Willamette Valley Project: Recreating the Landscape of the Willamette Valley through GIS Mapping of Historic Documents

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The Willamette Valley Projects (WVP) has been partnering with Colorado State University Center for Environmental Management of Military Lands (CEMML) to create a GIS database of historic properties on the WVP lands, which include the Willamette River Basin 13 dams and their associated lakes or reservoirs. Existing USACE documentation exists from all phases of dam construction through design drawings, dam construction photos, historic aerial imagery, real estate transactions, relocation contracts, and microfiche documents. This data was provided to CSU for georeferencing and digitizing to create a GIS database of historic properties in the WVP. While the individual files can be helpful, compiling them in GIS allows for greater analysis and a further understanding of their relevance to other data, such as LiDAR and elevation to assess impacts to historic resources. As the information is digitized, field visits check the accuracy of the GIS data and confirm the presence of additional historic sites. The most helpful data were pre-dam aerial imagery, engineered drawings of road and railroad relocations, and proposed reservoir clearing maps. In addition to discovering historic features, the GIS data identifies areas that have been heavily disturbed, which assists with environmental and cultural consultations for future projects.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 26311