Exercise 2 - Annapurna Circuit - Continued
|  | Landsat TM image of the Annapurna I region | |
We will modify the information given by the shape files in order to extract all useful information.
Activate the layer City Lodge and choose the symbol for MapTips. Select the field Name and click OK.
The name of the city or lodge is now displayed when the mouse cursor is positioned over the city lodge-symbol on the map.
Which city or lodge is furthest north on the trek?
Which ones are furthest west, south and east?
Move the mouse cursor to these city or lodge symbols and read out the names.
The same procedure can be applied to the Peaks. Just select the Height in the Map Tip Field Selection instead of the name.
What is the height of the highest mountain within the satellite image map?
Move the mouse cursor over all peak symbols and compare the heights.
What are the names of the mountains?
If you have found the highest mountain, choose the symbol for Identify and click the peak symbol for the highest mountain. A pop-up menu 'Identify Results' will open, showing information saved in the database.
What is the name of the highest mountain on the satellite image map?
As you have seen, this procedure works, but it is not simple to use. There are better ways of selecting useful information.
The Query Builder provides results for correlated database queries. A conceiveable query would be to ask for all mountains within the Annapurna Conservation Area, which are over 7,000 m in height.
Activate the peak layer and select the icon for the Query Builder.
Select Height, >=, type 7000 and click Execute. All mountains with a height of 7,000 m or above are now displayed. The results are highlighted on the map when Highlight is activated. Try it!
What are the names of the mountains with a height of 7,000 m and above?
Activate Show all attributes and read out the names.
Which mountain has the maximum altitude, and which has the minimum altitude? Find out the names and the heights.
Click Statistics>Height, select Max and Highlight, Pan and Zoom the result. Do so for Min, too.
Try other useful queries and explain the reason for your query and its use.
Note: The elevation of cities and lodges is not an integral part of the database, but will be discussed in the exercise Annapurna Circuit Profile.
Another useful tool integrated in the GIS is the Find Features function. It works like the index in your school atlas. When you search for the position of a geographical feature, have a look in the index and you will find the name with the position, for example the page number and grid reference or latitude and longitude.
When you search for a place of interest in a GIS, type in the name or another feature, like the height or other information saved in the database, and highlight the feature.
Find a city/lodge or mountain of interest to you, using the procedure described above.
| 
