ArcGIS Survey123 Projects

This project was primarily a part of my Forest Ecology class, but involved recent material from my GIS class regarding field data collection methods. The goal was to develop and use a survey form to capture data on the mortality rates of conifer species planted by the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe (LEKT) in the former Lake Aldwell reservoir along the Elwha River. 

After discussing monitoring goals with a representative from LEKT, my class collaboratively developed a monitoring protocol. From there, I worked with a small group to put together a Survey123 form using the web GUI, but quickly ran into some limitations there, so together we built out a general outline for the form. After presenting the draft to the LEKT representative and discussing some edits and additions, I took the outline to Survey123 Connect and developed this survey via XLS Form, teaching myself how to do so along the way.

The following week, we went out to the site and conducted 11 surveys, using the Survey123 form I'd developed to collect all of the data.  Afterwards, I looked through the data, did some manual aggregation of statistics and created a few informative maps, which can be seen below, along with some of the automated data analysis views provided by Survey123.

After graduation, I transferred ownership of the survey to WWU to share with LEKT if they are interested in developing it further and using it to continue monitoring these sites.

This project was a part of my Teaching Practicum to complete my GIS Certificate program and was integrated partially into my Forest Ecology course as well. Following the success of the Elwha Conifer Mortality data collection, my mentor and I decided that my teaching practicum would revolve around analyzing the data from the Elwha, demonstrating how that data can be exported and used in ArcGIS Pro, and teaching some basics of XLS Form development of Survey123 Connect forms.

In the mean time, we had another field lab day on the Olympic Peninsula monitoring some forest management plots overseen by the Olympic Forest Collective, specifically the H to Z site near the Sol Duc River. After following their detailed monitoring protocol, I took to Survey123 to attempt to recreate their paper data sheets as a survey form. The resulting app is shown to the right, though it has not been used in the field.

The final part of my teaching practicum had the other students break into small groups and each attempt to create a portion of this survey form based on the OFC monitoring protocol. Most of the groups decided to try out the XLS Form development method, though some preferred to stick to the web GUI they had some prior experience with. All produced functioning sections of the protocol, with varying levels of aid from me.