Columnar Display of Multiple Attributes of a Great Salt Lake Shoreline

These images show one approach to a challenge faced by many researchers—how to visualize abundant data that describes diverse characteristics of a complex, linear feature. Multiple columns display multiple attributes of a shoreline on Antelope Island, the largest island in Great Salt Lake. Location is referenced in two spatial systems—geographic coordinates and distance along a linear-referenced, 64-kilometer shore route measured clockwise from the northern tip of the island. The shore route with kilometer annotation is displayed on the map of Antelope Island. Grid lines associate location along the shore route with position on a column. Because Antelope Island is elongated north and south, columns are displayed for the two sides of the island.

Plate 1 displays 20 characteristics of the shoreline created during 1986 and 1987 by the flooding of Great Salt Lake. Each column displays one shoreline characteristic. Shoreline characteristics such as elevation, length of maximum fetch, and shore zone slope are quantitative data. Characteristics such as relative abundance of shoreline debris are ordinal data. Nominal data includes shore shape and shore processes. For each column, color indicates attribute values of the shoreline characteristic.

Plate 2 displays one interpretation of the data displayed in Plate 1. In this example, relationships of 18 of the shoreline characteristics of Plate 1 have been analyzed visually for their association with the variable, shoreline superelevation. Shoreline superelevation is the elevation difference between a shoreline created by a water body and the elevation of the water body’s still water surface undisturbed by wind, waves, and currents. Superelevation of the 1986–1987 shoreline of Antelope Island varies approximately four meters around the island. Plate 2 is one snapshot of an analysis of one variable of the Antelope Island data set. In ArcMap each column is a map layer that a researcher can interactively display, hide, reorder, and color to explore relationships among variables.

Columnar display of multiple attributes is a GIS technique not limited to shore zones and coastal processes. The technique can be used to visualize complex and diverse data associated with linear features such as fault zones, core logs, political boundaries, highways, and streams. For further explanation of the technique, click here (PDF - 927 KB).