GIS Portfolio

Introduction – James Sanovia – Cultural Maps, Animations & 3D Models

Hi my name is James (Jim and Jimmy are good too) Sanovia and I am an enrolled tribal member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe (Sicangu Lakota), South Dakota. My father and mother are from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation (Oglala Lakota) and the Rosebud Indian Reservation (Sicangu Lakota), respectively. They moved away from the reservation during the AIM era. My love for the land comes from my father who inspired me to do something with myself all during my entire childhood without me even knowing it, by taking me to Makosica (the Badlands) and He Sapa (the Black Hills) and telling me Unci Maka (Grandmother Earth) needs our help. He told me to do something with the environment, stay close to it somehow in my own way, and that there will always be a place for such endeavors. I am now in my final stages of getting my master’s degree in geological engineering from the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology (SDSM&T). I also received my BS in geological engineering from SDSM&T and also received an AA in SEM (Science Engineering and Mathematics) a pre-engineering degree from Oglala Lakota College. I am a first generation college student in my family and to my knowledge the only Lakota geological engineer. I first learned what GIS and GPS was during my first internship at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in 2001. At NASA I would learn to work with a multi-kilohertz microlaser altimeter, a remote sensing instrument on board the NASA P3-B aircraft. That summer of 2001 I would be a recipient of their most prestigious intern award, The Rahsaan Jackson Presentation award, where only 7 of 77 interns received this award for our projects. I would also take delivery of the NASA GSFC Award of Achievement and offered to return for another internship/co-op. The summer of 2001 would set the stage for my college career path and research missions working with cultural geospatial issues.During and after the summer of 2001 I was able to start thinking like a geospatial Native American engineer, if for better words combining the two worlds I live in. Since 2001 and to this very day a good majority of my projects, whether they are directly or not to cultural, science or engineer projects have a cultural component to them. Some projects have started with the pure intention of just culture, the Lakota culture, in mind, where others may have originally been an engineering project converted over for cultural purposes after the fact. Since my projects/research is in and around the Black Hills my science and engineering projects, when finished, can be used for cultural preservation and education of such sites since this is, after all, Lakota country. For example, my senior design as an undergrad was dealing with ground and surface water issues at Spearfish Canyon and the City of Spearfish, SD. The project produced geologic maps, site characterizations, and surface and sub-surface 3D models of the terrain. This data could now be easily handed over to a Lakota cultural instructor for their interpretation of the site. In fact, I have already been doing such, project-converts if you will, like this with Sinte Gleska University Lakota Studies Department on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation. The main cultural project I have undertaken is what I have been calling the Black Hills Visualization Project, which is a project I started back in 2004. This renames historical, sacred, and any other culturally significant site in He Sapa (Black Hills) back into the Lakota (Sioux) language. This project is and will probably be a work in progress for some time. This project got a great boost working with the Sinte

Gleska University Lakota Studies Department. They identified all the major and some minor streams/rivers in about a 7 state region. These are archived in a geodatabase and the Black Hills portion of the stream naming and are on a map I produced called He Sapa Ki Inyanka Ocanku or the Black Hills Red Race Track. This is a poster size map created from a mosaic of landsat imagery (thanks to USGS EROS), with the Triassic Spearfish formation superimposed on the imagery. The formation is red and represents the “Great Race” that took place long ago against the two-legged (birds, bears, and man) and all the four-legged animals. This is a part of the Lakota creation story, about a great race that took place around the Black Hills to determine the fate of two-legged creatures. There have been several other sites within the Black Hills I have done but the race track story ties them all together. For a few years I travel to professional conferences, government, and university (tribal and non-tribal) and other tribal settings presenting the ideal of the Black Hills project. A Lakota kids cultural-science camp even emerged from the Black Hills project. I am preparing right now to update the imagery from landsat to ASTER data but that takes time and a better computer than my present one.I never really saw much of a point in doing my past projects without having culture tied in somehow. That being said, this has all guided my college career path, and hopefully my future career, to lean towards geospatial or GIS and remote sensing interests and cultural mapping. My undergrad as well as my graduate studies have been heavily GIS and remote sensed based, even now incorporating InSAR into my thesis. Last but most certainly not least I am most thankful for the support my wife Lilly and our kids have given me throughout the years. I have to give much credit to my wife for helping me write and edit several projects and reports I have done. Lilly is an excellent writer who graciously dealt with my late nights writing and GIS work. My kids also play great roles in all of this work as well, by adventuring with Lilly and I to these historical/sacred sites. Indian people are very visual people and showing and inspiring them how these technologies can be used, such as an attempt to give them a physical connection with the land, has and will always be at my forefront. Thanks for taking the time to read my way-to-long introduction and having me be a part of the Indigenous Mapping Network. Anpetu Yuha Po Waste – Have a good dayJim Sanovia

The Black Hill Visualization Project was started in 2004 thanks to the help from the South Dakota Space Grant Consortium at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology.

The He Sapa (Black Hills) project started out mapping or remapping and naming cultural, sacred, historical or significantly relevant sites of the Lakota(Sioux) . The project started out using Landsat imagery.

Maps of various sizes called the “He Sapa Ki Inyanka Ocanku” were produced along with a relevant presentation about its Lakota named sites and streams. Since than the project was presented at several professional settings including tribal, government, science, university, and public localities.

Shortly after the Black Hills project started smaller sites have been done at specific sites, all relating to the Black Hills. A Black Hills K-12 summer camp even emerged from the ideas of the Black Hills project. The next few slides show products of the He Sapa map and the K-12 summer camp posters.

Inyan Kaga Paha – Stone Creation Butte(also known as Inyan Kara)

Originally a GIS project learning about geology and the “Hydrology” and “Viewshed” tools in ArcGIS. The image is now used for cultural education of a sacred

site.

Originally a Black Hills cultural research site project using GIS Since then it has gone back and forth several times from science

to cultural work.

The trees that follow the creeks curving path were digitized in and given their 3D appearance in ArcScene.

Cultural landmark identification and geodatabase archiving.

Digitizing in Lakota Culture stories provided by Sinte Gleska University while using DOQ’s with GIS for display and geodatabase management.

Naming Rivers and Place Names Back Into the Lakota Language

The beginning process of mapping out Lakota place names (all rivers in blue). This work was done with the Sinte Gleska

University Lakota Studies Department and funded by USGS EROS Science Impact Grant.

Imagery: ESRI ArcGIS Resource Center

Work with Oglala Lakota College2005-2007 Cottonwood Great Plains Riparian Protection Project. Using LIDAR, GIS & Remote Sensing to classify DOQ’s to identify Cottonwoods on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation (OLC)

Red River at Fargo, ND and Moorhead, MN

Using LiDAR to help estimate flood volumes, velocities, and areas

Products:TIN Models2 & 6 Foot Contours of River Channel3D Model of Orthophoto - Project Site3D Model of Cross Sections and River ChannelEstimates of Calculations (x-sections, V3, ft/sec, and A2)

3D Models help give a better perspective

LiDAR data from the USGS LiDAR Viewer.

3D Model view of the Red River (flowing North) going through Fargo, ND (left side of river) and Moorhead, MN (right side of river). The blue areas are the cross sections

used in verifying calculations. The blue areas can also represent how high the flood levels might have been

during March-April 2009.

VE = x6

GEOE-568 Geohazards – Graduate Class ProjectSoftware used: ArcGIS

TIN model of the Red River project area. The entire area shown was created as a six foot TIN. A second TIN was than created of just the river channel at two foot resolution than superimposed on top of the six foot

TIN for visualization purposes. The only data of concern was of the channel so to save processing time the larger TIN had less resolution.

Island Park Cross-Section

Gaging Station Site Cross-Section

TIN model showing the project site with cross-sectional areas in 3D.

Three dimensional TIN model showing insets of the cross-sections used in the verification process in confirming area and volume.

3-D Representation of a cone of depression of the dewatering program at the Ross Shaft at the Homestake Mine DUSEL lab.

GEOE-766 Digital Modeling Ground Water – Graduate Class ProjectSoftware used: Visual MODFLOW

Undergraduate WorkCombining cultural mapping, 3D visualization of sites and cross-

sections, digitizing in stories, creating animated fly-throughswith ArcExplorer and from scratch, and writing a cultural-

science field guide book – combining…

Undergraduate WorkGround water software Visual MODFLOW and ArcGIS along with

site characterizations were used in this project. Products produced were a geologic map, 3D view of the canyon

with well sites, and subsurface modeling of ground water.

View from southeast corner of study area.

Visual MODFLOW potentiometric contours (colored gray) prior to running model. (Located underneath the blue recharge volume model)

Visual MODFLOW potentiometric contours (colored red) after model analysis. (Located on top of the blue recharge volume model)

Madison potentiometric surface (current)

High : 5191

Low : 2800

Elevation (feet)Recharge volume

(within model boundary)

This model represents ground water that has recharged the Madison aquifer within the model boundary limits.

Figure 6. View from south of study area.

Spearfish Creek Diversion Study

Pumping Well Flag

Monitoring Well Flags

Dye Injection Flags

Water Discharge Pipeline

Digital Orthophoto Quadrangle, DOQ (aerial photograph), 3D view of the Spearfish Canyon Diversion Project study area generated with ArcScene3D Analyst with the DOQ draped over a Digital Elevation Model. Large flags of the pumping and monitoring wells, dye injection locations, and the pumping well discharge pipeline have been enlarged for visual purposes only. Image looking southward.

Data collected from::South Dakota Geological Survey DEM from the United States Geological Survey

Spearfish Creek Diversion Study

LiDAR data courtesy of Fugro Horizon’s Inc. Rapid City, SD

LiDAR data (Raw) of Mato Tipila - Bears Lodge

Future Project

Many geological and cultural projects can and will come from this dataset!