitude/Longitude, 1927 datum at http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/geo/shapefiles2010/main

Census2000.xlsx (See http://www.census.gov/ or http://factfinder2.census.gov/)

About this Lab

Title: Population Mapping and Modeling for Manhattan

Author: Monika Calef

Level: 2, development

Requirements: ArcGIS 9.3 or 10.1

Keywords: environmental studies; population prediction; population modeling; U.S. Census Data; TIGER data; vector data; TIGER conversion; select by attribute; project; join table; add & calculate field

File: PopMappingManhattan.doc (ArcGIS 9.3), PopMappingManhattan_2013.doc (ArcGIS 10.1)

Downloads

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