This week’s lab project was an introduction to geocoding
tools in ArcGIS Pro. We learned how to geocode a list of schools addresses from
an excel sheet to create a point layer showing the schools location in a map.
I started with copying and pasting the schools list data
from Florida Department of Education to a new excel sheet. I then cleaned the
data, so that only the school’s name, type, address, city, and zip code fields
populated and saved the excel sheet as .csv file. I downloaded Manatee County
Street layer and boundary shapefiles from US Census Bureau geographic program
TIGER/Line Shapefiles. Subsequently, I created a new ArcGIS Project “Geocoding”
and added the two shapefiles; Manatee County streets centerlines and boundary
shapefiles. I also added the new school list .csv which I created earlier.
The next step was to create an address locator from the
streets centerline layer using Create Locator tool and named it
ManateeAddressLocator as the output name. At this stage, I was ready to geocode
the schools list against the new created address locator. Running geocode table
from the geoprocessing pane, the result was 6 records not been geocoded out of
the 84 records I had. Thus, I must manually geocode these records. To do that,
I used the Rematch Addresses tool to manually geocoded these records, using
various sources such as locating the address in ArcGIS Pro or using Google map
search.
Three records out of six required additional investigation.
Two of these records contained P.O. Box numbers in the address field. I
successfully identified one school by searching Google Maps for the school's
name, while the other remained untraceable. The third record had an address
situated in a different county, which led me to exclude it from the layer.
Upon reviewing the result layer, I observed that nearly all
points were positioned along the road centerline rather than on the actual
buildings or parcels, with a few located incorrectly. To rectify this, I
adjusted the points to their appropriate locations.
To further validate my findings, I downloaded two additional
layers: the parcels layer and the address points layer from Manatee County's
open data website. Subsequently, I created two new address locators, one based
on the parcels layer and the another on the address points layer. I was
uncertain about the effectiveness of this approach; nonetheless, I proceeded
forward. I then executed a new geocoding process on the .csv file, first
utilizing the parcels layer address locator and then the address points locator.
Both methods yielded identical results and locations for the school points. Out
of curiosity, I also conducted a new geocoding using ArcGIS World Geocoding
Service and the results were comparable to those obtained with the parcels and
address points locators.
In summary, it is my belief that utilizing the parcels or
the address points layer to create an address locator yielded greater accuracy
in locating schools compared to the street center line method. Furthermore,
employing ArcGIS World Geocoding Service proved to be the most effective
option, although it does require the consumption of ArcGIS credits. Moreover,
data quality remains a critical concern in the realm of geocoding, as
inaccurate or incomplete addresses can result in significant and time-consuming
difficulties. The concluding task involved the development of a web map application
that displays the locations of schools in Manatee County.
Web map app link:
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