Best Practices for Mission Applications

Determining Valley Bottom / An Automated Approach

—Michael Grieco, Allpoints GIS

The accurate definition and calculation of valley bottom is critical to key analyses – characterizing watersheds and ecosystems, assessing anthropogenic impacts, measuring ecological productivity and diversity, inventory and monitoring, estimating eco-value, and informing management decisions.

Working with USFS, the Rocky Mountain Region, specialists from Allpoints GIS utilized ESRI's ArcGIS ModelBuilder to automate a valley bottom calculation geared to glacial terrain while honoring known riparian habitats. The Valley Bottom model is part of a suite of models developed to automate ecological assessment considering various aquatic, riparian, wetland, and anthropogenic influences. The decision to use ModelBuilder supports the aim of a repeatable and defensible process that is easily documented and transferred.

This paper highlights the Valley Bottom calculation using the ModelBuilder methodology. Discussion of other calculations and methodologies is invited.