UTILIZING TABLET-BASED DATA COLLECTION FORMS IN GEOMORPHIC ASSESSMENTS: BEST PRACTICES IN DATABASE MANAGEMENT

This presentation discusses the usefulness and best practices of designing and implementing tablet-based field survey forms in geomorphic assessments. The first step in initiating a river restoration project is often to conduct a geomorphic assessment. A geomorphic assessment requires analysis and interpretation of all collected data to evaluate river processes and inform the restoration approach. A challenge for modern geomorphologists is how best to organize existing datasets and contemporary data. Since humans have been collecting scientific data to describe the earth’s surface for centuries, there exists an abundance of previously collected data for geomorphologists to analyze and interpret. Emerging technologies and data collection methods increase the amount of data which can be collected, analyzed and interpreted as part of a geomorphic assessment. Tablet-based survey forms offer field scientists a convenient way to input and output field data. However, understating and implementing best practices for setting up tablet-based survey forms is necessary to maximize the usefulness of these forms so collected data that can be easily integrated into a database. This presentation describes the development of a tablet-based survey form in ArcGIS’s Survey123 for conducting fluvial geomorphic assessments. The form utilizes spatial diverse key fields so that field data, once collected, can be integrated into an existing database or used to establish a new database. A geomorphic database could include survey data, field data, watershed GIS data, additional field data collected by others, model results data, digitized data, and pictures. By utilizing a well-designed database, users can easily query and sort the various datasets by key-fields such as cross-section, reach, stream, and watershed. Using an ESRI geodatabase is one form of database which allows the user to access data in a geospatial format through ArcMap and other ESRI products and can be uploaded online for easy shared access.