Coastal Flooding for Module 5 - Challenging and Intriguing!

A challenging yet intriguing topic within GIS is Coastal Flooding Risk Assessments, which was our focus this week. I seem to be struggling with grasping the overall concept beyond the instructions for this one, because I have gotten stuck several times. For this part of the assignment, I may have gotten slightly carried away with designing the map for the pre and post effects of Hurricane Sandy on a portion of New Jersey's coastline:

It was a map that I found extremely challenging in regards to making the cartography work. I am worried also that my color ramp is reversed, although I believe I have it right now my confidence is a bit low. Plus, the overlay is more useful when zooming in it seems, and so in this case having high resolution is a huge benefit. 

As mentioned previously, we do QA/QC on county DEM's at my internship and we often have to do selections and conversions in order to ensure there are no areas with missing pixels or problems related to elevation, etc. The first steps to this week's assignment had a lot to do with how the DEM's are prepared, which was interesting to see because I am not usually on that side of it. I have never worked with TINs before, it was useful to get to know them better.

Now on to the next portion of our exercise, where I am still stuck. Sometimes it is useful to take a break and work on something else - at this point I have now finished all the work due this week except the step I am stuck on. Onward, only one more week of the summer semester!