Digitization of Reimer’s Ranch and Muleshoe Bend Digitization and Trail Sustainability Analysis of Milton Reimer’s Ranch and Muleshoe Bend Recreation Area Prepared By The San Marcos Trail Mappers abstract Results background The Austin Ridge Riders, a non-profit mountain bike club, has been awarded a grant to improve signage along the off-road bike trails. Our project included creating simple maps for this purpose, and to create digitized features to aid the Austin Ridge Riders with future planning and maintenance. Using the data given to us by Austin Ridge Riders and other data collected online, we digitized bike trails, roads, and other features of the parks. To determine whether the trail met the half rule of trail sustainability, we compared the slopes of the parks with that of the trails to identify areas where the trail slope was greater than half the slope of the ground it traversed. This revealed the parts of the trails that The Austin Ridge Riders will have to fix. The completion of this project will result in better overall safety of the trails for bikers of all skill levels. Digitized maps and trail analysis where the half rule has been applied When creating simple, user-friendly maps, a map’s role in wayfinding and trail use must be considered. In their study, Careen Yarnal and Michael Coulson concluded that trail use increased significantly with map availability, and subjects had a preference of colored maps over monochromatic maps (Yarnal & Coulson, 2013). Another study on how maps can affect wayfinding, conducted by Boon Soh and Tanya Smith- Jackson, found that signage along the trails as well as map design improved the accuracy of the users’ decision making. Subjects also preferred contour maps over shaded relief of schematic maps (Soh & Smith-Jackson, 2004). objectives Digitize features for Milton Reimer’s Ranch and Muleshoe Bend Recreation Area Trail Trail Difficulty Rating (green circle, blue square, black diamond) 5’ Elevation Contour Lines Roads / Streets Water Features (creeks, lakes, etc) Proposed Trail Changes Analyze trails for areas that do not meet the half rule methods Newly digitized maps provide a GIS for the Austin Ridge Riders that will aid in wayfinding and trail planning and maintenance. Digitization of Reimer’s Ranch and Muleshoe Bend TNRIS aerial imagery Overlay with existing park map image Georeference park map image to aerial imagery Digitize features Add trail data points and convert to line feature Reimer’s Ranch/Muleshoe Bend GIS conclusions New maps will help the Austin Ridge Riders plan and maintain trails at Reimer’s Ranch and Muleshoe Bend Improve overall safety for mountain bikers of all skill levels While several elements apply to trail sustainability, a large portion of the trails in Reimer’s Ranch and Muleshoe Bend do not meet the half rule. Many possibilities for GPS use in future projects: Potential hazards Endangered plant species Trail Sustainability Analysis Add DEM and clip to park outline Find slope of park Extract trail elevation from DEM using trail line feature as the mask Find slope of trail system Use raster calculator to apply half rule comparing park slopes to trail slopes “TrailSlopes” > 0.5*”ParkSlopes” Output contains “0” (meets half rule) and “1” (does not meet half rule) values Trail sustainability analysis revealed that 33% of trails in Muleshoe Bend do not meet the half rule, while 40% of Reimer’s Ranch trails do not meet the half rule for sustainable trails.