Applied Geography

Archive for December, 2009

A Temporal-Spatial Analysis of Malaria Transmission in Adama, Ethiopia

In Environmental Science, Spatial Analysis, Temporal Analysis on December 31, 2009 at 10:12 am

The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, 81(6), 2009, pp. 944-949

Ingrid Peterson, Luisa N. Borrell, Wafaa El-Sadr, and Awash Teklehaimanot

“ Urban malaria is a growing problem in Africa. Small-scale spatial studies are useful in identifying foci of malaria transmission in urban communities. A population-based cohort study comprising 8,088 individuals was conducted in Adama, Ethiopia. During a single malaria season, the Kulldorff scan statistic identified one temporally stable spatial malaria cluster within 350 m of a major Anopheles breeding site. Factors associated with malaria incidence were residential proximity to vector breeding site, poor house condition (incidence rate ratio [IRR] = 2.0, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.4, 2.9), and a high level of vegetation (IRR = 1.8, 95% CI = 1.0, 3.3). Maximum (IRR = 1.4, 95% CI = 1.1, 1.9) and minimum daily temperatures (°C; IRR = 1.3, 95% CI = 1.2, 1.5) were positively associated with malaria incidence after a 1-month delay. Rainfall was positively associated with malaria incidence after a 10-day delay. Findings support the use of small scale mapping and targeted vector control in urban malaria control programs in Africa.”

Blast from the Past: 1972 Australian Newspaper Article about ESRI

In ESRI, GIS on December 31, 2009 at 7:51 am

…from The Age, 18 January 1972…

Video: GIS Pioneer Roger Tomlinson

In GIS, Video on December 31, 2009 at 6:59 am

In this short video from August 2007, GIS pioneer Roger Tomlinson visits DMTI Spatial in Canada. He discusses principles of GIS and how they have changed the world. DMTI Spatial CTO John Fisher discusses the pervasiveness of GIS in today’s business world.

Texas Students Use GIS to Track H1N1 Flu

In ESRI, GIS, Geography on December 31, 2009 at 5:45 am

…from the Winter 2009/2010 issue of ArcNews…

Last April, when the spread of H1N1 (swine) flu began, students in Texas watched with a vested interest. The Texas Education Agency made recommendations to reschedule or cancel area and state-level competitions in an effort to limit student travel and minimize contact. With events approaching, like prom, spring concerts, and even graduation ceremonies, students waited as local school districts made careful decisions. Some districts halted student travel and others canceled school classes for a period of weeks.

Lubbock Independent School District GIS teacher Penny Carpenter knew GIS tools would be used to monitor and inform the public of the flu’s pandemic potential, and she saw a unique opportunity for her students. Philosophically, Carpenter motivates students with relevant real-world topics, and the reality of H1N1 flu had certainly captured her students’ attention. They found maps of countries and states with confirmed flu cases but none of Texas counties. Because the outbreak originated in Mexico, students looked to the border towns for reported infections, and that is when geographic inquiry began: Where were the counties in Texas with confirmed H1N1 flu cases?

Multi-scale Spatiotemporal Analyses of Moose-vehicle Collisions: A Case Study in Northern Vermont

In Environmental Science, GIS, Spatial Analysis, Temporal Analysis on December 31, 2009 at 5:26 am

International Journal of Geographical Information Science, Volume 23, Issue 11 November 2009 , pages 1389 – 1412

Giorgos Mountrakis; Kari Gunson.

“Moose-vehicle collisions (MVCs) pose a serious safety and environmental concern in many regions of Europe and North America. For example, in the state of Vermont, one-third of all reported MVCs resulted in motorist injury or fatality while collisions have increased from two in 1982 to 164 in 2002. Our work used a MVC dataset from 1983 to 1999 in the Northeastern Highlands of Vermont (four major roads) to perform space, time and spatiotemporal analyses and guide future mitigation strategies. An adapted kernel density estimator was implemented for exploratory analyses to detect high density collision hotspots on roads. The kernel in space showed seven major density peaks which varied in magnitude and spread between roads. The kernel estimator in time for all roads showed an exponentially increasing trend with annual periodicity and a seasonal cyclic component, where the majority of collisions occurred from May to October. Spatiotemporal kernel estimation exhibited discontinuous density hotspots in time and space suggesting changing animal movement patterns across roads. We used an adapted Ripley’s K-function to test the hypothesis that MVCs clustering occurred at multiple scales in space, in time and in space-time combined. Statistically significant spatial clustering was evident on all roads at spatial scales from 2 to 10 km. A more consistent clustering in time occurred on all roads at a scale distance of 5 years. Similar to the kernel estimation, annual periodicity was also evident. Positive space-time clustering was present at small spatial (5 km) and temporal scales (2 years) indicating that where MVCs occur is also influenced by when they occur. In retrospect, using multiple road lengths, and the combined kernel estimation and Ripley’s K-function in time and space, provided a powerful methodology to study varying spatiotemporal patterns of wildlife collisions along roads. This can greatly assist transportation planners in identifying optimal mitigation strategies along specific roads, such as deciding on location and spatial length for permanent and expensive measures (e.g. crossing structures and associated fencing) versus less permanent and inexpensive structures (e.g. wildlife signage and reduced speed limits).”

Zeroing In on Natural Resources

In ESRI, Earth Systems Science, Environmental Science, GIS on December 31, 2009 at 5:25 am

GIS for Customizing Earth Sciences Applications

…from the Winter 2009/2010 issue of ArcNews…

Hydrocarbon exploration is an expensive, high-risk operation that involves searching for hydrocarbon deposits (like oil and gas) beneath the earth’s surface. Though visible surface features can provide evidence of hydrocarbon generation, most exploration methods depend on highly sophisticated technology to detect and determine the presence of these deposits deep within the earth.

In early 2000, there was a significant natural gas discovery in southern New York that led to a boom in hydrocarbon exploration. Shortly after this discovery, MIR Télédétection Inc.—a natural resources consulting firm located in Québec, Canada,—began providing expertise to help target hydrocarbon reservoirs.

Among the many services MIR provides are customized earth sciences applications that support hydrocarbon exploration in North America through the capture, integration, and analysis of geologic, remotely sensed, and geoscientific data. Its research plays an integral role in successfully turning leads (structures that may contain or trap hydrocarbons) into prospects (leads that have been fully evaluated and are ready to drill).

Call for Papers: “The Computational Turn”, Centre for Research in Art Science and Humanity

In Conferences, GIScience, Social Science on December 30, 2009 at 1:07 pm

9 March 2010, Swansea University

“The application of new computational techniques and visualisation technologies in the Arts & Humanities are resulting in new approaches and methodologies for the study of traditional and new corpora of Arts and Humanities materials. This new ‘computational turn’ takes the methods and techniques from computer science to create new ways of distant and close readings of texts (e.g. Moretti). This one-day workshop aims to discuss the implications and applications of what Lev Manovich has called ‘Cultural Analytics’ and the question of finding patterns using algorthmic techniques. Some of the most startling approaches transform understandings of texts by use of network analysis (e.g. graph theory), database/XML encodings (which flatten structures), or merely provide new quantitative techniques for looking at various media forms, such as media and film, and (re)presenting them visually, aurally or haptically. Within this field there are important debates about the contrast between narrative against database techniques, pattern-matching versus hermeneutic reading, and the statistical paradigm (using a sample) versus the data mining paradigm. Additionally, new forms of collaboration within the Arts and Humanities are emerging which use team-based approaches as opposed to the traditional lone-scholar. This requires the ability to create and manage modular Arts and Humanities research teams through the organisational structures provided by technology and digital communications (e.g. Big Humanities), together with techniques for collaborating in an interdisciplinary way with other disciplines such as computer science (e.g. hard interdisciplinarity versus soft interdisciplinarity).


“Papers are encouraged in the following areas:
  • Distant versus Close Reading
  • Database Structure versus Argument
  • Data mining/Text mining/Patterns
  • Pattern as a new epistemological object
  • Hermeneutics and the Data Stream
  • Geospatial techniques
  • Big Humanities
  • Digital Humanities versus Traditional Humanities
  • Tool Building
  • Free Culture/Open Source Arts and Humanities
  • Collaboration, Assemblages and Alliances
  • Language and Code (software studies)
  • Information visualization in the Humanities
  • Philosophical and theoretical reflections on the computational turn

Evaluating Indiana Bat Summer Habitat on Surface Coal Mine Sites in Southwestern Indiana Using Remote Sensing

In Environmental Science, Geography, Imagery on December 30, 2009 at 10:41 am

Shunfu Hu, Michael J. Starr, Randall Pearson, Department of Geography, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville

“Indiana bat is among first endangered species list by the federal government due to fragmentation or the loss of its summer habitat. Forest canopy, certain degree of “patchiness”, and summer roosting sites (i.e., snags) appear to be key elements in habitat quality for the Indiana bat. This paper presents a methodology of evaluating Indiana bat summer habitat on or near surface coal mine sites in southwestern Indiana. Three levels of evaluation on Indiana bat summer habitat were performed using remotely sensed data. Level 1 evaluation was based on Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) satellite imagery with 30-meter spatial resolution to obtain a general idea of land use and land cover in the study area, which helps to eliminate areas with low bat habitat potential (e.g., urban and agricultural areas). Level 2 evaluation was based on QuickBird satellite imagery with 2.44-meter spatial resolution, which enables us to identify the characteristics of forest canopy such as edges and patchiness and to again eliminate areas with low bat habitat potential (e.g., low patchiness or immature forest). Level 3 evaluation was based on high resolution digital aerial multispectral imagery with a spatial resolution of 0.323-meter (1 foot), which enables us to identify a much greater detail (e.g., individual trees). It is anticipated that the three levels of evaluation of Indiana Bat summer habitat will allow us to develop a “suitability index” that can be used to better assess and monitor Indiana summer habitat.”

Source: Proceedings of the 32nd Annual Applied Geography Conference, October 28-31, 2009.

Amazon Initiative Map Viewer: Spatial Policy Targeting for Incentive-based Ecosystem Service Management

In ESRI, Environmental Science, GIS on December 30, 2009 at 10:04 am

Supported by the World Agroforestry Center, the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, and the World Bank, the Amazon Initiative and its partners are developing an interactive map server for environmental policy targeting. The tool uses spatial information from a large variety of sources and allows users to calculate land cover, biomass. and conservation opportunity costs in custom polygons.

GeoDesign Summit: Plenary Session Abstracts, Day 2

In Conferences, Design, ESRI, GIS on December 30, 2009 at 9:16 am

Partial list, subject to change…

Ways of Designing
Carl Steinitz, Research Professor, Graduate School of Design, Harvard University

Five ways of designing will be highlighted from some of Carl Steinitz’ past projects.
• Anticipatory: Holistic, Deductive
• Sequential: Direct, Abductive
• Combinatorial: Simultaneous, Inductive
• Constraining: Sensitivity, Experimental
• Optimizing: Directed, Goal-Driven

Conceptualizing Geodesign in the University Curriculum
Ron Stoltz, Professor and Director, School of Landscape Architecture and Planning, University of Arizona
Karen Hanna, Professor, Landscape Architecture Department, California State Polytechnic Institute, Pomona

GeoDesign, as an emerging discipline and profession, offers an unprecedented opportunity for planning, urban design, landscape planning, and landscape architecture. By ‘building a bridge’ among the various professions in the teaching of comprehensive design and, what might be called, ‘policy’ planning there is a possibility to join ‘Big D’ environmental design (that of trained design professionals) with ‘little design’(creative endeavors by those without formal training yet engaged in the planning and design foresters, engineers, lay advocates).

Graduate design programs concentrate on producing practitioners that are prepared for the practice world. Through a rigorous series of coursework within a formal curriculum and by use of a co-curriculum (those experiences outside of coursework), graduates learn to practice their profession; they learn to engage in the repetitive feedback of ideas, concepts and graphic expression so that a proposed reality between the designer and other interested parties is expressed and improved.

GeoDesign is developing on two fronts: 1) a new piece of enabling technology developed by ESRI combined with new digital tablet devices and 2) a more comprehensive approach that builds on GIS, 3-D, rapid visualization, continuous data feedback, and the freedom of sketching in design. By developing a curriculum to these two fronts the University of Arizona, Cal Poly Pomona and a consortium of other universities hope to be the co-developers of GeoDesign.
In order to develop a curriculum one has to know the components that compose it. Through professional accreditation standards, these are well known in landscape architecture, a sister profession. But are they for GeoDesign?
In this presentation, the presenters will exhibit both course work from recent academic exercises and two curriculum design approaches that await the disciplinary components to develop GeoDesign as a profession.

Private Stewardship Networks: GIS Tools That Promote Conservation Corridors
Chris Overdorf, Principal, Jones & Jones, Architects, Landscape Architects, and Planners

Public land protection is not enough. A growing number of private property owners want to do their part to save landscapes. However, establishing private conservation networks brings a new set of challenges that GIS can help with. Our study focuses on identifying potential corridor easements between private landowners and their neighbors and connecting these conservation corridors to public lands. Through the use of ModelBuilder and Arc Hydro, we have developed five submodels: walkable landscape contribution, parcel contribution, signature landscape feature contribution, origin and destination points, and a hydrologic spatial framework. These submodels are applied to zonal analysis and corridor modeling tools to capture trail corridor opportunities and potential trail partners. These analyses and maps provide an important tool for visual communication and discussion connecting individual property owners with conservation partners, forming linkages with protected public land, and fostering and broadening a conservation community of neighbors.

125 Years of Topographic Mapping at the USGS

In GIS, Geography on December 30, 2009 at 9:08 am

…from ArcNews…

  • Read Part 2 - From the Dawn of Digital to The National Map

GeoDesign Summit: Plenary Session Abstracts, Day 1

In Conferences, Design, ESRI, Environmental Science, GIS on December 30, 2009 at 9:05 am

Partial list, subject to change…

The What and Why of Geodesign
Tom Fisher, Dean, College of Design, University of Minnesota

What is geodesign and why is it essential to the world we now occupy? Geodesign combines the power of geographic information systems to analyze and comprehend the world as it is with that of design to envision the world as it might be. Geodesign combines science and art—what is with what could be—in a way that allows us to predict the consequences of our decisions on the future. This is particularly important in a world in which many of the systems on which we depend—our financial, housing, food, transportation, and myriad ecological systems—are in the midst or at the brink of collapse. Geodesign can help us spot these systemic failures before they occur and help us decide how best to deal with them.

GeoDesign in Conservation Planning: Stakeholder Driven Geoprocessing through Greenprinting
Will Rogers, President, The Trust for Public Lands

Spatial by Design: Understanding the Special Role of GIS
Michael Goodchild, Professor of Geography, University of California, Santa Barbara

Geodesign is envisioned as a technology that helps designers and decision makers create better environments. As such, it requires functions for input of baseline landscapes, design options, and data that may assist in evaluating alternative designs as well as functions for visualizing, predicting the effects of designs, and measuring those effects using appropriate metrics. Some of these functions are available in GIS for some kinds of applications, and others are available in other software environments that we would not describe as GIS. We, therefore, face a number of alternatives: add functions to GIS, add functions to other types of software, or develop entirely new environments. Goodchild will review these options, discuss the implications of each choice, and outline a program of development.

Visualizing Complex Systems: The Role of the National Academy of Environmental Design in Advancing Evidence-Based Design Research
Kim Tanzer, Dean, School of Architecture, University of Virginia

The phrase “one picture is worth a thousand words” captures the importance of visualization in efficient, meaningful communication. Beginning with a brief historical reflection, this talk will highlight several current projects in which GIS-based visualization is used to understand and respond to challenging environmental circumstances. It will conclude by describing the National Academy of Environmental Design, and suggesting the role visualization might play in proposing sustainable environmental scenarios.

44th Annual Alaska Surveying and Mapping Conference

In Conferences, ESRI, GIS on December 30, 2009 at 8:38 am

22-26 February 2010  at the  Anchorage Sheraton

The Alaska Section of the American Congress on Surveying & Mapping (ACSM), the Alaska Society of Professional Land Surveyors (ASPLS), the Alaska Region of the American Society of Photogrammetry & Remote Sensing (ASPRS), the Alaska Chapter of the Urban & Regional Information Systems Association (URISA), and the Alaska Arc Users Group (AAUG) are proud to host the 2010 Alaska Surveying & Mapping Conference in Anchorage, Alaska.

The theme for this year is ‘Random & True’, which refers to the survey method where a random trial line is established to connect two surveyed monuments.  The ‘true’ survey line connecting the monuments is established after traversing the randomly selected line.

  • Keynote Speaker – Marie C Robidoux, LCS, LLM
  • Special Guest Speaker – Jack Dangermond of ESRI

More information

Spatio-temporal Analysis of Noise Pollution near Boston Logan Airport: Who Carries the Cost?

In Environmental Science, GIS, Spatial Analysis, Statistics, Temporal Analysis on December 30, 2009 at 6:57 am

Urban Studies, Vol. 47, No. 1, 169-182 (2010)

Yelena Ogneva-Himmelberger, Brian Cooperman

“Airports are often located near densely populated residential areas, affecting a large number of people. Thus, knowing socio-demographic characteristics of the noise-affected areas is important for the development of policies on noise control and abatement. This study proposes a new methodology that combines airport noise models with spatial statistics and geographical information systems to identify spatial clusters of socio-demographic characteristics in relationship to the noise level. Statistically significant ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ socio-demographic clusters represent spatial concentrations of certain social groups, corresponding to various levels of vulnerability to environmental impacts. Results show that the population ‘paying’ for the cost of noise from Logan International Airport in Boston, USA, is highly vulnerable as there are more minority and lower-income populations, and lower house prices in the noise-affected areas. These results should draw the attention of policy-makers and the public as policies for noise abatement are being developed.”

A New Algorithm for Distance Cartogram Construction

In GIScience, Visualization on December 30, 2009 at 6:44 am

International Journal of Geographical Information Science, Volume 23, Issue 11 November 2009 , pages 1453 – 1470

Eihan Shimizu; Ryo Inoue.

“A distance cartogram is a diagram that visualizes the proximity indices between points in a network, such as time-distances between cities. The Euclidean distances between the points on the distance cartogram represent the given proximity indices. This is a useful visualization tool for the level of service of transport, e.g. difference in the level of service between regions or points in a network and its improvement in the course of time. The two previously proposed methods—multidimensional scaling (MDS) and network time-space mapping—have certain advantages and disadvantages. However, we observe that these methods are essentially the same, and the merits of both these methods can be combined to formulate a generalized solution. In this study, we first formulate the time-space mapping problem, which includes the key features of both of the above stated methods, and propose a generalized solution. We then apply this solution to the time-distances of Japan’s railway networks to confirm its applicability.”

3D Geological Mapping: An Inescapable Evolution for National Geological Surveys

In Geography on December 30, 2009 at 6:43 am

…from the 2009 Three-Dimensional Geologic Mapping Workshop held by the Illinois State Geological Survey…

Catherine Truffert

“According to EuroGeoSurveys, the European Geological Surveys association, “Geological spatial data and models describe the solid Earth’s surface and subsurface on-shore and off-shore, its nature, structure, properties, dynamics and evolution over time; including its related (geo)resources and (geo) hazards”. This illustrates a modern vision of the core mission that National Geological Surveys have to accomplish.”

Visualizing Time in GIS

In ESRI, GIS, Temporal Analysis on December 30, 2009 at 5:54 am

Time Awareness in ArcGIS 9.4 Leads to Better Understanding of Complex Geographies

…from the Winter 2009/2010 issue of ArcNews…

In his First Law of Geography, noted geographer and cartographer Waldo Tobler states, “Everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things.”

GIS professionals are well versed in visualization of spatial relationships and dependencies, of the proximity of near things and distant things, as in things you can measure with a ruler or with mile markers. But often when studying geography and looking for relationships and dependencies, equally important is proximity in time, as in something that can be measured with a watch or calendar.

Related articles:

Land Administration Trends and their Implications for Australian Natural Resource Management

In Environmental Science, GIScience on December 30, 2009 at 5:49 am

Journal of Spatial Science, Vol. 54, No. 2

D.P. Mitchell

“Over the last few decades there has been a dramatic increase in the productive use of natural resources in Australia, and a significant deterioration in the condition of natural resources. Recent approaches to improving natural resource management (NRM) aim to improve land use through voluntary schemes, economic incentives, and the un-bundling of rights to land and resources. However, these initiatives are constrained by limitations in the amount of local and regional land and natural resources information. This paper argues that as land administration systems (LAS) further develop they provide improved tools and mechanisms that can assist the goals of NRM. Benefits will be achieved through better administration of property rights and restrictions, improved land and natural resources information, and improved land use management.”

Willie Smits Shares Methodology for Sustainable Forests

In ESRI, Environmental Science, GIS on December 30, 2009 at 5:48 am

…from the Winter 2009/2010 issue of ArcNews…

“We can use technologies such as GIS to save biodiversity. We can still help local people retain their cultures and traditional means of existence.” This is the message of Dr. Willie Smits, founder of the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation and the Masarang Foundation, which raise money and awareness to restore habitat forests around the world.

Smits, a keynote speaker at the 2009 ESRI International User Conference, is a biologist dedicated to rebuilding orangutan populations and improving forest habitats worldwide. His campaign has two fronts. One is a zealous battle against deforestation and habitat destruction, and the other is the promotion of sustainable agribusiness that benefits both species of primates, human and orangutan. “We cannot save the environment if we do not simultaneously take care of people’s needs,” maintains Smits.

GeoDesign Summit: Abstracts for Day 2 Lightning Talks

In Conferences, Design, ESRI, GIS on December 29, 2009 at 12:51 pm

Partial list, subject to change…

Geospatial Campaign Design for COIN Civil Affairs
Rashed, Tarek

This lightning talk will highlight ongoing prototype developments by Milcord LLC to support Civil Affairs (CA) operations in counterinsurgencies (COIN). Our tool supports tactical level commanders at the brigade, battalion, and company level, acting as a platform for cross-culture decision making by providing operationally relevant information on the relationships between factors driving the insurgency and leverage points identified through counterinsurgency measures, helping to build a more effective campaign for complex operations. Cross-cultural decision making analysis aims to integrate root causes of instability and tactics and operations outlined in counterinsurgency doctrine with domain expert knowledge in social and behavioral sciences for analysis and course of action forecasting. Our campaign management tool will assist civil affairs specialists and intelligence analysts understand the dynamics of the operational environment so they can develop more targeted and effective policies and plans that address the cycle of conditions and behaviors that sustain militant activity and IED networks. The tool will provide end-to-end support for various stages of campaign design, beginning with problem framing and mission analysis through different design and modeling tactics to deciding on a specific course of action. This end-to-end support is facilitated through a seamless integration between the following four subsystems, each of which is designed to provide an environment appropriate to one of the progressive phases of a decision making process : • Brainstorming environment, which provides concept mapping capabilities that enable users to visually think about COIN CA problems and their underlying factors; • Modeling environment, which provides quantitative and qualitative modeling capabilities allowing users to better understand, refine, and restructure CA problems; • Decision environment, which provides decision modeling capabilities that enable users to integrate and optimize the qualitative and quantitative models, weigh factors, and construct “what…if” scenario; • Geospatial environment, which provides capabilities for geospatial reasoning, mapping, and reporting of recommended courses of action.

Real-time, Sketch-based GIS Database Updates to Support Crisis Command and Mobile Resource Deployment
Dana, Mike

This sample application utilizes ArcServer, ArcGIS Desktop and an interactive pen display to support first responders. The integration of ArcGIS and a pen display allows centralized command to draw updated conditions onto an electronic map surface and have these updates broadcast out to the mobile resources. This dynamic mapping configuration delivers near real-time updates from the command center to the front lines and incorporates dispersed field updates into the central GIS database. The result is a common operating environment for incident management that is easily used and updated without requiring specially-trained GIS analysts to create these updates.

Object-Oriented Diagrams in GeoDesign
Ervin, Stephen

Diagrams are a form of graphic representation that have a special place in geo-design. They are not sketches – outlines with fuzzy edges — nor are they exactly maps — graphical answers to questions about what and where. Like maps and sketches, they are abstractions;  like sketches they are often ‘preliminary’. Diagrams contain logical assertions about elements and relations in a design, either proposed, or otherwise being analyzed;  and these elements and relations are effectively mapped using object-oriented terminology & technology. Examples include topological assertions like ‘inside’, ‘connected’ or ‘surrounded by’, as well as object/kinship/count relations such as ‘kind-of’, ‘unique’, ‘many’. These concepts, contained in diagrams and expressed in a stylized graphical language,  are often the kernels of design ideas;  and any Geo-Design system that seeks to bridge the current gap between relational databases, 3D graphics, and analytic models on the one hand, and ‘napkin sketches’ and design ideas on the other, will need to enable and interpret these kinds of conceptual diagrams.

The dual processes of moving from a map to a diagram (‘abstraction’) and from a a diagram to a map (‘development’, or ‘instantiation’) today require human-intelligence, and few GIS (or CAD, or other) tools are available to help, except with the most basic, graphical / syntactical tasks (e.g. ‘draw a circle, label it ‘node’).We also could use interactive geo-design systems that enable semantic assertions (e.g. ‘a node with no links must be a different kind of node than one with links — or else it requires some links!’) and that carry these semantics, as constraints, into more developed maps and plans (e.g the ‘node’ is a multi-modal transit facility; see BIM plan A1…).

Practical Considerations for Integrating BIM and GIS
Przybyla, John

A rudimentary level of integration between BIM and GIS currently is available with current technology. But there are many elements to this integration that are far from mature. This presentation will discuss the practical issues related to today’s capabilities and what is needed to provide a mature solution. It will discuss the following questions:

1. Do IFC’s contain all of the information that would be desired in an interior GIS dataset?
2. What role does COBIE play in supplying information?
3. How much of the data from the BIM should be in the GIS?
4. What effort is needed to fully populate the ESRI BISDM model?
5. Can we take 3-D GIS data and export it to create an as-is BIM?

Building Interior Space Optimization and GIS/RDBMS Space Management Tools
Ball, William B.

Langley Research Center (LaRC) is leveraging its GIS/RDBMS for interior space management to support space utilization optimization. Collectively these tools support more objective and efficient use of the center’s limited and extremely valuable office and technical space.

Optimization accomplishments over the last year and the path ahead will be addressed. Components of the tool include: constraints and metrics (such as organizational synergy), application of optimization algorithms (greedy, metaheuristic, etc.), visualization tools for solution evaluation (dashboard), and web based data maintenance and reporting tools. Successes and failures will be discussed.

Site Engineering Design – Live Start to Finish using ArcPad
Dennis, William

This GeoDesign process will explore methods for creating a dynamic process integrating the project design with spatial elements and natural elements observed in the field. Design sketches are imported into ArcPad from ACAD based on a project scope and set design constraints. On the site the designer is able to see ,with ArcPad and a GPS connection ,conceptual designs and spatial elements in relationship to the natural elements that would affect the design. Field observations are made and data is collected to revise the design. The design is exported to ACAD and a revised design is exported to ArcPad to field check. This provides for a process that can result in designs that more closely fits the field conditions and meets the goals of the project resulting in project time and cost are savings. The design fits the needs of the developer, design constraints, and the environment surrounding the project.

Using GIS to Facilitate the Design of a Sustainable City
McElvaney, Shannon

With a changing world and much discussion of energy conservation measures, there is an increased focus on the potential of sustainable technologies and the tracking of carbon output. MASDARCity, a new 5-million square meter sustainable development uses planning principles of a traditional walled city, together with cutting-edge technologies, to achieve a zero carbon and zero waste community. GIS-based technologies provide the tools needed to support the planning, construction, and ultimately operations and maintenance of the city, helping to make an economic case for the use of alternative energy and the tracking of carbon emissions to encourage responsible development in the years ahead.

Key to the presentation will be an in-depth review of how GIS is being used to model and visualize the implementation of these technologies within MASDAR. McElvaney will showcase modeling techniques to support renewable energy, routing of driverless vehicles, modeling of waste, water, and energy usage and production, and construction phasing. Ultimately attendees will get an overview of how GIS technologies can be used as GeoDesign tools to provide sustainable solutions for the design or retrofit of cities.

Building High Fidelity 3D Landscapes in a Design Charrette Setting with Participants using GIS, CityScape, and Augmented Reality
Lally, Jason

PlaceMatters assists our partners in designing civic engagement processes with an emphasis on creative ways to garner participation. Our meeting facilitation ensures equal participation and that feedback is effectively captured and organized. To enhance our face-to-face meetings, we offer a broad set of tools that improve accessibility and engage citizens throughout the process. 3D visualization tools can play a critical role in helping participants imagine a more sustainable and vibrant future.  Over the past 7 years, PlaceMatters has road tested cutting edge visualization techniques in combination with GIS and other decision support tools.  At our national conference on Tools for Community Design and Decision Making, which ESRI has regularly sponsored financially, we have demonstrated a variety of these techniques. For example, we have used ArcScene, ArcGlobe, CommunityViz, Sketch-Up, and photo montage techniques with PhotoShop.  This year, PlaceMatters has added two new tools to its mix.  First we have acquired a new high fidelity 3D tool, CityScape by Pixel Active 3D, used in real time design 3D landscapes with buildings, utilities, vegetation, roads, and moving traffic.  We are also using Augmented Reality technology to help participants experiment with form and function of the built environment and for design competitions for sustainable building.   Jason Lally, Director of Planning Technology at PlaceMatters, will give a very brief presentation/demonstration of these technologies and how they are shaping the new world of digitally interactive planning.

Open Exchange for Semantically Rich City Models
Cote, Paul

GeoDesign requires the integration of information crossing several content domains as well as administrative and temporal ones.  In can be expected that the most authoritative information from one domain, such as buildings and their facilities will originate in one specialized set of tools, while information about electrical networks or trees, terrain, roads, cadastral information will originate in yet other tools.  A reasonable vision for the future of Geodesign would be to integrate fine-grained, up-to-date, authoritative  information to create a coherent model in which the relationships among all of these elements can be studied and experimented with.  One of the greatest challenges to this vision is that it is the difficulty of exchanging information among the multitude of domain specific tools in such a way that the important semantic information from each component relates as it should with a larger aggregated model.   This lightning talk will discuss the CityGML Specification for the coherent encoding and exchange of semantically rich city models.  Originating from the Special Interest Group 3D in North Rhineland Westphalia, CityGML has recently been adopted as an Approved specification of the Open Geospatial Consortium.  CityGML provides a modular framework of concepts and relationships and a means of exchange that can be drawn from to develop specialized data models and or exchange specifications that may be aggregated in a meaningful and predictable way.  Ultimately, the prospect of a consistent shared vocabulary for city models will provide a means of comparing complex models of cities across time periods that will add the dimension of systematically addressable memory for how places have responded to changes of various types in the past.   Geodesigners should be aware of CityGML and how it can be used and extended to make our individual efforts fit together into a larger meaningful picture.

Farming for the Future with Fertiliser Science

In GIS, Science on December 29, 2009 at 11:01 am

…from Scoop…

“To some, it may represent IT-heavy data management – for example, the use of geographical information systems (GIS) allowing users to graphically manage and display different layers of farm information in a map-based system.

“To others, precision agriculture may mean deployment of auto-steer tractors along with GPS guidance and tracking. At the end of the day, precision agriculture is simply about doing what we already do, but doing it better.”

GeoDesign Summit: Abstracts for Day 1 Lightning Talks

In Conferences, Design, ESRI, Environmental Science, GIS on December 29, 2009 at 10:25 am

Partial list, subject to change…

Geodesign: Fundamental Principals and Routes Forward
Flaxman, Michael

The term geodesign, not more than 5 years old, has already come to have different meanings to various audiences.  Having been present at the birth of this toddler, and having been part of ESRI’s GeoDesign group in early implementations, I would like to offer my vision for geodesign.  My purpose is not to search for definitional purity, but rather to distinguish geodesign from a variety of similar ideas, and to propose several parallel routes forward.

What is GeoDesign?  To me, geodesign is a design and planning method which tightly couples the creation of a design proposal with impact simulations informed by geographic context.  In an ideal case, a planner or designer receives real-time guidance on performance at every phase of design from early site visit or conceptual sketch to final detail.   The use of contextual geographic information means that design performance can be evaluated relative to local conditions, and that evaluation can consider off-site impacts.  The focus is on supporting “human in the loop” design, providing continuous feedback on multiple aspects of performance and improving designs-in-progress rather than on post-hoc evaluation.

This concept is fundamentally dependent on software, but is broader than a particular implementation.  If fact, I would argue that desktop GIS extensions such as Placeway’s CommunityViz and Criterion Planner’s INDEX have been supporting aspects of geodesign for several years.  One current front of activity in this area is to integrate geodesign concepts into standard GIS tools.  A second front includes the need to support web-based tools, particularly web-based evaluation modeling, in ways which allow widespread model sharing.  A third route forward is the development of digital sketch planning tools which leverage GIS data models.  Last but not least, geodesign concepts need to be applied to 3D design and geovisualization.

Participatory GeoDesign
Klosterman, Richard

GeoDesign can—and should—do more than facilitate the design work of landscape architects, planners and other professionals.  It also has the potential to provide private citizens with the information and tools they can use to help design the communities in which they live.  However, this will require the development of new tools and modes of professional practice that support processes of public deliberation and collective decision making.  This presentation will describe the concepts that underlie ideal of participatory geodesign and suggest four principles for developing tools and techniques that can help the public consider their collective future.

Site Selection for Solar-Electrical Powerplants from a Regional Level to a Community Location using GIS Processing and Sketching Tools
Schaller, Joerg

Based on a regional Geodatabase of the Planning region Munich containing detailed information on natural resources, Landscape scenery, land- use and administrational planning data, a ModelBuilder application has been developed to preprocess the data for a potential site suitability analysis. Based on these results field inspections and discussions with the community and the land owners had been supported by detailed scetches explaining the different situations and solution possibilities.

GeoDesign in Environmental Analysis and Planning: An Example
Reynolds, Keith

The Ecosystem Management Decision Support (EMDS) system is a general application framework for designing and implementing knowledge-based decision support for environmental analysis and planning at any geographic scale or scales.  The system integrates state-of-the-art geographic information system (GIS) as well as knowledge-based reasoning and decision modeling technologies to provide decision support for a substantial portion of the adaptive management process of ecosystem management.  EMDS 4.1 is implemented as both an ArcGIS 9.3 ArcMap extension and as an ArcEngine stand-alone for the GIS-averse. It integrates a logic engine  to perform landscape evaluations, and a decision modeling engine for developing management priorities.

Key features of the system’s logic component include abilities to 1) reason about large, abstract, multi-faceted ecosystem management problems, 2) perform useful evaluations with incomplete information, 3) evaluate the influence of missing information, and 4) determine priorities for missing information.  A key feature of the planning component is the ability to determine priorities for management activities, taking into account not only ecosystem condition, but also criteria that account for the feasibility and efficacy of potential management actions.  Both components include powerful and intuitive diagnostic features that facilitate communicating the explanation of modeling results to a broad audience.

After 13 years since its initial release, EMDS remains popular in the natural resource community, mostly perhaps because it provides a very general design framework suitable for many questions and spatial scales. This and other features of the system will be highlighted in the talk.

GeoGames – Board Game Metaphors for GIS
Ahlqvist, Ola

Massive multiplayer online gaming (MMOG) is now firmly established in the entertainment world and is slowly finding its way into education and training environments. These games embed parallels to many societal processes that we regard as complex and ‘wicked ‘ problems. Simultaneously, virtual globes and online mapping has revolutionized certain aspects of geographic information production and dissemination. With this as our starting point we seek to further the current use of virtual globes and geographical web resources to integrate the social interaction and simulation aspects of MMOGs. In our proposed GeoGames framework we transform an existing online virtual globe into a “game board” for role-play, simulation, interactive web functionality, and content as a source for challenges and answers on geographically related issues. More specifically, we have developed an interactive simulation layer on top of the existing map adding support for multi-user interaction and manipulation of scenario objects. This allows for construction and execution of game-like scenarios, through which users can immerse in, explore, investigate and learn about our world. In this way we seek a new role for maps as an interface for two-way communication between real world information, individual decision making, and computer based models of human and physical systems.

Landscape Design with Tangible GIS
Mitasova, Helena

We combine real-world digital elevation model with a flexible, laboratory-scale 3D model, indoor laser scanner and projectors into a tangible geospatial modeling system. The model surface can be manually modified, facilitating face-to-face collaboration when designing landscapes. The system is coupled with GIS that is used to create digital elevation models from the scanned, redesigned landscapes, perform analysis and simulations, and project the results over the laboratory model providing feedback on how the landscape modifications affect water flow, solar radiation and other processes.

GeoDesign Utilization in a Participatory Land Use Planning Process
Lee, Brian

There are more digital geospatial data available today than at any other time in history, with ever expanding opportunities for almost anyone to contribute “volunteer geographic data.” The technological capability exists to create exploratory scenarios using past landscape conditions to inform alternative futures in software applications such as SLEUTH, Marxan, and the Landscape Change Modeler Extension. Software such as Fragstats can be utilized in analysis or in a scenario evaluation mode. The landscape planning and design process requires the capability to input stakeholder values concerning existing and future landscape conditions. This software/hardware/data/participation amalgamation is changing the old paradigm of finding an “expert designer” to one that utilizes an “expert process facilitator” whereby stakeholders are empowered throughout the planning process from the initial goal creation stage through plan evaluation. The capability to utilize smart geospatial tools throughout each phase of the landscape planning process coupled with a robust and reliable method of what might be termed a “Geospatial Delphi” framework could prove to be essential for scenario creation. For example, ModelBuilder has been used as a basis for Enhanced Land Evaluation and Site Assessment (ELESA) to address land use suitability and land use conflict in an interactive stakeholder setting. This lightning talk describes some opportunities and constraints of geospatial technology for designers in traditional university courses and service-learning experiences involving stakeholders and community planning challenges through a landscape architecture program.

Ge@Design: A Multimedia Design Studio for Geospatial Collaboration
Roche, Stéphane

The Ge@Design studio is the newest infrastructure of the ‘Département des sciences géomatiques’, Laval University, funded by the Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI). The main aim of the Ge@Design studio is to support research and experimental development of geospatial technologies for GeoDesign, which includes in particular urban design and landscape architecture. The Ge@Design studio consists of the latest technologies of multi-sensory graphical representation and interaction. It is mainly based on the multimedia/multitouch graphical table SURFACE (http://www.microsoft.com/surface/). SURFACE is a 30″ multitouch display (incorporating a computer), horizontally placed to allow a group of users to design, manipulate, interact and share, without keyboard or mouse (with hands), objects and digital content (maps, plans, sketch, 3D models, photos). The Ge@Design studio is also equipped with multitouch and multimedia workstations (MacPro, Dell and HP TouchSmart Hybrid) supporting sedentary uses and, nomadic solutions (multitouch Tablet PC – Dell Latitude XT, Smartphone – Apple iPhone).

The GeoDesign or ‘Geospatial Design’ covers the design activities applied to space in general (especially geographical) as urban design, architectural design or landscape design. GeoDesign could somehow be considered as a specific component of architecture, urban planning and more generally planning. It is particularly characterized by three main dimensions: (1) creative (at the intersection of engineering design and artistic creation), (2) deliberative (following a process of collaboration-oriented consensus building) and, (3) the major role of representations – spatial in particular – (design, creation, manipulation and dissemination of geospatial representations).

The Ge@Design studio is therefore specifically designed to support basic researches and technological developments aiming at designing, developing and testing innovative experimental GeoDesign processes, featuring different actors (designers, citizens, engineers… ), placed in situations of individual or collective works, sedentary or nomadic and, interacting with each other and spatial representations (maps, airborne and satellite images, 3D models …), through multitouch GUIs.

More specifically, the first Ge@Design studio project (funded by NSERC grant) is dedicated to the development and test of new Web 2.0 tools (modules, operators) to expand the current GIS technology. These enhancements will provide more effective responses to the needs of Geodesigners: integrating multiple forms of qualitative spatial reference frameworks, supporting the creative process, managing the fuzzy, ambiguous and uncertain geospatial representations  and the geographical versioning and geo-traceability (WikiGIS way).

Summer Institute on Geographic Information Science: Cognitive and Linguistic Aspects of Geographic Space

In Conferences, Education, GIS, GIScience, Geography, Science, Social Science on December 29, 2009 at 10:09 am

5 – 9 July 2010

“Almost 20 years ago, from July 8 to 20, 1990, 60 researchers gathered for two weeks at Castillo-Palacio Magalia in Las Navas del Marques (Avila Province, Spain) to discuss cognitive and linguistic aspects of geographic space. This meeting was the start of successful research on cognitive issues in geographic information science, produced an edited book , and led to a biannual conference (COSIT), a refereed journal (Spatial Cognition and Computation), and a substantial and still growing research community.

“It appears worthwhile to assess the achievements and to reconsider the research challenges twenty years later. What has changed in the age of computational ontologies and cyber-infrastructures? Consider that 1990 the web was only about to emerge and the very first laptops had just appeared! The 2010 meeting will bring together many of the original participants, but is open to others, and invites contributions from all who are researching these topics. Early-career scientists, engineers, and humanists working at the intersection of cognitive science and geographic information science are invited to help with the re-assessment of research needs and approaches.

“The meeting will compare the research agenda laid out in the 1990 book with achievements over the past twenty years and then turn to the future: what are the challenges today? What are worthwhile goals for basic research? What can be achieved in the next 20 years? What are the lessons learned?

“The meeting will be held again in the Castillo-Palacio Magalia (http://magalia.mcu.es), a historic castle about two hours by train from Madrid, in the hills towards Avila, with a nice climate in summer. The comprehensive services in the Castillo will foster intense contacts and fruitful exchanges among the participants. The meeting will be single track, with a mix of longer and shorter presentations to stimulate discussion.”

Building on Geological Models — The Vision of an Environmental Modelling Platform

In Environmental Science, Geography, Modeling on December 29, 2009 at 10:07 am

…from the 2009 Three-Dimensional Geologic Mapping Workshop held by the Illinois State Geological Survey…

Holger Kessler, Diarmad Campbell, Jon Ford, Jeremy Giles, Andrew Hughes, Ian Jackson, Denis Peach, Simon Price, Hans-Georg Sobisch, Ricky Terrington, and Ben Wood

“Geological Survey Organisations (GSOs) were originally founded to produce an inventory of the earth’s resources to inform governments and support construction and primary industries. Therefore, their initial emphasis was on finding construction material, metalliferous minerals, and hydrocarbons. Throughout the 20th Century, the focus shifted towards aggregates, water, and more recently to environmental concerns such as waste, reuse of post-industrial contaminated land, climate change, and biodiversity.”

Modeling Uncertainty of Moving Objects on Road Networks via Space-time Prisms

In GIScience, Modeling, Spatial Analysis, Temporal Analysis on December 29, 2009 at 8:06 am

International Journal of Geographical Information Science, Volume 23, Issue 9 September 2009 , pages 1095 – 1117

Bart Kuijpers; Walied Othman.

“Moving objects produce trajectories, which are typically observed in a finite sample of time-stamped locations. Between sample points, we are uncertain about the moving objects’s location. When we assume extra information about an object, for instance, a (possibly location-dependent) speed limit, we can use space-time prisms to model the uncertainty of an object’s location.

“Until now, space-time prisms have been studied for unconstrained movement in the 2D plane. In this paper, we study space-time prisms for objects that are constrained to travel on a road network. Movement on a road network can be viewed as essentially one-dimensional. We describe the geometry of a space-time prism on a road network and give an algorithm to compute and visualize space-time prisms. For experiments and illustration, we have implemented this algorithm in MATHEMATICA.

“Furthermore, we study the alibi query, which asks whether two moving objects could have possibly met or not. This comes down to deciding if the chains of space-time prisms produced by these moving objects intersect. We give an efficient algorithm to answer the alibi query for moving objects on a road network. This algorithm also determines where and when two moving objects may have met.”

Estimating Components of Population Change from Census Data for Incongruent Spatial/Temporal Units and Attributes

In GIScience, Social Science, Spatial Analysis, Temporal Analysis on December 29, 2009 at 7:47 am

Journal of Spatial Science, Vol. 54, No. 2

R. G. Cromley, A. Y. Ebenstein, D. M. Hanink

“When calculating the components of population change over time, the spatial units of analysis must remain constant.  However, the boundaries of these units often change from one census to the next.  Another limiting factor is the absence of data values for the time period.  Net migration figures might be available for a five year interval in a census but not for a twenty year interval.  GIS and areal interpolation are used here to rectify boundary changes that occur from one census to the next and shift-share analysis is used to estimate the components of population change from the census data.   These methods are applied to a county level study of population change in China between 1982 and 2000.”

Top Ten Posts of 2009

In Climate Change, ESRI, Environmental Science, GIS, Geography, Modeling, Science, Statistics on December 29, 2009 at 7:42 am

Top ten GISandScience.com posts of 2009 based on number of page views:

  1. Spatial Statistics, Geostatistics, and GIS: Free Training Available
  2. Accuracy of iPhone Locations: A Comparison of Assisted GPS, WiFi, and Cellular Positioning
  3. A Farewell Chat with David Maguire, ESRI’s Chief Scientist
  4. Top Nine Favorite Innovations in ArcGIS
  5. Integrating GIS with Models: A Bibliography
  6. What Would Happen if the Earth Stopped Spinning?
  7. GIS and Climate Change Resources
  8. California Governors’ Global Climate Summit 2: September 30 – October 2, 2009
  9. Agent-Based Modeling and GIS
  10. Aggregated Live Feeds in ArcGIS

NASA Visualization of 2009 Antarctic Ozone Hole

In Climate Change, Earth Systems Science, Environmental Science, Geography, Video, Visualization on December 29, 2009 at 6:30 am

Watch the video

Evaluation of the Self-Organizing Map Classifier for Building Detection from Lidar Data and Multispectral Aerial Images

In GIScience, Imagery on December 28, 2009 at 9:28 am

Journal of Spatial Science, Vol. 54, No. 2

M.  Salah, J. Trinder, A. Shaker

“Integration of aerial images and lidar data compensate for the individual weaknesses of each data set when used alone, thus providing more accurate classification of terrain cover, such as buildings, roads and green areas, and advancing the potential for automation of large scale digital mapping and GIS database compilation. This paper presents work on the development of automatic feature extraction from multispectral aerial images and lidar data. A total of 22 feature attributes have been generated from the aerial image and the lidar data which contribute to the detection of the features. The attributes include those derived from the Grey Level Co-occurrence Matrix (GLCM), Normalized Difference Vegetation Indices (NDVI), and standard deviation of elevations and slope. A Self-Organizing Map (SOM) was used for fusing the aerial image, lidar data and the generated attributes for building detection. The classified images were then processed through a series of image processing techniques to separate the detected buildings. Results show that the proposed method can extract buildings accurately. Compared with a building reference map, 95.5 percent of the buildings were detected with a completeness and correctness of 83 percent and 80 percent respectively for buildings around 100m2 in area; these measures increased to 96 percent and 99 percent respectively for buildings around 1100m2 in area. Further, the contributions of lidar and the individual attributes to the quality of the classification results were evaluated.”

An Improved Approach for DSM Generation from High-Resolution Satellite Imagery

In GIScience, Imagery on December 28, 2009 at 8:44 am

Journal of Spatial Science, Vol. 54, No. 2

C. Zhang, C. S. Fraser

“This paper develops an improved approach to digital surface model (DSM) generation from high-resolution satellite imagery (HRSI).  The approach centres upon an image matching strategy that integrates feature point, grid point and edge matching algorithms within a coarse-to-fine hierarchical process. The starting point is a knowledge of precise sensor orientation, achieved in this case through bias-compensated rational polynomial coefficients (RPCs), and the DSM is sequentially constructed through a combination of the matching results for feature and grid points, and edges at different image pyramid levels. The approach is designed to produce precise, reliable and very dense DSMs which preserve information on surface discontinuities. Following a brief introduction to sensor orientation modelling, the integrated image matching algorithms and DSM generation stages are described. The proposed approach is then experimentally tested through the generation of a DSM covering the Hobart area from a stereo pair of IKONOS Geo images. The accuracy of the resulting surface model is assessed using both ground checkpoints and a lidar DSM, with the results indicating that for favourable imagery and land cover, a heighting accuracy of 2 – 4 pixels can be readily achieved. This result validates the feasibility of the developed approach for DSM production from HRSI.”

Mike Steiner Named 2009 Outstanding Earth Science Teacher by National Association of Geoscience Teachers

In Education, Environmental Science, GIS on December 28, 2009 at 8:37 am

…from The Chetek Alert…

“Mike Steiner, a science teacher in Chetek, was named a 2009 Outstanding Earth Science Teacher by National Association of Geoscience Teachers.

“Steiner started a water quality testing program and, with the help of a social studies teacher, expanded the effort to involve students in GPS and GIS mapping and landscape analysis.”

Post-doctoral Research Associate, Faculty of Physical Sciences, Geographical & Earth Sciences, University of Glasgow

In Education, Environmental Science, GIS, Geography, Modeling on December 28, 2009 at 8:33 am

“We seek a post-doctoral researcher with experience in limnological biogeochemical research to join the Department of Geographical and Earth Sciences’ Earth Surface Dynamics research group. This position is working with Dr. Susan Waldron, Prof. Michael Bird (University of St. Andrews) and Amazonica colleagues, in applying field, laboratory and GIS modelling methods to quantify carbon effluxes from freshwater systems in the Amazon basin.

“Due to the nature of this project and its location please read the job description fully to make sure it is appropriate for you.

“This post has funding until 11.01.2013

“Further information or informal enquiries can be made to Dr. Susan Waldron (Susan.Waldron@ges.gla.ac.uk), Department of Geographical and Earth Sciences, University of Glasgow, G12 8QQ.

“Apply online at www.glasgow.ac.uk/jobs

“If you are unable to apply online please contact us on 0141 330 3898 for an application pack.

“Closing Date: 29 January 2010″

Summer Institute on Geographic Information Science: Interfacing Social and Environmental Modeling

In Education, Environmental Science, GIS, GIScience, Modeling, Science, Social Science on December 28, 2009 at 7:42 am

13 to 19 June 2010

Facilitators: Gilberto Camara, Henk Scholten

The week will be organized around two main topics:

  1. Development of nature-society models using cellular automata and agents
  2. Mobile GIS and natural disasters modelling and response coordination

Topic (1) will be based on the current work at INPE. It will start with a discussion on how to do social and environmental modelling using cellular automata. Then, participants will develop simple models using the open source TerraME software (www.terrame.org). This will lead to an informed discussion on how such models can be enhanced using agent-based modelling. Topic (2) will be addressed with a mix of talks and hands-on work, based on leading edge industry developments using mobile technologies to interface environmental and social models.

“Eyes in the Sky II” Helps Grade 9 to 12 Science Teachers Become Proficient in Using NASA Data and Geospatial Analysis Tools

In Education, GIS, Science on December 28, 2009 at 7:21 am

Eyes in the Sky II is a long-term professional development program that prepares high school science teachers to use NASA data and visualizations along with other geospatial information technologies. Throughout the program, teachers and students investigate both global and local environmental issues. The program includes four parts:

  1. A 12-week online Web course, consisting of three 4-week modules
  2. A 7-day face-to-face summer workshop held onsite at a NASA research center
  3. One year of classroom implementation, ending with a virtual student showcase
  4. An ambassador program for providing professional development for other teachers in participants’ schools or districts.

Grade 9 to 12 science teachers will benefit from this program. Through participating, teachers will:

  • Become proficient using NASA data and geospatial analysis tools
  • Receive a $1000 stipend for completing the online course and the 7-day summer workshop
  • Receive an additional $1000 stipend as compensation for delivering professional development as an Eyes in the Sky II Ambassador
  • Equip their students with geospatial technology skills that are in increasing demand in the workplace
  • Obtain optional graduate credit through Northern Arizona University.

For more information about the Eyes in the Sky II program, including the online application visit http://serc.carleton.edu/eyesinthesky2/index.html. Applications are due by January 15, 2010. We expect this will be a popular program. As there are a limited number of openings available, first consideration will be given to early applicants. If you have further questions, please contact Carla McAuliffe (Carla_McAuliffe@xxxxxxxx) or Erin Bardar (Erin_Bardar@xxxxxxxx).

Scientists Map Speed of Climate Change

In Climate Change, Environmental Science, Geography on December 28, 2009 at 7:14 am

…from LabSpaces.net…

“From beetles to barnacles, pikas to pine warblers, many species are already on the move in response to shifting climate regimes. But how fast will they—and their habitats—have to move to keep pace with global climate change over the next century? In a new study, a team of scientists including Dr. Healy Hamilton from the California Academy of Sciences have calculated that on average, ecosystems will need to shift about 0.42 kilometers per year (about a quarter mile per year) to keep pace with changing temperatures across the globe. Mountainous habitats will be able to move more slowly, since a modest move up or down slope can result in a large change in temperature. However, flatter ecosystems, such as flooded grasslands, mangroves, and deserts, will need to move much more rapidly to stay in their comfort zone—sometimes more than a kilometer per year. The team, which also included scientists from the Carnegie Institute of Science, Climate Central, and U.C. Berkeley, will publish their results in the December 24 issue of Nature. “

Video: Is Climate Change Good or Bad for Innovation?

In Climate Change, Video on December 28, 2009 at 7:02 am

Healthcare Access, Socioeconomic Factors and Late-stage Cancer Diagnosis: An Exploratory Spatial Analysis and Public Policy Implication

In Social Science, Spatial Analysis on December 28, 2009 at 6:57 am

International Journal of Public Policy, 2010 – Vol. 5, No.2/3 pp. 237 – 258

Fahui Wang, Lan Luo, Sara McLafferty

“Patients diagnosed with late-stage cancer have lower survival rates than those with early-stage cancer. This paper examines possible associations between several risk factors and late-stage diagnosis for four types of cancer in Illinois: breast cancer, prostate cancer, colorectal cancer, and lung cancer. Potential risk factors are composed of spatial factors and nonspatial factors. The spatial factors include accessibility to primary healthcare and distance or travel time to the nearest cancer screening facility. A set of demographic and socioeconomic variables are consolidated into three nonspatial factors by factor analysis. The Bayesian model with convolution priors is utilised to analyse the relationship between the above risk factors and each type of late-stage cancer while controlling for spatial autocorrelation. The results for breast cancer suggest that people living in neighbourhoods with socioeconomic disadvantages and cultural barriers are more likely to be diagnosed at a late stage. In regard to prostate cancer, people in regions with low socioeconomic status are also more likely to be diagnosed at a late stage. Diagnosis of late-stage colorectal or lung cancer is not significantly associated with any of the abovementioned risk factors. The results have important implications in public policy.”

Development of an Object-based Framework for Classifying and Inventorying Human-dominated Forest Ecosystems

In Environmental Science, Imagery on December 28, 2009 at 6:48 am

International Journal of Remote Sensing, Volume 30, Issue 23 2009 , pages 6343 – 6360

Weiqi Zhou; Austin Troy.

“This paper presents the development of a framework for classifying and inventorying Eastern US forestland based on the level of anthropogenic disturbance and fragmentation using high spatial resolution remote sensing data and a multiscale object-based classification system. We implemented the framework using a suburban area in Baltimore County, Maryland, USA as a case study. We developed a three-level hierarchical scheme of image objects. The object-based, multiscale classification and inventory framework provides an effective and flexible way of showing different mixes of human development and forest cover in a hierarchical fashion for human-dominated forest ecosystems. At the finest scale (level 1), the classification nomenclature describes basic land cover feature types, which are divided up into trees and individual features that fragment forests. The overall accuracy of the classification was 91.25%. At level 2, forest patches were delineated and classified into different categories based on the degree of human disturbance. At level 3, major roads were used to segment the study area into larger objects, which were classified on the basis of relative composition and spatial arrangement of forests and fragmenting features. This study provides decision makers, planners and the public with a new methodological framework that can be used to more precisely classify and inventory forest cover. The comparisons of the estimates of forest cover from our analyses with those from the 2001 National Land Cover Dataset (NLCD) show that aggregated figures of forest cover are misleading and that much of what is mapped as forest is highly degraded and is more suburban than natural in its land use.”

3D Down-Under — What are the Australians up to in 3D Hydrogeology

In Environmental Science, Geography, Science on December 28, 2009 at 6:46 am

….from the 2009 Three-Dimensional Geologic Mapping Workshop held by the Illinois State Geological Survey…

Bruce Gill, Don Cherry, Xiang Cheng, Jon Fawcett, and Mark Reid

“Water shortage is common in much of Australia. With the vast majority of the continent classed as semi arid (an overall average of 455mm rainfall per year) and the tropical north having monsoonal rains and long dry seasons, groundwater provides an essential buffer for many parts of the country. In recent years though, rainfall has been significantly below average, especially across the south east of the continent, which has affected vast areas of Australia’s most important agricultural production region. The Murray Darling Basin, (which occupies 1/7th of the continent) supported average annual consumptive water use of 11,000 GL (to 1997), but last year, had fallen to less than half. This year, heading in to spring, the 22,600 GL of upstream basin storage is sitting at only 23% of capacity.”

Symbolizing the Hillshade for the World Topographic Map

In ESRI, GIS on December 28, 2009 at 6:46 am

…from the ESRI Mapping Center blog…

“One of the things I promised myself that I would do last summer was write about some of the key design solutions used in the World Topographic Base Map. Our symbolization of the hillshade is one of the design characteristics that most distinguishes this map. The design intent was two-fold: 1) show shading similar to how hatchures were used on hand-drawn maps [to see what I mean one of my favorite 18th century maps depicting the Battle of Bunker or properly Breeds Hill is a good example], and 2) display the low slope areas in white because this creates a ”non-competitive” background for data that is mashed up on this base map.”

Stars Above, Earth Below: Astronomy in the National Parks

In Environmental Science, Science on December 27, 2009 at 6:20 pm

Wednesday, 13 January 2010, 5:30 p.m. @ ESRI, Redlands, California

Tyler Nordgren, an astronomer and associate professor of physics at the University of Redlands, will speak about astronomy at our national parks.

Professor Nordgren has been working with astronomers and park rangers to promote astronomy education in the national parks. In 2007, he took a journey across the American landscape, exploring the connections between national parks and the wonders of the night sky. He visited 12 parks in 12 months, from Denali in Alaska to Bryce Canyon in Utah; and wrote about what he discovered on the Planetary Society Web site.

In 2004, Professor Nordgren was part of a team of seven astronomers and artists who converted the Spirit and Opportunity Mars Rover camera calibration targets into functioning sundials and saw them land safely in Gusev Crater and Meridiani Planum.

Admission is free but reservations are required. 

Research Fellow: Geographical Information Systems, London Metropolitan University – Cities Institute

In Education, GIS on December 23, 2009 at 10:07 am

A Research Fellow in GIS Analysis is sought for the Cities Institute – a London-based, world leading centre for research into cities and urban environments (www.citiesinstitute.org).

The postholder will join an inter-disciplinary team undertaking a range of national and international research projects on urban economic, environmental, social, and cultural themes. A good first degree and Masters level training in GIS or related social/environmental science are required and completion of doctoral research is preferred. The post will be expected to demonstrate potential for publication and generating research ideas and research proposals, as well as team working and the provision of GIS technical expertise. Informal enquiries about the post can be made to cities.

Fixed-term: 3 years renewable

Salary: £25,695-£38,469 per annum inclusive

Closing date: 4 January 2010

To apply for the post and for further information, please visit our website at the link below and quote reference number 9A1109FXN.  http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/staff/e-recruitment/

National Science Foundation TeraGrid Workshop on Cyber-GIS, Washington, DC, 02-03 February, 2010

In Conferences, GIS, Modeling, SDI, Science, Spatial Analysis, Visualization on December 23, 2009 at 10:00 am

The NSF Cyber-GIS workshop will take place in conjunction with the 2010 UCGIS Winter Meeting at Doubletree Hotel, Washington, DC. The workshop will focus on the following themes and topics:

  • Complex geospatial systems and simulation of geographic dynamics
  • Computational intensity of spatial analysis and modeling
  • Data-intensive geospatial computation and visualization
  • High-performance, distributed, and/or collaborative GIS
  • Geospatial ontology and semantic web
  • Geospatial middleware, Clouds, and Grids
  • Open source GIS
  • Participatory spatial decision support systems
  • Science drivers for, and applications of Cyber-GIS
  • Spatial data infrastructure

More information

Call for Papers: INSPIRE Conference, Krakow, Poland, 23-25 June 2010

In Conferences, GIS, SDI on December 23, 2009 at 8:22 am

The INSPIRE Conference 2010 will take place from 23 to 25 June 2010 in Krakow, Poland. On 22 June pre-conference workshops will be organized. The theme of this year’s edition is “INSPIRE as a Framework for Cooperation”.

The INSPIRE Conference will be organised through a series of plenary sessions addressing common policy issues, and parallel sessions focusing in particular on applications and implementations of SDIs, research issues and new and evolving technologies and applications and poster presentations.

Participation in the INSPIRE Conference is open to all individuals interested in or working in the field of SDI development and implementation. Abstracts must be received by the deadline will be considered for program placement under the standard review process.

Topics for which contributions are sought include, but are not limited to,

  • INSPIRE Implementation: Legislative measures, coordination and organisational models
  • INSPIRE and the global context: Global Monitoring for Environment and Security, Global Earth Observation System of Systems, United Nations SDI
  • Thematic communities
  • Licensing frameworks
  • GeoPortals and registries
  • Social and economic impacts
  • Education and awareness raising
  • Trans-national SDI projects (including EU (co-)funded projects)
  • New policies, new requirements, new stakeholders
  • New and Evolving tools and technologies

We are particularly interested in accounts of what works, and what does not work, what are perceived benefits for policy, public administration, citizens and the private sector. Proposals will be evaluated by the programme committee and those accepted will be included in the on-line conference proceedings.

Article Selection for a Special Issue of the International Journal of Spatial Data Infrastructure Research (IJSDIR)

A post-conference special edition of the International Journal of Spatial Data Infrastructure Research (IJSDIR) will be published. Full papers can be submitted for peer review to the International Journal of Spatial Data Infrastructures Research (IJSDIR).

The deadline for submission of abstracts is 1 February 2010.

Application of Multiple-point Geostatistics on Modelling Groundwater Flow and Transport in a Cross-bedded Aquifer

In Environmental Science, Modeling, Statistics on December 23, 2009 at 8:16 am

Hydrogeology Journal, 12/2009, Volume 17, Issue 8, pp.1901-1911

Huysmans, Marijke; Dassargues, Alain

“Sedimentological processes often result in complex three-dimensional subsurface heterogeneity of hydrogeological parameter values. Variogram-based stochastic approaches are often not able to describe heterogeneity in such complex geological environments. This work shows how multiple-point geostatistics can be applied in a realistic hydrogeological application to determine the impact of complex geological heterogeneity on groundwater flow and transport. The approach is applied to a real aquifer in Belgium that exhibits a complex sedimentary heterogeneity and anisotropy. A training image is constructed based on geological and hydrogeological field data. Multiple-point statistics are borrowed from this training image to simulate hydrofacies occurrence, while intrafacies permeability variability is simulated using conventional variogram-based geostatistical methods. The simulated hydraulic conductivity realizations are used as input to a groundwater flow and transport model to investigate the effect of small-scale sedimentary heterogeneity on contaminant plume migration. Results show that small-scale sedimentary heterogeneity has a significant effect on contaminant transport in the studied aquifer. The uncertainty on the spatial facies distribution and intrafacies hydraulic conductivity distribution results in a significant uncertainty on the calculated concentration distribution. Comparison with standard variogram-based techniques shows that multiple-point geostatistics allow better reproduction of irregularly shaped low-permeability clay drapes that influence solute transport.”

Cartography and Geographic Information Society (CaGIS) Announces 2010 Scholarship Program

In Education, GIS on December 23, 2009 at 8:03 am

Each year, the Cartography and Geographic Information Society (CaGIS) sponsors two scholarships to students whose research and accomplishments support the mission of CaGIS. The scholarships recognize academic achievement and encourage the continuing success of outstanding cartography, geographic information systems (GIS), and geographic
information science (GIScience) students. The scholarships also recognize achievement or potential for achievement in original research advancing the specific disciplines of cartography or GIScience. Winners are selected based on academic achievement, particularly in the calendar year prior to the award. Applications are reviewed by the CaGIS Scholarship Committee, and awards are announced in February or March. Information on other CaGIS-sponsored awards is available at www.cartogis.org/awards.

Awards
CaGIS Masters Scholarship Award ($500): This award is to be granted to a student enrolled in, or accepted into, a Masters’ degree program during 2009 or 2010. The winner will have demonstrated excellence in cartography or GIScience coursework and the potential to contribute to cartography or GIScience research. Outstanding undergraduates seeking to support Masters’ level research in GIScience are also eligible to apply (see below).

CaGIS Doctoral Scholarship Award ($1000): This award is to be granted to a student enrolled in, or accepted into, a PhD degree program during 2009 or 2010. The winner will have demonstrated excellence in cartography or GIScience coursework and the potential to contribute to cartography or GIScience research.

Winners are invited to present their research at an upcoming CaGIS-sponsored conference (such as AAG, GIScience, or AutoCarto) and may be eligible for limited travel or registration support if they choose to present.

Eligibility
Candidates must be enrolled full-time in a four-year undergraduate or graduate degree program during 2009 or 2010, studying cartography, geographic information science, or a closely related field. A letter of recommendation from a faculty member attesting to these eligibility requirements and to scholarly achievement and potential is required. Membership in CaGIS is not required, though professional and service activities such as participation in CaGIS is one of the selection criteria (see below). Prior scholarship winners are eligible to apply in subsequent years if all appropriate criteria are satisfied. Undergraduate applicants who have not yet been accepted into graduate school should request that their faculty advisor assess their potential for graduate study in their reference letter.

Selection Criteria
Valid applications for CaGIS awards (see below for application procedures) are reviewed by the CaGIS Scholarship Committee, which will use the following criteria to judge applications:

  • 50% academic record;
  • 20% applicant’s statement;
  • 20% letter of recommendation;
  • 10% professional activities (CaGIS membership, conference participation, publications, community service, etc.).

Level of financial need will be considered, if necessary, to break ties, after the primary criteria have been considered. The committee can choose to award no scholarships.

Application Procedure

  • Go to http://www.cartogis.org/awards/ and complete the application form.
  • Compile the following:
    • the completed application form
    • a 400-word statement of educational objectives, future study or research plans and professional activities, and relationship of activities and/or research to mission of CaGIS
    • a digital transcript showing records for 2009
    • one letter of recommendation from a faculty member or supervisor familiar with your work
  • E-mail these documents; see instructions on form. Applications must arrive no later than 5:00pm CST on JANUARY 15, 2010.

Notification of Winners
The selected applicants for the scholarships will be notified on or near February 15, 2010. The winners are encouraged to attend the awards ceremony at the 2010 AAG conference or the 2010 AutoCarto conference (see http://www.cartogis.org/eventspage/ for more information).

GeoDesign Summit: Preliminary Presentation Schedule

In Conferences, Design, ESRI, GIS, Geography on December 23, 2009 at 7:44 am

The world’s first GeoDesign Summit will be held 06-08 January 2010 at ESRI in Redlands, California. The summit will be a gathering of pioneering professionals and academics involved in transforming technology, engineering, and planning in a rapidly changing world.  The presentation schedule below is preliminary and is subject to change.  For more information on the GeoDesign Summit, visit www.GeoDesignSummit.com.

Day 1 (Wednesday, 06 January 2010):

Opening statement by Jack Dangermond

Tom Fisher: What is GeoDesign and Why Its Time has Come

Will Rogers: GeoDesign in Conservation Planning: Stakeholder Driven Geoprocessing through Greenprinting

Mike Goodchild: Spatial by Design: Understanding the Special Role of GIS

Kim Tanzer, Visualizing complex systems: The role the National Academy of Environmental Design in advancing evidence-based design research

Lightning Talks: (view abstracts)

  • Geodesign: Fundamental Principals and Routes Forward
  • Participatory GeoDesign
  • Site Selection for Solar-Electrical Powerplants from a regional level to a Community location using GIS processing – and scetching tools
  • GeoDesign in environmental analysis and planning: an example
  • GeoWeb 2.0
  • 3D Visualizations of Cyber Security Events
  • GeoGames – Board Game Metaphors for GIS
  • Landscape Design with Tangible GIS
  • Lessons learn from geodesign applications by communities and farmers employing GIS and relational databases in landscape planning and management
  • GeoDesign Utilization in a Participatory Land Use Planning Process
  • Ge@Design: a multimedia design studio for geospatial collaboration

Day 2 (Thursday, 07 January 2010):

Carl Steinitz: Complexity, collaboration and scale in geographic design and planning

Ron Stoltz; Karen Hanna: Conceptualizing Geo-Design in the University Curriculum

Chris Overdorf and Grant Jones: Private Stewardship Networks: GIS Tools that Promote Conservation Corridors

Lightning Talks: (view abstracts)

  • Geospatial Campaign Design for COIN Civil Affairs
  • Real-time, sketch-based GIS database updates to support crisis command and mobile resource deployment.
  • Object-Oriented Diagrams in Geo-Design
  • Practical Considerations for Integrating BIM and GIS
  • Building Interior Space Optimization and GIS/RDBMS Space Management tools
  • Site Engineering Design – Live start to finish using ArcPad
  • Using GIS to Facilitate the Design of a Sustainable City
  • Building high fidelity 3D landscapes in a design charrette setting with participants using GIS, CityScape, and Augmented Reality
  • Open Exchange for Semantically Rich City Models

Make a Difference Outside your own Backyard

In Modeling on December 23, 2009 at 7:15 am

….from the 2009 Three-Dimensional Geologic Mapping Workshop held by the Illinois State Geological Survey…

Ian Jackson

“In this paper “outside your own backyard” is going to be used in two ways. The first refers to geoscience modellers making a difference within our own, geoscience, community. The second way relates to the need for modellers to improve their interactions with the wider world. The paper largely pertains to the work of geological surveys, with which I am most familiar, but some of the points will have relevance beyond.”

Use of Remote Sensing Coupled with a Vegetation Change Tracker Model to Assess Rates of Forest Change and Fragmentation in Mississippi, USA

In Environmental Science, Imagery, Modeling on December 23, 2009 at 7:14 am

International Journal of Remote Sensing, Volume 30, Issue 24 2009 , pages 6559 – 6574

Mingshi Li;  Chengquan Huang;  Zhiliang Zhu;  Weisong Wen;  Da. Xu; Anxing Liu.

“Mapping forest disturbance history is essential for assessing forest fragmentation conditions and the effectiveness of management approaches, and it is crucial for the understanding of terrestrial and atmospheric carbon flux. In this study, our analysis maps and characterizes the wall-to-wall forest change patterns in Mississippi over the time period 1987-2005, by interpreting 132 Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) or Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) scenes using a vegetation change tracker (VCT) model. Our analysis revealed that a gradual decelerating forest fragmentation during the time period 1987-1993 gave way to an accelerating fragmentation during the period 1994-2005. This unique trend in forest fragmentation was a consequence of forest logging, regeneration practices and natural disturbance regimes. In addition, for the most part of the 1990s and between 2000 and 2005, Mississippi lost about 2% of its forest on an annual basis, but many of the losses were offset by forest regeneration from previous disturbances. Forest spatial change information derived from this analysis has provided valuable insights regarding regional forest management practices and socioeconomic impacts, which will be beneficial for land managers to develop ecologically sustainable forest management strategies and biodiversity conservation practices.”

Evaluating the Effects of Land-use Development Policies on Ex-urban Forest Cover: An Integrated Agent-based GIS Approach

In Environmental Science, GIS, GIScience on December 23, 2009 at 7:03 am

International Journal of Geographical Information Science, Volume 23, Issue 9 September 2009 , pages 1211 – 1232

D. T. Robinson; D. G. Brown.

“We use a GIS-based agent-based model (ABM), named dynamic ecological exurban development (DEED), with spatial data in hypothetical scenarios to evaluate the individual and interacting effects of lot-size zoning and municipal land-acquisition strategies on possible forest-cover outcomes in Scio Township, a municipality in Southeastern Michigan. Agent types, characteristics, behavioural methods, and landscape perceptions (i.e. landscape aesthetics) are empirically informed using survey data, spatial analyses, and a USDA methodology for mapping landscape aesthetic quality. Results from our scenario experiments computationally verified literature that show large lot-size zoning policies lead to greater sprawl, and large lot-size zoning policies can lead to increased forest cover, although we found this effect to be small relative to municipal land acquisition. The return on land acquisition for forest conservation was strongly affected by the location strategy used to select parcels for conservation. Furthermore, the location strategy for forest conservation land acquisition was more effective at increasing aggregate forest levels than the independent zoning policies, the quantity of area acquired for forest conservation, and any combination of the two. The results using an integrated GIS and ABM framework for evaluating land-use development policies on forest cover provide additional insight into how these types of policies may act out over time and what aspects of the policies were more influential towards the goal of maximising forest cover.”

Symbolizing Trees in ArcGIS: Assigning Each Species a Different Symbol

In ESRI, GIS on December 23, 2009 at 7:02 am

…from the ESRI Mapping Center blog…

“Tree symbols are a great way to enhance the appearance of a large scale, detailed map. To make attractive point symbols for trees, you need a good place to start from and thankfully all of us ArcGIS users have that. Using multi-layer character marker symbols, the variety of tree symbols you can create is endless. This blog is meant to introduce (or reintroduce) you to the ESRI US Forestry 2 font. It is also meant to give you some tips for creating a variety of tree symbols to use on your maps.

“The most important part of the process to understand is the Symbol Property Editor and the capabilities/functionalities that are available to you in this dialog. If you aren’t familiar with the Symbol Property Editor dialog, a good starting point to learn more about it is a previous Mapping Center blog post: Customizing Multi-Layer Symbols.”

Grand Teton National Park: Biologists Use GIS to Model Pika Habitat

In Climate Change, Environmental Science, GIS, Modeling on December 22, 2009 at 10:17 am

In response to a growing body of evidence indicating that climate change is slowly and persistently affecting the ecology of plant and animal species on a global scale, Grand Teton National Park biologists – in collaboration with Yellowstone NP and Teton Science Schools – began a survey this past summer to develop baseline data on the local population of American pika (Ochotona princeps).

Pikas reside at high elevations (one of few mammal species to so) and although they are found throughout the Teton Range, little is known about their habitat requirements, distribution, and historic or current range.

Recent scientific studies suggest that the American pika, a small lagomorph found in subalpine and alpine talus slopes, can be used as an indicator species for evaluating the effects of climate change in western North America because of its sensitivity to temperature fluctuations.

In a study conducted in Nevada’s Great Basin by Eric Beever, ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, 7 out of 25 pika populations were lost in the 55-86 years since their last recorded presence. Researchers also found that pika populations shifted upward an average elevation of 500 feet in Yosemite National Park; a fact that suggests pikas may eventually reach an elevation limit in their response to increasing temperatures. In addition, habitat models recently developed by April Craighead, with Craighead Environmental Research Institute, and Scott Loarie, with the Carnegie Institute, predict that pikas may disappear from over 80% of their current range by the turn of the century. The majority of this disappearance is expected to occur in the pikas’ lower elevation range where temperatures may exceed thresholds for their survival.

Evidence linking changes in pika numbers and their distribution to a warming climate prompted the Center for Biological Diversity to petition the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2007 to list pikas under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). While a decision has not yet been issued on this petition, if listed, the American pika will become the first mammal species outside of Alaska to be protected under the ESA due to climate change threats.

Using geographic information system (GIS), Grand Teton biologists modeled suitable pika habitat located between Rendezvous Mountain and Paintbrush Canyon based on characteristics derived from published literature and related studies. Suitable habitat was defined as talus slopes less than 35 degrees in angle and no more than 400 meters from an established or “social” trail. Biologists selected 250 random locations to serve as established points for the survey. At each point, technicians assessed the area for habitat suitability and proceeded to locate physical evidence (scat, hay piles) as well as visual and/or vocal activity. Investigators then made population estimates in each plot and placed small sensors at ten survey sites that measure temperature several times a day. The sensors will be left in the field for one year, after which time they will be collected and the temperature data downloaded. Preliminary results from this year’s survey indicate that, within Grand Teton, observers found evidence of pika occupancy in or surrounding 47 of 49 plots, which ranged from 2000-3500 meters in elevation.

Grand Teton’s pika monitoring surveys were relatively simple and cost effective to implement. Based on this initial project, there is growing interest among Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem land management agencies in expanding surveys to include national forest areas, and other locations across the ecosystem.

This project serves as a critical first step in documenting where pika populations exist and ultimately will help biologists understand how those populations may change under different climate scenarios. Information from this project will be used to evaluate the health of Grand Teton’s pika population and comes at a time when pikas throughout the western United States are predicted to disappear in the near future due to climate change.

[Source: NPS press release]

Mapping the Plastic Problem

In ESRI, Environmental Science, GIS on December 22, 2009 at 9:06 am

…from V1 Magazine…

“The growing amount of plastic debris in the world’s oceans and waterways has many scientists and anti pollution activists very concerned. The Great Pacific Garbage patch, a gyre in the Pacific Ocean that is capturing plastic debris and is growing in size has provided a rallying cry for activists that is gaining momentum. Drew Stephens, the founder of the GIS Institute, has long been involved in the application of GIS for conservation, and that work has led to his participation on the Think Beyond Plastic expedition in California that recently took place. V1 editor Matt Ball spoke with Stephens about the purpose and outcome of this trip as well as the benefits of applying more geospatial analysis to this problem.”

Progress in 3D Geological Mapping in the Eastern Prairies of Canada and the USA

In Geography, Modeling, Video on December 22, 2009 at 7:26 am

…from the 2009 Three-Dimensional Geologic Mapping Workshop held by the Illinois State Geological Survey…

Greg Keller, Gaywood Matile, and Harvey Thorleifson

“Increasing demand for groundwater and hydrocarbons have been the two main drivers for 3D mapping in Manitoba. In order to satisfy these demands, and to broaden our knowledge of the subsurface, the Manitoba Geological Survey has been working toward a provincial 3D model by developing regional and detailed models, as well as protocols and methodologies for model construction. Early in 2000, after years of data compilation, the first of Manitoba’s 3D models was built. This hydrostratigraphic model, built with funding from the National Geoscience Mapping Program (NATMAP), covered the 200 km by 230 km Winnipeg area of southeastern Manitoba. Subsequently, Paula Kennedy of the University of Manitoba completed a groundwater-flow model based upon this data, proving its feasibility for groundwater modeling (Kennedy and Woodbury, 2005). The model has since been extended northward to include the Lake Winnipeg basin and is currently being extended westward to complete all of the southern Manitoba Phanerozoic terrane south of 55° North Latitude. The southwest Manitoba model will include bedrock units derived from the recently completed Williston Basin architecture and hydrocarbon potential project 3D model which was funded by the federal (Canada) Targeted Geoscience Initiative (TGI). This cooperative model was created using high quality drill data from both Manitoba and Saskatchewan. A regional scale model was recently created using data from the Atlas of the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin (WCSB) (Mossop and Shetsen, 1994). It was built using digitized structure contours, and covers Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. Future modeling will include further cooperation with both Minnesota and North Dakota in order to produce the Red River Valley 3D geological model. This model will connect the existing Manitoba models with the 3D geological model of groundwater-bearing strata in the Fargo-Moorhead region. Early in 2009, the first step was taken toward this end by creating a cross-border seamless Quaternary map covering the study area. Finally, a new project on the hydrocarbon potential of the Hudson Bay and Foxe basins has been initiated. This project is part of the new Geological Survey of Canada northern Geoscience of Energy and Minerals program (GEM). One of the planned products is a 3D model of the Hudson Bay Lowland (HBL) area of northern Manitoba.”

Lineament Mapping in a Tropical Environment using Landsat Imagery

In Environmental Science, Imagery on December 22, 2009 at 7:25 am

International Journal of Remote Sensing, Volume 30, Issue 23 2009 , pages 6277 – 6300

M. F. Ramli;  N. K. Tripathi;  N. Yusof;  H. Z. M. Shafri; Z. Ali Rahman.

“Remote sensing has proved to be a useful tool in lineament identification and mapping. This study demonstrates the use of multispectral Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) and Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM +) satellite data obtained over two acquisition dates in 1990 and 2002 for lineament interpretation in a Malaysian tropical environment. A digital elevation model (DEM) was generated to improve the interpretation. We found that most of the major orientations in the field station could be successfully detected from the remotely sensed imagery. The results from the study show that the remote sensing technique is capable of extracting lineament trends in an inaccessible tropical forest.”

  • More information

A New Methodology for Measuring Coastline Recession using Buffering and Non-linear Least Squares Estimation

In Environmental Science, GIScience, Spatial Analysis, Statistics on December 22, 2009 at 7:21 am

International Journal of Geographical Information Science, Volume 23, Issue 9 September 2009 , pages 1165 – 1177

Joon Heo;  Jung Hwan Kim; Jin Woo Kim.

“Coastline recession is one of the best indicators of coastal erosion. Three methods for computing coastline recession – the baseline approach, the dynamic segmentation approach and the area-based approach – have been used, each of which has one or more drawbacks. To overcome these problems, a new methodology for measuring coastline recession is proposed, using buffering and non-linear least squares estimation. The proposed method was compared with the three existing methods with respect to two simulated cases and two real coastlines. Test results confirmed that the new method is more reliable than the three other methods, all of which are susceptible to variability of recession, scale, number of line segments, length of coastlines and direction of the baseline. The proposed method, incorporating two physically meaningful values – magnitude and variability of coastline recession according to the mean and standard deviation of coastline offsets, respectively – presents itself as an effective alternative method of assessing coastline recession.”

Symbolizing Trees in ArcGIS: Randomly Varying the Tree Symbol Size

In ESRI, GIS, Geography on December 22, 2009 at 7:13 am

…from the ESRI Mapping Center blog…

“On large scale maps, you will often see that the symbols used to represent trees are all one size. As we know from our own real-world experience, tree crowns (i.e., the tops of trees formed by their leaves and branches) are different sizes, so a more realistic representation would be to vary the tree symbol size slightly to account for this natural variation.

“Although we know that the height, trunk diameter, and crown diameter all vary depending on the amount of sunlight and water a tree gets, what age it is, and where it is planted (to name a few variables), what if none of this information is available to create variation in your tree symbols? What can you do in ArcMap to at least show cartographically varying crown sizes for your symbolized trees? This blog entry describes a method to symbolize trees using point symbols that give the impression of varied tree crown sizes.”

Spatial Analysis and Modeling to Assess and Map Current Vulnerability to Extreme Weather Events in the Grijalva–Usumacinta Watershed, México

In Climate Change, Modeling, Spatial Analysis on December 22, 2009 at 7:12 am

2009 IOP Conf. Ser.: Earth Environ. Sci. 8 012021

D López L

“One of the major concerns over a potential change in climate is that it will cause an increase in extreme weather events. In Mexico, the exposure factors as well as the vulnerability to the extreme weather events have increased during the last three or four decades. In this study spatial analysis and modeling were used to assess and map settlement and crop systems vulnerability to extreme weather events in the Grijalva – Usumacinta watershed. Sensitivity and coping adaptive capacity maps were constructed using decision models; these maps were then combined to produce vulnerability maps. The most vulnerable area in terms of both settlement and crop systems is the highlands, where the sensitivity is high and the adaptive capacity is low. In lowlands, despite the very high sensitivity, the higher adaptive capacity produces only moderate vulnerability. I conclude that spatial analysis and modeling are powerful tools to assess and map vulnerability. These preliminary results can guide the formulation of adaptation policies to an increasing risk of extreme weather events.”

Researchers with Rickshaws Transform Madagascar Lab

In Education, Environmental Science, GIS, Science on December 21, 2009 at 3:07 pm

…from Greenbang.com…

“Biology students in Madagascar whose laboratory once had no furniture — much less internet access — now have access to laptops, GPS receivers and other equipment that will let them monitor and conserve the environment with satellite technology.

“The equipment and training came from scientists at the University of Bath who helped transform a previously empty room at the University of Toliara into a Geographical Information Science (GIS) lab.”

Call for Papers: Spatial Analysis of Past Built Environments, Berlin, Germany, 01-02 April 2010

In Conferences, Social Science, Spatial Analysis on December 21, 2009 at 9:16 am

Interdisciplinary and International Workshop on Spatial Analysis in Past Built Environments

This two-day workshop aims to promote discussion between a range of researchers in the disciplines of history/archaeology, urbanism, architecture, and computer science who have an interest in the spatial analysis of the built environment, and especially of historic and prehistoric spaces.

A number of very interesting speakers will be participating, including:

  • Prof. Bill Hillier (keynote speaker-The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London)
  • Dr David Wheatley (University of Southampton)
  • Dr Graeme Earl (University of Southampton)
  • Hannah Stoeger (University of Leiden)
  • Prof. John Bintliff (University of Leiden)
  • Dr. Akkelies van Nes (Delft university of Technology)
  • Piraye Haciguzeller (Université catholique de Louvain)
  • Dr Quentin Letesson (Université catholique de Louvain)
  • Ulrich Thaler (German Archaeological Institute Athens)
  • Dr. Eleftheria Paliou (Topoi Excellence Cluster)

If you are interested in participating send your abstracts (30min for presentation +questions) to epaliou@zedat.fu-berlin.de by the 20th of January 2010.

2010 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, Honolulu, Hawaii, 25-30 July 2010

In Conferences, Imagery on December 21, 2009 at 8:48 am

“On behalf of the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society and the IGARSS 2010 Organizing Committee, we are pleased to invite you to Honolulu for IGARSS 2010. We are thrilled to be returning to Hawaii to host IGARSS on its 30th anniversary! In the true spirit of an international event, we will continue our tradition of gathering world-class scientists, engineers, and educators engaged in the fields of geosciences and remote sensing from around the world. We anticipate well over one thousand participants to enjoy a week of technical sessions, tutorials, exhibits and social activities.

“For this 30th anniversary IGARSS we will celebrate our accomplishments over three decades of leadership in remote sensing instrumentation, techniques, and applications development. But perhaps more importantly we will look ahead to the future of our field with some fresh approaches and perspectives through our conference theme: Remote Sensing: Global Vision for Local Action. One such activity will be embodied in our plenary session, which will focus on the emerging field of Community Remote Sensing. We hope this plenary session, along with special tutorials and technical sessions, will inspire and excite our community for what is possible in the coming decade. We look forward to seeing you in Honolulu in July 2010!”

Visualization of Republic of Letters: GIS Technology Helps Stanford Scholars “See the Enlightenment”

In GIS on December 21, 2009 at 8:33 am

“Historians and other humanities scholars are increasingly seeking to develop and use visualization tools, methods, and theories for making sense of patterns in large sets of heterogeneous historical data with multiple dimensions. For example, the Electronic Enlightenment database of over 55,000 letters and documents exchanged between 6,400 correspondents in the Republic of Letters presents a typical challenge confronting the emerging field of digital humanities. How can humanities scholars trained in close reading of individual documents make sense of patterns in large sets of data?

“The new challenges posed by an exponentially growing corpus of online historical data also present an opportunity for collaborations with computer scientists interested in data visualization, interpretation, and human-computer interaction. Computer scientists are deeply interested in how users interact with visualization tools to explore, explain, and engage with data to create meaning. We engaged in an iterative, collaborative effort that brought together historians, computer scientists, and an academic technology specialist to design data visualizations to represent the intellectual network of the Republic of Letters.”

Mathematical Relationships among Map Scale, Raster Data Resolution, and Map Display Resolution

In ESRI, GIS, GIScience on December 21, 2009 at 8:14 am

…from the ESRI Mapping Center blog…

“If you have used any raster data to make maps you may have at one time or another asked yourself, “What is the appropriate resolution of raster data for the map I am making?” This question is tied closely to a basic principle of map compilation that you may have learned in your beginning cartography course: “Always compile your map from source materials of the same or larger map scales”. In our age of digital elevation models and other raster datasets, this basic principle of map compilation can be restated as: “Always create your raster map from data at the same or higher spatial resolution than the ground resolution of your map display grid cells”. The ground resolution of your map display grid cells will depend on the scale of your map. …”

A New Method for Spatial and Temporal Analysis of Risk in Water Resources Management

In Environmental Science, Spatial Analysis, Temporal Analysis on December 21, 2009 at 8:11 am

Journal of Hydroinformatics Vol 11 No 3–4 pp 320–329

Slobodan P. Simonovic

“Uncertainty in water resources management is in part about variability and in part about ambiguity. Both are associated with lack of clarity because of the behavior of all system components, lack of data, lack of detail, lack of structure to consider the water resources management problems, working and framing assumptions being used to consider the problems, known and unknown sources of bias, and ignorance about how much effort it is worth expending to clarify the management situation. The two major sources of variability are temporal and spatial heterogeneity. Temporal variability occurs when values fluctuate with time. Other values which are affected by spatial variability are dependent upon location of an area. A major part of the water resources management risk confusion relates to an inadequate distinction between the objective risk (real, physical) and subjective (perceived) risk. Because of the confusion between the two concepts, many characteristics of subjective risk are believed to be valid also for objective risk. The main objective of this paper is to initiate a discussion of the possible methodology for the reliability analysis of water resources systems that will be capable of: (a) addressing water resources uncertainty caused by variability and ambiguity, (b) integrating objective and subjective risk and (c) assisting the water resources management based on better understanding of temporal and spatial variability of risk.”

USGS: Earthquake Early Warning System Possible

In Environmental Science, Science on December 21, 2009 at 6:54 am

An earthquake early warning system for California is feasible in coming years, according to research presented Dec. 14-15 at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.

The ongoing study demonstrates that an earthquake early warning system for California is possible and lays out how such a system could be built.

Earthquake early warning systems, already successfully deployed in Mexico, Japan and Taiwan, can detect an earthquake in progress and provide notice of seconds to tens of seconds prior to actual ground shaking. Building on developments in other countries with significant earthquake risk, scientists are exploring early warning in the United States.

After a three-year earthquake early warning study funded by the U.S. Geological Survey was completed in August 2009, a second USGS-funded project was launched to integrate the previously tested methods into a single prototype warning system. When completed, this pilot system, called the California Integrated Seismic Network (CISN) ShakeAlert System, will provide warning to a small group of test users, including emergency response groups, utilities, and transportation agencies. While in the testing phase, the system will not provide public alerts.

The CISN ShakeAlert system will detect strong shaking at an earthquake’s epicenter and transmit alerts ahead of the damaging earthquake waves. The speed of an electronic warning message is faster than the speed of earthquake waves traveling through the earth. Potential applications include stopping elevators at the nearest floor, slowing or halting trains, monitoring critical systems, and alerting people to move to safer locations. In warning systems deployed abroad, alerts are distributed via TV and radio networks, the Internet, cell phones and pagers.

The earthquake early warning test uses real-time data from the California Integrated Seismic Network. The CISN is part of the USGS Advanced National Seismic System, through which the USGS aims to broadly improve earthquake monitoring and reporting in the United States. Funding for the CISN is provided by the USGS and the state of California.

The EEW study is a collaboration among the USGS, the California Institute of Technology, the University of California-Berkeley, the Swiss Seismological Service and the Southern California Earthquake Center.

[Source: USGS press release]

In the next two years American Recovery and Reinvestment Act stimulus funding will be used to upgrade many of the older, slower seismic instruments throughout the CISN. These older instruments introduce time delays and would slow down early warning alerts.

Estimating Aboveground Biomass of Grassland Having a High Canopy Cover: An Exploratory Analysis of In Situ Hyperspectral Data

In Environmental Science, Imagery on December 21, 2009 at 6:53 am

International Journal of Remote Sensing, Volume 30, Issue 24 2009 , pages 6497 – 6517

Jin Chen;  Song Gu;  Miaogen Shen;  Yanhong Tang; Bunkei Matsushita.

“To improve the estimation of aboveground biomass of grassland having a high canopy cover based on remotely sensed data, we measured in situ hyperspectral reflectance and the aboveground green biomass of 42 quadrats in an alpine meadow ecosystem on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. We examined the relationship between aboveground green biomass and the spectral features of original reflectance, first-order derivative reflectance (FDR), and band-depth indices by partial least squares (PLS) regression, as well as the relationship between the aboveground biomass and narrow-band vegetation indices by linear and nonlinear regression analyses. The major findings are as follows. (1) The effective portions of spectra for estimating aboveground biomass of a high-cover meadow were within the red-edge and near infrared (NIR) regions. (2) The band-depth ratio (BDR) feature, using NIR region bands (760-950 nm) in combination with the red-edge bands, yields the best predictive accuracy (RMSE = 40.0 g m-2) for estimating biomass among all the spectral features used as independent variables in the partial least squares regression method. (3) The ratio vegetation index (RVI2) and the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI2) proposed by Mutanga and Skidmore (Mutanga, O. and Skidmore, A.K., 2004a, Narrow band vegetation indices solve the saturation problem in biomass estimation. International Journal of Remote Sensing, 25, pp. 1-6) are better correlated to the aboveground biomass than other VIs (R2 = 0.27 for NDVI2 and 0.26 for RVI2), while RDVI, TVI and MTV1 predicted biomass with higher accuracy (RMSE = 37.2 g m-2, 39.9 g m-2 and 39.8 g m-2, respectively). Although all of the models developed in this study are probably acceptable, the models developed in this study still have low accuracy, indicating the urgent need for further efforts.”

Online Access, Visualization, and Analysis of Canadian Groundwater Data

In Environmental Science, Geography, Visualization on December 21, 2009 at 6:51 am

…from the 2009 Three-Dimensional Geologic Mapping Workshop held by the Illinois State Geological Survey…

David Sharpe, Boyan Brodaric, Eric Boisvert, Charles Logan, and Hazen A.J. Russell

“Online access to Canadian groundwater information is being realized through the groundwater information network (GIN). GIN is an evolving collaboration of six provincial agencies, several conservation authorities, along with a federal facilitating agency. Groundwater information is provided via Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC)-compliant Web services (WMS, WFS) and Groundwater Markup Language (GWML). The exposed data reside in custodial provincial databases and they are combined dynamically into a seamless virtual database using the Web services and GWML.

“GIN can serve a range of client applicationsthat are able to utilize WMS/WFS data sources. Two Web-based portals have been developed and will shortly be made available to a wide range of users. The first is a data access portal that allows comprehensive discovery, viewing, and download of water well data from GIN. The second is an analysis portal that allows for 2-D and 3-D map interrogation, visualization, and statistical reporting of user selected data. It also provides a number of features previously available only in sophisticated Geographic Information Systems (GIS). These features include: location searching, summary statistics, thematic mapping, time-series analysis, and the graphic display of well logs (e.g., water levels, materials, and well construction) that can be manipulated and analyzed in a 3-D perspective view.

“Standardized data fields (e.g., well log lithologic codes) allow for ease and more consistent analysis of aquiferaquitard structure, water level, and other trends (e.g., gradients) that traverse provincial boundaries. Wider use of the data via GIN is revealing issues related to data content, structure, and systems as well as groundwater data completeness, consistency, and location accuracy.”

A Comparative Analysis of DEM-based Models to Estimate the Solar Radiation in Mountainous Terrain

In Environmental Science, GIScience, Modeling on December 21, 2009 at 6:50 am

International Journal of Geographical Information Science, Volume 23, Issue 8 August 2009 , pages 1049 – 1076

J. A. Ruiz-Arias;  J. Tovar-Pescador;  D. Pozo-Vaacutezquez; H. Alsamamra.

“Daily solar radiation estimates of four up-to-date solar radiation models (Solar Analyst, r.sun, SRAD and Solei-32), based on a digital elevation model (DEM), have been evaluated and compared in a Mediterranean environment characterized by a complex topography. The models’ estimates were evaluated against 40 days of radiometric data collected in 14 stations. Analyzed sky conditions ranged from completely overcast conditions to clear skies. Additionally, the role of the spatial resolution of the DEM has been evaluated through the use of two different resolutions: 20 and 100 m. Results showed that, under clear-sky conditions, the daily solar radiation variability in the study area may be reasonably estimated with mean bias errors under 10% and root mean square error values of around 15%. On the other hand, results proved that the reliability of the estimates substantially decreases under overcast conditions for some of the solar radiation models. Regarding the role of the DEM spatial resolution, results suggested that the reliability of the estimates for complex topography areas under clear-sky conditions improves using a higher spatial resolution.”

Quote of the Day

In Climate Change, GIS, Quotes on December 21, 2009 at 6:48 am

“The debate over cli­mate change has been long, heated and often trou­bled by dif­fer­ent view­points. Geospa­tial tech­nolo­gies and tools cut through the thick fog of alter­nat­ing views and bring real data and results to the fore­front.”

–Jeff Thurston

Quote of the Day

In Geography, Quotes on December 18, 2009 at 9:02 am

“Maps are 100% content.”

–Edward Tufte

New California Tsunami Inundation Maps Released

In Environmental Science, GIS, Geography on December 18, 2009 at 8:55 am

On Thursday, December 17, 2009, representatives from the California Emergency Management Agency (Cal EMA), the California Geological Survey (CGS) and other state, federal, and local government officials participated in a press event to launch the newly updated California Tsunami Inundation Maps. Held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, CA, and coinciding with the American Geophysical Union Conference, this media event provided all contributors opportunity to discuss the value of such maps in the area of emergency preparedness, and the value of the partnership between these agencies and Tsunami Research Center at the University of Southern California, which also contributed to producing the maps.

“California’s coast is subject to tsunamis from both local offshore earthquakes and underwater landslides, and distant sources, such as the 1964 Alaskan quake that spawned a deadly tsunami in Crescent City – it’s important to educate the public, and prepare them for the very real possibility of a tsunami emergency” said Cal EMA Secretary Matthew Bettenhausen.

This collaborative group, known as the California Tsunami Program, works closely with local government emergency planners to provide assistance and guidance to help prepare communities for the next tsunami. For more than two years specialist have been developing and modeling offshore earthquake and submarine landslide scenarios in order to identify the potential tsunami inundation for each coastal community.

“These maps show the maximum inland inundation as a product of the 40 different tsunami scenarios we looked at for California,” states Rick Wilson from CGS who was the state scientific lead on the project.

The resulting 130 maps, which are based on the most up-to-date methodologies, cover vulnerable areas along the California coast, about 50% of the state’s 840 mile-long coastline. These maps also encompass approximately 90% of the coast from Santa Barbara to the Mexico border, and 100% of the San Francisco Bay Area, the first time the state has developed tsunami inundation maps inside the Bay.

Funded through the National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program, the state program has worked with county and city emergency managers to help incorporate these tsunami inundation maps into their emergency response plans. The finalized maps are now available to the public through the Cal EMA and CGS websites.

[Source: California Emergency Management Agency press release]

Rainfall Variability and Trends in Semi-arid Botswana: Implications for Climate Change Adaptation Policy

In Climate Change, Environmental Science, Geography on December 18, 2009 at 8:45 am

Applied Geography, 2009.10.007

Nnyaladzi Batisani and Brent Yarnal.

“Rainfall variability is an important feature of semi-arid climates, and climate change is likely to increase that variability in many of these regions. An understanding of rainfall variability and trends in that variability is needed to help vulnerable dryland agriculturalists and policymakers address current climate variation and future climate change. The goals of this paper are to examine this climatic phenomenon in semi-arid Botswana, to investigate these results for signs of climate change, and to explore the policy implications for climate adaptation. To reach these goals, the paper determines rainfall variability and monthly and annual trends in that variability. The results agree with earlier work showing gradients in rainfall and rainfall variability across Botswana. The results also identify a trend towards decreased rainfall throughout the nation, which is associated with decreases in the number of rainy days. Both the drying trend and decrease in rainy days agree with climate change projections for southern Africa. The paper discusses policies that the government could adopt to help its farmers adapt to climate change.”

Call for Papers: The Spatial Dimensions of Health

In Conferences, GIS, Social Science on December 18, 2009 at 8:34 am

Abstracts are invited for a session at the annual conference of the the Royal Geographical Society – Institute of British Geographers in 2010 on the Spatial Dimensions of Health. The session is jointly sponsored by the Quantitative Methods Research Group (QMRG) as well as the Health geography research group (HGRG) of the RGS.

There is little doubt that geography and health are linked. Whether geography is considered in terms of the ‘geographies’ of individuals; communities and neighbourhoods; services and resources; or diseases- the linkage persists. In light of this, Gatrell and Elliot (2009) state ‘the subject of “health” is a rich source of material that bears study by the geographer’ (p.3). The importance of such study is highlighted by the steadfast presence of spatial disparities in health and healthcare nationally. The intention of this session is to bring together research on the spatial dimensions of health, for the purpose of highlighting ongoing and nascent challenges within the diverse spectrum of health and health geography. The session organisers invite proposals for papers that present empirical contributions within the spatial dimensions of health, ideally with focus on the UK. We welcome proposals that explore:

  • The spatial dimensions of health inequalities and health behaviours
  • Place, community and neighbourhood health and healthcare
  • Spatial methods for developing health statistics
  • Web 2.0 and health mapping

More information

Strategies for Real-time Spatial Analysis using Massively Parallel SIMD Computers: An Application to Urban Traffic Flow Analysis

In GIS, Spatial Analysis on December 18, 2009 at 8:00 am

International Journal of Geographical Information Science, Volume 10, Issue 6 September 1996 , pages 769 – 789

Demin Xiong; Duane F. Marble.

“The current research focuses upon the development of a methodology for undertaking real-time spatial analysis in a supercomputing environment, specifically using massively parallel SIMD computers. Several approaches that can be used to explore the parallelization characteristics of spatial problems are introduced. Within the focus of a methodology directed toward spatial data parallelism, strategies based on both location-based data decomposition and object-based data decomposition are proposed and a programming logic for spatial operations at local, neighborhood and global levels is also recommended. An empirical study of real-time traffic flow analysis shows the utility of the suggested approach for a complex, spatial analysis situation. The empirical example demonstrates that the proposed methodology, especially when combined with appropriate programming strategies, is preferable in situations where critical, real-time, spatial analysis computations are required. The implementation of this example in a parallel environment also points out some interesting theoretical questions with respect to the theoretical basis underlying the analysis of large networks.”

Mapping Urban Areas on a Global Scale: Which of the Eight Maps Now Available is More Accurate?

In Geography, Imagery on December 18, 2009 at 7:35 am

International Journal of Remote Sensing, Volume 30, Issue 24 2009 , pages 6531 – 6558

David Potere;  Annemarie Schneider;  Shlomo Angel; Daniel L. Civco.

“Eight groups from government and academia have created 10 global maps that offer a ca 2000 portrait of land in urban use. Our initial investigation found that their estimates of the total amount of urban land differ by as much as an order of magnitude (0.27-3.52 times106 km2). Since it is not possible for these heterogeneous maps to all represent urban areas accurately, we undertake the first global accuracy assessment of these maps using a two-tiered approach that draws on a stratified random sample of 10 000 high-resolution Google Earth validation sites and 140 medium-resolution Landsat-based city maps. Employing a wide range of accuracy measures at different spatial scales, we conclude that the new MODIS 500 m resolution global urban map has the highest accuracy, followed by a thresholded version of the Global Impervious Surface Area map based on the Night-time Lights and LandScan datasets.”

Association of American Geographers’ “Geography, Climate Change, and the Copenhagen Negotiations” Blog

In Climate Change, Geography on December 18, 2009 at 7:25 am

Check out the Association of American Geographers’ “Geography, Climate Change, and the Copenhagen Negotiations” blog, where AAG representatives Mike Urban, Mark Cowell, and M. Anwar Sounny-Slitine share their observations on the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Three-Dimensional Property Modeling of a Complex Fluvio-Deltaic Environment: Rhine-Meuse of Delta, The Netherlands

In Environmental Science, Modeling on December 18, 2009 at 7:16 am

…from the 2009 Three-Dimensional Geologic Mapping Workshop held by the Illinois State Geological Survey…

Jan Stafleu, Freek S. Busschers, Denise Maljers, and Jan L. Gunnink

“The Geological Survey of the Netherlands aims at building a 3D geological property model of the upper 50 meters of the Dutch subsurface. This 3D model provides a basis for answering subsurface related questions on, amongst others, groundwater extraction and infrastructural issues. modeling is carried out per province using a digital coredatabase containing several hundreds of thousands of core-descriptions and a context of geological maps created during the last few decades. Following the completion of a model of the province of Zeeland (Stafleu et al., 2008), modeling focussed on the province of Zuid-Holland where major cities like Rotterdam and The Hague are situated, and the Rivers Rhine and Meuse enter the North Sea. The area is characterised by a thick Holocene coastal wedge that is underlain by a stack of Pleistocene (sandy) units. The Holocene sequence is the main focus of our paper.”

USGS: New Science Estimates Carbon Storage Potential of U.S. Lands

In Climate Change, Science on December 18, 2009 at 7:15 am

Nation’s Forests and Soils Store Equivalent of 50 Years of U.S. CO2 Emissions

The first phase of a groundbreaking national assessment estimates that U.S. forests and soils could remove additional quantities of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere as a means to mitigate climate change.

The lower 48 states in the U.S. hypothetically have the potential to store an additional 3-7 billion metric tons of carbon in forests, if agricultural lands were to be used for planting forests. This potential is equivalent to 2 to 4 years of America’s current CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels.

“Carbon pollution is putting our world—and our way of life—in peril,” said Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar in a keynote speech at the global conference on climate change in Copenhagen, Denmark. “By restoring ecosystems and protecting certain areas from development, the U.S. can store more carbon in ways that enhance our stewardship of land and natural resources while reducing our contribution to global warming.”

U.S. Geological Survey scientists also found that the conterminous U.S. presently stores 73 billion metric tons of carbon in soils and 17 billion metric tons in forests. This is equivalent to more than 50 years of America’s current CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels. This shows the need to protect existing carbon stores to prevent additional warming and future harm to ecosystems.

America’s forests and soils are currently insufficient in soaking up the nation’s accelerating pace of emissions. They currently absorb about 30 percent (0.5 billion metric tons of carbon) of the nation’s fossil fuel emissions per year (1.6 billion metric tons of carbon). Enhancing the carbon storage capacity of America’s and the world’s ecosystems is an important tool to reduce carbon emissions and help ecosystems adapt to changing climate conditions.

“The tools the USGS is developing—and the technologies behind those tools—will be of great use to communities around the world that are making management decisions on carbon storage,” said USGS Director Marcia McNutt. “The USGS is conducting a national assessment of biologic carbon sequestration, as well as an assessment of ecosystem carbon and greenhouse gas fluxes, which will help determine how we can reduce atmospheric CO2 levels while preserving other ecological functions.”

To determine how much more carbon could be stored in forests and soils, USGS scientists analyzed maps that represent historical vegetation cover before human alterations, as well as maps of vegetation that might occur if there were no natural disturbances, such as fires, pests and drought. These maps were compared to maps of current vegetation and carbon storage.

The next phase of this work will assess the additional amount of carbon stored in Alaska’s ecosystems, including its soils and forests. The USGS plans to collaborate with U.S. Department of Agriculture and other agencies to examine potential carbon storage in soils.

The USGS is conducting research on a number of other fronts related to carbon sequestration. These efforts include evaluating the potential for storing carbon dioxide in geologic formations below the Earth’s surface, potential release of greenhouse gases from Arctic soils and permafrost, and mapping the distribution of rocks suitable for potential mineral sequestration efforts.

For more information about this assessment, visit http://pubs.usgs.gov/ofr/2009/1283.

[Source: USGS press release]

USGS: New Discoveries Could Improve Climate Projections

In Climate Change, Modeling on December 17, 2009 at 10:05 am

New discoveries about the deep ocean’s temperature variability and circulation system could help improve projections of future climate conditions.

The deep ocean is affected more by surface warming than previously thought, and this understanding allows for more accurate predictions of factors such as sea level rise and ice volume changes.

High ocean surface temperatures have also been found to result in a more vigorous deep ocean circulation system. This increase results in a faster transport of large quantities of warm water, with possible impacts including reduction of sea ice extent and overall warming of the Arctic.

“The deep ocean is relatively unexplored, and we need a true understanding of its many complex processes,” said U.S. Geological Survey Director Marcia McNutt. “An understanding of climate change and its impacts based on sound, objective data is a keystone to the type of long-term strategies and solutions that are being discussed now at the United Nations conference in Copenhagen.”

USGS scientists created the first ever 3-D reconstruction of an ocean during a past warm period, focusing on the mid-Pliocene warm period 3.3 to 3 million years ago.

“Our findings are significant because they improve our previous understanding that the deep ocean stayed at relatively constant, cold temperatures and that the deep ocean circulation system would slow down as surface temperatures increased,” said USGS scientist Harry Dowsett. “By looking at conditions in the past, we acquire real data that allow us to see the global climate system as it actually functioned.”

“The average temperature of the entire ocean during the mid-Pliocene was approximately one degree warmer than current conditions, showing that warming wasn’t just at the surface but occurred at all depths” said USGS scientist Marci Robinson. “Temperatures were determined by analyzing marine plankton fossils, which are organisms that inhabited the water’s surface, as well as fossils of bottom-dwelling organisms, known as ostracodes.”

Global average surface temperatures during the mid-Pliocene were about 3°C (5.5°F) greater than today and within the range projected for the 21st century by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Therefore it may be one of the closest analogs in helping to understand Earth’s current and future conditions. USGS research on the mid-Pliocene is also the most comprehensive global reconstruction for any warm period.

Read the full article, published in Climate of the Past.

The USGS led this research through the Pliocene Research, Interpretation and Synoptic Mapping group. The primary collaborators in PRISM are Columbia University, Brown University, University of Leeds, University of Bristol, the British Geological Survey and the British Antarctic Survey. Learn more about PRISM research.

[Source: USGS press release]

Visualizing U.S. Bank Failures, 2008-2009

In Geography, Video, Visualization on December 17, 2009 at 9:13 am

Visualizing Bank Failures ( 2008-2009 ) from Computational Legal Studies on Vimeo.

Geospatial Working Group Formed at the University of Kentucky

In Education, GIS on December 17, 2009 at 9:07 am

“Geospatial science and technologies (GST) have important applications in many areas of natural and social sciences, engineering, management, business, and health sciences. A formerly loosely organized group of UK faculty and staff using GST in research and practical applications recently decided to become a more formal working group under the auspices of the Tracy Farmer Institute for Sustainability and the Environment. The Geospatial Working Group (GWG) was formed October 14 by a unanimous vote of the informal geospatial group members.

“The working group will further develop the University of Kentucky’s GST infrastructure as related to teaching, research, and applications of geospatial science and technology including geographical information systems (GIS), remote sensing, global positioning systems (GPS), spatial information technology, and mapping sciences. The GWG includes representatives from the University of Kentucky Colleges of Arts and Sciences, Agriculture, Engineering, Public Health, and Health Sciences, as well as the University Libraries, Kentucky Geological Survey, and UK Facilities Management. The group also includes representatives from several Kentucky state agencies and private companies.”

GIS Specialist, Health Geomatics Laboratory, Dalhousie University

In Education, GIS, Geography, Social Science, Statistics on December 17, 2009 at 9:05 am

“We seek a full-time GIS Specialist to support ongoing requirements of the Health Geomatics Laboratory and the Elizabeth May Chair office in the Faculty of Science at Dalhousie University. The GIS Specialist will work on a variety of health geomatics research projects, develop web-based mapping products, and assist with the administration and coordination of research and outreach activities. The successful candidate will join an interdisciplinary research team with expertise in environmental science, epidemiology, health geography, GIS, GPS, and spatial statistics.”

Quote of the Day

In Quotes on December 17, 2009 at 8:41 am

“There is no such thing as information overload, only bad design.”

–Edward Tufte

FAO Urges Banana Disease Mapping

In Environmental Science, GIS on December 17, 2009 at 8:34 am

…from SciDev.net…

“The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has called for a global map of banana and plantain diseases to stem crop damage to the crops that could reach US$4 billion by next year.”

3D Structure Modeling at the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR), Germany

In Environmental Science, GIS, Modeling on December 17, 2009 at 8:31 am

…from the 2009 Three-Dimensional Geologic Mapping Workshop held by the Illinois State Geological Survey…

Birget Willscher, Rolf Rüdiger Ludwig, and Bettina Kühn

“The Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR) is a geoscientific institute which provides neutral and independent advice and information about geoscientific and natural resource issues to the federal government of Germany and to German industry and research institutions. This includes technical cooperation with developing countries, international geoscientific cooperation, and geoscientific research. BGR is a subordinate agency of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi).

“The 2D presentation and evaluation of geological/hydrogeological data will always show just a small slice of a complex situation. Therefore, we regard 3D structure models as standard. 3D modeling is a necessary tool to guarantee spatial consistency for geological/hydrogeological information. Our team is working predominantly on hydrogeological 3D structure modeling.”

GSDI12 World Conference in Singapore, 19-22 October 2010

In Conferences, SDI on December 17, 2009 at 8:28 am

The Singapore Land Authority and Global Spatial Data Infrastructure Association are co-organising the GSDI12 World Conference in Singapore from 19-22 October 2010.  No further details are available at this time, but more information will be coming soon at www.gsdi.org.

Carnegie Mellon Researchers Help Lead Global Team To Improve Predictions About Air Quality and Climate

In Climate Change, Environmental Science, Modeling on December 17, 2009 at 8:25 am

Carnegie Mellon University’s Neil Donahue and Allen Robinson are working with a team of more than 60 scientists, including researchers from the University of Colorado and the NOAA’s Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Science, to develop a more holistic approach to improving climate and air quality prediction models. Donahue and Robinson are co-authors of a study that appears in the Dec. 11 issue of the journal Science.

Donahue, head of Carnegie Mellon’s Center for Atmospheric Particle Studies (CAPS), created a chemical map that provides some of the first clear images of how organic aerosols change once they become part of the atmosphere, while Robinson led an experimental team demonstrating those changes for aerosols emitted from diesel engines and wood fires.

“The atmosphere acts like Dan Aykroyd’s Bass-O-Matic. It makes similar looking goop almost no matter what you start with; could be diesel soot, could be wood smoke, could be molecules emitted by trees. Once the atmosphere is done, it all looks the same,” said Donahue, an atmospheric chemist.

“The blurring of the emissions of different sources is potentially a very important simplification, which is key to improving air quality and climate models,” said Robinson, an engineer whose research focuses on the sources of atmospheric aerosols.

“Atmospheric processing alters the effects of aerosols on climate and human health. It appears to greatly simplify the effect of the aerosols from different sources on cloud formation and rainfall,” Robinson said.

Donahue reports that his map tracks two key properties — volatility (the tendency to evaporate) and the oxygen to carbon ratio — that evolve as particles make their way through the atmosphere. “This ratio is important because it is an indicator of how much the organic matter is gaining oxygen and building up on particles floating in the air. The chemical roadmap also can help people predict the ability of the particles to participate in cloud formation,” Donahue said.

For more than a decade, Carnegie Mellon researchers have been working to pinpoint the sources and effects of harmful atmospheric particles. Better known as PM2.5, these tiny, almost invisible particles can be breathed more easily into the lungs than larger dust particles and can have adverse effects on human health.

“Pittsburgh suffers from high PM levels, due to a combination of high regional background levels and local emissions, many of them organic,” Robinson said. “This new map will help us understand how and when these two sources interact to create local pollutant hot spots.”

“This new collaborative effort will take a lot of mystery out of how and where these airborne particles go and how they impact both humans and our climate,” said Donahue, whose work focuses on chemical production and transformation of particles in the atmosphere.

The research was funded with grants from the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The research team included scientists from more than 30 institutes and international collaborators from England, Switzerland, China, Japan, Mexico, Germany, Sweden and Finland.

[Source: Carnegie Mellon press release]

Cash for Clunkers: A Dynamic Map of the Cash Allowance Rebate Systems (CARS)

In Geography, Video, Visualization on December 16, 2009 at 3:17 pm

Cash for Clunkers: A Dynamic Map of the Car Allowance Rebate Systems (CARS) from Computational Legal Studies on Vimeo.

Spatial Statistics: New Online Workshop Series from NITLE

In Education, GIS, Social Science, Statistics on December 16, 2009 at 2:32 pm

“Responding to requests from NITLE participants, we are pioneering an online program for spatial statistics training led by Dr. Bill Huber, founder of Quantitative Decisions and regular contributor to our GIS community forum. This program builds on our experience facilitating virtual collaborations, topical discussion, and conferences in offering a media-rich environment where participants can meet and together, study the fine points and techniques of statistical analysis using GIS.

“Meeting weekly for five consecutive weeks in early 2010, participants will learn about:

  • Principles, pitfalls, and fallacies of spatial statistics
  • Exploratory spatial data analysis
  • Data description and prediction
  • Hypothesis testing and simulation”

More information

Do Geologic Mapping Programs in the U.S. as Presently Constituted Meet Pressing Societal Needs?

In Geography on December 16, 2009 at 1:18 pm

…from the 2009 Three-Dimensional Geologic Mapping Workshop held by the Illinois State Geological Survey…

E. Donald McKay III

“Is geological mapping in the U.S. being done in the places and using approaches that produce appropriate, timely, geologic information to meet the Nation’s most pressing needs? If not, we must refine our methods and accelerate our timetable to make the needed products more relevant and available.

“Ongoing federally funded geologic mapping in the United States is producing maps of good quality. Mapping advisory committees at the state level help direct projects into areas where need is significant. Mapping programs are chronically underfunded. Where more conventional geologic mapping is needed, more money would help address map production shortfalls immediately. But, funding is only part of the problem. There are places where conventional maps and conventional approaches to geologic mapping fall short of meeting societal needs. There, the content of a conventional geologic map is simply insufficient to capture the salient geologic features needed to support decisions regarding pressing societal issues. In those locations and situations, mapping methods need to be refined, approaches adjusted, and products tailored to meet the needs of society.”

GIS Aids Study of Alternative Energy Potential in Singapore

In Climate Change, Environmental Science, GIS on December 16, 2009 at 1:06 pm

…from WILD Singapore News…

“Tropical Marine Science Institute (TMSI) research fellow Durairaju Kumaran Raju said a geographic information system (GIS) software was used to store and analyse various sources of data such as geographical and natural physical information fed into it.

“The maps produced by the GIS software allowed researchers to spot regions with high or low potential for developing sources of renewable energy, for example, geothermal power.

“This knowledge will allow investors to put their money in the right places.”

Space Agencies Join Forces to Systematically Observe Climate Variables

In Climate Change, Science on December 16, 2009 at 12:48 pm

Over 30 000 people from 190 nations are gathered at the two-week UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. On Thursday about 150 distinguished guests attended an ESA-hosted side event entitled ‘Global Monitoring of our Climate: the Essential Climate Variables’.

During the event, speakers from various agencies highlighted the role that Earth observation satellites play in providing systematic global climate observations. These observations are essential for climate change research and for managing mitigation and adaptation strategies.

The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has long recognised the need for global observations of climate variables in order to quantify the state of our climate. Within ESA’s Climate Change Initiative a set of long-term global records of essential climate variables will be provided using space technology.

These data are required by the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) – an organisation in the framework of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) – to support the UNFCCC and the International Panel on Climate Change.

Opening the side event, Dr Stephen Briggs, ESA’s Head of Earth Observation Science, Applications and Future Technologies Department, explained how ESA is responding to the needs of UNFCCC with its new Climate Change Initiative.

“ESA has developed the Climate Change Initiative to generate, preserve and give access to long-term data sets of the essential climate variables and make them freely available to climate research and modelling communities worldwide,” Briggs said.

The initiative will build on the availability of Europe’s global data sets and on data delivered by a network of other space agencies. It will also guarantee the provision of space-based information for the future, in a form readily usable by scientific communities and government bodies.

Data from ESA satellites going back three decades, combined with data from new missions, will be used to produce information on a wide range of climate variables such as greenhouse-gas concentrations, sea-ice extent and thickness, and sea-surface temperature and height.

The Climate Change Initiative will implement all actions necessary to generate essential climate variables, including long-term data preservation, periodic reprocessing of the long-term climate archive, recalibration, algorithm development, product generation and validation, and quality assessment of climate records in the context of climate models.

These activities will be implemented by ESA, in partnership with key users (GCOS, UNFCCC), space agencies, relevant players in the field of climate change research and monitoring (EC, WMO, NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), EUMETSAT and national programmes).

At the event, Gilberto Camara, Director of the Brazilian Institute for Space Research (INPE) and CEOS Chair, described how space agencies are supporting climate observations in areas like greenhouse-gas and forest monitoring.

“Operational monitoring of climate using Earth observation is essential. This cannot be done alone. Therefore, there is a need for space agencies to coordinate and work together,” Camara said. “Earth observation is the area that has increased the most in terms of budgets in the last few years and will increase more in the years to come. The ‘data democracy’ needs to reach the masses.”

Carolin Richter, Director of GCOS Secretariat, also underscored the need for getting data to developing countries, saying she would like to see the objective for the free exchange of data achieved.

ESA’s Head of the Earth Observation Projects Section, Olivier Arino, presented the Agency’s fleet of Earth-observing satellites, including the Earth Explorers and Sentinels, and explained how data from these can contribute to studies on the global carbon cycle, sea-level height and temperatures and sea ice. He also demonstrated how satellites are being used for fire and ocean-colour monitoring.

Chairing the event, Briggs was on hand to recount ESA’s activities on monitoring forests, which were developed as part of the GMES (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security) services. The Forest Monitoring project was initiated to help establish a mechanism for measuring deforestation. A reliable procedure for validated, verified monitoring of forests, based on satellite data, will be needed to underpin any political agreement on schemes such as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) under the UNFCCC.

Under REDD, countries that are willing and able to reduce emissions from deforestation would be financially compensated for doing so. Previous approaches to curb global deforestation have so far been unsuccessful, however, REDD provides a new framework to allow deforesting countries to break this historical trend.

European Environmental Agency Director Jacqueline McGlade spoke at the event about the impacts of climate change, giving the need to monitor the speed at which glaciers are changing as an example. “Political decision-makers count money; we will make them count water, clean air and forests. It is very important to have updated observations and long-term continuity of data. Climate change impact is a reality. Space tells us a great deal and being on the ground tells us even more. The combination of the two is essential.”

[Source: European Space Agency news release]

Traditional Knowledge Meets GIS in Climate Change Battle

In Climate Change, GIS, Social Science on December 16, 2009 at 12:45 pm

…from IPS News…

“Marilyn Wallace, a land conservation coordinator from New Queensland, Australia and a member of the Kuku Nyungkal clan, said she and her band were given a new beginning after being granted autonomy over their homelands. She urged the official delegates to take the time to “stop, look, listen and learn”.

“Wallace and 14 other forest rangers manage their homelands in collaboration with Australian resource officials. The team is in the process of conducting a biological inventory of their range, incorporating traditional knowledge with cutting edge GIS digital mapping systems.

“”We are preserving the wisdom of the elders with modern technology,” she said, a reminder that native people are not just victims of climate change but key players in the protection and preservation of ecosystems.”

2010 O’Reilly Where 2.0 Conference: 30 March to 01 April 2010, San Jose, California

In Conferences, GIS, Geography on December 16, 2009 at 12:37 pm

“Now in its sixth year, the Where 2.0 conference is where developers tip base and building location technology intersect with the companies and entrepreneurs seeking location applications, platforms and hardware to gain a competitive advantage. In the O’Reilly conference tradition, Where 2.0 presents leading trends rather than persecute them.

“If 2.0, you will find tools to map the source, reality mining, open standards for data and tracking Web services, and sensors for location information. Let’s learn how the established geo industry is reacting to the first companies to make money from their geo-spatial based projects. There is no better place to meet the people behind mashups, the people behind the platforms, and the people of the future of geospatial. Join us in case of 2.0 to debate and discuss what is achievable now and what is lurking below the radar. Where 2.0 2010 includes a full day of workshops followed by two days of plenary sessions with a unique combination of high-level speeches with great players, lightning talks, panel discussions, demonstrations, product launches, Q & A time, and much more . The most innovative and interesting people in this area appear on the stage, and stay around to debate and discuss with other conference attendees off stage.”

Forest Carbon Management: New GIS Best Practices e-Book from ESRI

In Books, Climate Change, ESRI, Environmental Science, GIS on December 16, 2009 at 8:53 am

“Allowing earth’s forests to thrive and do their job of carbon sequestration is essential to reducing the threat of climate change. Technology offers hope to the greenhouse phenomenon caused by industrial society. One such technology is ESRI’s ArcGIS, which offers scientists, decision makers, and policy implementers a critical tool for obtaining information they need to heal our planet. GIS allows temporal climate data to be visualized, contrasted, and forecasted. Use ArcGIS to study current land use, land-use change, and what-if scenarios for responsible planning.”

“Geospatial Abduction”: Fighting IED Attacks with Technology

In GIS, Social Science on December 16, 2009 at 8:36 am

…from Science Codex…

“University of Maryland researchers have developed and successfully tested new computer software and computational techniques to analyze patterns of improvised explosive device (IED) attacks in Iraq, Afghanistan or other locations and predict the locations of weapons caches that are used by insurgents to support those attacks.

“University of Maryland computer science Ph.D. student Paulo Shakarian and computer science Professor V.S. Subrahmanian, together with University of Torino (Italy) computer science Professor Maria-Luisa Sapino developed a new computational technique called geospatial abduction designed to help analysts locate caches of explosive weapons. Their resulting software, called SCARE (Spatio-Cultural Abductive Reasoning Engine) allows human analysts to combine available intelligence with this analytical computational technique to identify the most probable locations of IED weapons caches. The researchers say tests conducted with the SCARE software have been quite accurate.”

National Council for Science and the Environment Releases “The Climate Solutions Consensus”

In Books, Climate Change, Environmental Science, Science on December 16, 2009 at 8:13 am

With the world’s eyes focused on the climate talks in Copenhagen, the US National Council for Science and the Environment (NCSE) announces publication of its first  book.  The Climate Solutions Consensus, written by David Blockstein and Leo Wiegman, describes in non-technical language what we know about climate change, and the solution paths available today for climate mitigation and adaptation.  It presents 39 reasons why we need to act now to control climate change.

Most importantly, the NCSE book describes ways that we can work together now to foster solutions. The book proposes 35 climate actions for immediate consideration, many of which are on the table in Copenhagen this month.

The NCSE National Conference on Science, Policy and the Environment, in 2008 brought together more than 1,300 research and policy experts around the topic of Climate Change: Science and Solutions. The ideas, research, and policy options presented and discussed at that conference served as the starting point for this book. The recommendations developed in breakout discussions around topics such as agriculture, buildings, coastal and urban management, education, energy, forestry, health, human population and international partnerships form the basis for the 35 climate actions.

The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA) announced yesterday atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide reached record highs of 385 parts per million at the end of 208. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO), announced this week that the years 2000-2009 is thus far the warmest decade on record.

The Climate Solutions Consensus: What We Know and What To Do About It places these trends into perspective for the average citizen and offers practical and game-changing pathways available to business, government, and citizens.  It is published by Island Press, the leading non-profit publisher of environmental books.

The book’s package offers special features designed to help teachers of climate policy courses or citizens involved in developing local climate action plans. The NCSE and authors have prepared an extensive website on NCSE’s content rich Encyclopedia of Earth. The web site www.eoearth.org/article/Climate_Solutions_Consensus offers extra discussions not available in the print version, including illustrations and figures. In addition, every bibliographic reference in the book is accompanied by a hyperlink to the original source from the book’s website.  This should help readers follow the latest research and policy developments.

Visit http://NCSEonline.org/ClimateSolutions/ for links to the extra content, the Climate Change: Science and Solutions conference website (including videos of presentations by John Holdren, now President Obama’s science advisor, Mohan Munasinghe (IPCC Vice Chair), James E. Rogers, (Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Duke Energy Corporation), Sarah James, (Alaskan Gwitch’in Steering Committee and Goldman Environmental prize-winner), Bill McKibben (350.org), Abigail Kimbell, (then Chief, US Forest Service), Congressman Jay Inslee (Washington), scientists Stephen Schneider, Bob Corell, Tom Lovejoy and many others, recommendations for action, climate education resources and much more.

The website http://NCSEonline.org/ClimateSolutions/ also contains a link to the Island Press website where you can order the book. NCSE and Island Press are pleased to offer a 25% discount off the listed price of $30 paper and $60 hard cover. Use the code 25source on your order form to receive the discount.  Customers in Europe and the Middle East should contact info@oppuk.co.uk to order the book.

The National Council for Science and the Environment (NCSE) is a national non-partisan organization with a mission to improve the scientific basis for environmental decisionmaking.

NSF Awards SDSC, Arizona State University $1.7 Million for National OpenTopography LiDAR Facility

In GIS, Imagery, Science on December 16, 2009 at 7:32 am

The San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at UC San Diego and Arizona State University have been awarded a $1.7 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to operate  an internet-based national data facility for high-resolution topographic data acquired with LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) technology.  The facility will also provide online processing tools and act as a community repository for information, software and training materials.

The three-year project, which includes a grant of $1.4 million to SDSC and $300,000 to the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University, will be based on SDSC’s OpenTopography portal, which will be scaled up to a national facility to make topography data available in multiple formats. This includes “raw” LiDAR point cloud data, standard LiDAR-derived digital elevation models, and easily accessible Google Earth products to better serve LiDAR users at various levels of expertise.

OpenTopography currently hosts and distributes a limited number of data sets acquired with funding from the NSF, NASA, and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). It is the product of the NSF-funded GEON (GeoSciences Network) project that has developed cyberinfrastructure for the integration of three- and four-dimensional earth science data.

“The fundamental goal of this project is to provide centralized access to community earth science LiDAR topography data,” said Christopher Crosby, SDSC’s project manager for the OpenTopography Facility.  “There is wealth of public domain LiDAR data available, but much of it is not yet easily accessible. We intend to leverage available cyberinfrastructure to make these powerful data sets, as well as online processing tools and knowledge resources, accessible to a large and diverse user community.”

[Source: SDSC press release]

Humanitarian Implications of Climate Change: New Maps from CARE International

In Climate Change, GIS on December 16, 2009 at 7:02 am

“Human-induced climate change is modifying patterns of extreme weather, including floods, cyclones and droughts. In many cases, climate change is making these hazards more intense, more frequent, less predictable and/or longer lasting. This magnifies the risk of ‘disasters’ everywhere, but especially in those parts of the world where there are already high levels of human vulnerability.

“This study identifies the most likely humanitarian implications of climate change for the next 20-30 year period. The authors use Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to map specific hazards associated with climate change – specifically: floods, cyclones and droughts – and place them in relation to factors influencing vulnerability. The results identify hotspots of high humanitarian risk under changing climatic conditions.”

New Atlas Presents Ancient Mongolian Art and Archaeology in a Geographic Context

In Books, ESRI, GIS, Social Science on December 15, 2009 at 9:13 pm

Archaeology and Landscape in the Mongolian Altai: An Atlas is a chronicle of 15 years of research and documentation in northwest Mongolia, and it is now available from ESRI Press. With its extensive maps and outstanding photographs, the atlas presents the 12,000-year history and cultural heritage of the people living in the rugged landscape found along Mongolia’s borders with Russia and China. The book will appeal to both specialists and general readers interested in travel, ecotourism, preservation, geography, and ancient human cultures.

“This is the first book-length examination of the archaeology and landscape in the Mongolian Altai in any language,” says Dr. Jalbuu Choinkhor, former Mongolian ambassador to the United States.

Esther Jacobson-Tepfer provides a well-researched survey of the history and culture of this little-known area in Mongolia, while Gary Tepfer, her photographer husband, documents the surface monuments and burial mounds found throughout the region, as well as other natural and human-made features. What differentiates this from other archaeological books, however, are the geographic information system (GIS)-based maps by James Meacham. They provide the precise views and context needed to understand the geographic relationship between various architectural sites, settlements, migratory routes, and places of ceremony and worship.

“When people long ago constructed those monuments,” says Jacobson-Tepfer, “they did so with a conscious sense of the mountain ridges, rivers, directionality, and viewsheds around them, reflecting a deep sense of the significance of natural elements, of a natural order in the world and in the cosmos.”

Archaeology and Landscape in the Mongolian Altai: An Atlas (ISBN: 9781589482326, 225 pages, $79.95) is available at online retailers worldwide, at www.esri.com/esripress, or by calling 1-800-447-9778. Outside the United States, visit www.esri.com/esripressorders for complete ordering options, or contact your local ESRI distributor. For a current distributor list, visit www.esri.com/distributors. Interested retailers can contact ESRI Press book distributor Ingram Publisher Services.

[Source: ESRI Press Release]

ESRI Supports Guyana’s Low-Carbon Development Strategy

In Climate Change, ESRI, GIS on December 15, 2009 at 8:18 pm

GIS Technology for Carbon Accounting and Tropical Forest Management

In an effort to mitigate the effects of climate change, the South American nation of Guyana is developing the world’s first national Low-Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) using enterprise geographic information system (GIS) technology and expertise from ESRI. The environmental technology company will provide Guyana with software for use in national carbon accounting and sustainable management of forests.

In a national announcement, Guyana’s President Bharrat Jagdeo, described the goal of LCDS: “Our low-carbon strategy combats deforestation, a factor contributing to climate change, without slowing down national development or compromising our people’s sovereignty over the forest. The emerging carbon market provides us with a unique opportunity to use the global economy to save the world’s rain forests by putting a value on them.”

ESRI President Jack Dangermond met with President Jagdeo at the Office of Guyana’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations and committed ESRI to support the country’s LCDS initiative.

“ESRI’s commitment brings vital technology for studying the effects of the forest on the planet,” said President Jagdeo. “The combination of GIS software, training, and other capacity-building efforts will provide Guyana with the tools it needs to scientifically measure and analyze our natural resources effectively. With GIS, we can support responsible resource management decisions that benefit generations to follow.”

“ESRI’s support stems from a longtime goal to advance sustainable environments and economies,” noted Dangermond. “GIS has become an integral component in the development of new carbon accounting methodologies. It adds the rigor of science to a decision support system that validates a credible carbon exchange mechanism.”

The government of Norway, the World Bank, the Clinton Climate Initiative, and McKinsey and Company are working with Guyana to implement the LCDS. Norway is one of the key countries backing Guyana’s move to use its forests for carbon financing and payment for forest conservation now. This arrangement allows future innovations, including an eventual forest carbon credit system as such a market evolves. This strategy aligns with the United Nations Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (UN-REDD), a climate change mitigation scheme created to pay developing countries for conserving their tropical forests.

GIS is the core technology of Guyana’s monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) system. Building on work done in country, the MRV will integrate field observations with satellite imagery and other geographic data using methodologies consistent with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) guidelines for measuring, reporting, and verification. Guyana’s MRV will be a system for data sharing and the cross-sector analysis that is essential for effective climate change research, mitigation, and adaptation planning. This enterprise approach enables the transparent disclosure of land-use dynamics and the status of natural resources for Guyana’s citizens, indigenous communities, investors, partners, and the international carbon science community.

ESRI continues to work with countries around the world, such as New Zealand, Australia, Canada, and the United States of America, to design solution models that offer a credible scientific approach to measuring, reporting, and verifying carbon emissions and sequestration. These systems incorporate ESRI’s robust imagery management, integrated workflows, spatial modeling, and analysis capabilities to help countries use reliable data and consider scientific evidence in their decision-making processes.

President Jagdeo intends to present Guyana’s LCDS at the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, this December. Representatives of participating nations will discuss establishing emissions targets for industrialized countries and a method for financing mitigation and adaptation actions by developing countries.

[Source:  ESRI press release]

Contribution of Geophysics to Geological Models

In Geography, Modeling on December 15, 2009 at 8:08 pm

…from the 2009 Three-Dimensional Geologic Mapping Workshop held by the Illinois State Geological Survey…

Helga Wiederhold, Reinhard Kirsch, and Wolfgang Scheer

“The near surface underground of the North European Basin (Belgium, The Netherlands, parts of Germany, Denmark, and Poland) is mainly composed of gravel, sand, till, and clay of Quaternary and Tertiary origin. Although originally more or less horizontally layered, disturbances of the layer sequence by glacial tectonics (especially deep erosional valleys) and uplift of salt domes are frequent (Figure 1). This can lead to complicated underground structures which make the correlation between boreholes difficult or impossible. Therefore, geophysical measurements are an essential tool for the construction of geological models.”

Quote of the Day

In Quotes on December 15, 2009 at 8:08 pm

“We’re going to have a whole generation of people who (won’t) know how to use a map. … I was driving across the Golden Gate Bridge and my GPS said, ‘Take a right turn.’ (I’m thinking:) ‘Why? Have you seen my movies lately?’ “

–Robin Williams

Climate Crisis: Fixing Systems, Not Symptoms

In Climate Change, Environmental Science on December 15, 2009 at 8:07 pm

…from WiserEarth…

“Climate instability is a symptom of systems that can be fixed. So why does everyone keep trying to fix the symptom?

“Year after year, the list of planet-sized problems gets longer and the problems seem to get worse. Climate is just one of many such problems. Weird, isn’t it, that billions of bright people can collectively make such a stupid mess of things? Einstein offered an explanation, that problems can’t be solved with the same kind of thinking that causes them. People have been trying to sort out climate change and poverty and ecosystem destruction and everything else with habits of thought that unintentionally block any effective solution. Oops!”

ESRI President Jack Dangermond Invites Online Discussion on Climate Change at Spatial Roundtable

In Climate Change, ESRI, Environmental Science, GIS on December 10, 2009 at 4:25 pm

Conversation Coincides with COP15 in Copenhagen, Denmark

On December 9, 2009, ESRI president Jack Dangermond opened an online discussion about the value of geographic information systems (GIS) to develop programs for carbon accounting and environmental sustainability. The conversation runs concurrently with the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15) in Copenhagen, Denmark. ESRI’s hosted Spatial Roundtable will provide an engaging online venue for environmental professionals to weigh in on their vision for geospatial technologies’ role in meeting the climate change crisis.

“GIS has the robust capacity and capability to design the building blocks for carbon accounting systems including data, models, and delivery systems,” said Dangermond. “It provides the tools needed for analyzing environmental practices as well as developing and monitoring sustainable greenhouse gas reduction plans. GIS users represent a vast reservoir of knowledge, expertise, and best practices for applying this cornerstone technology to the science of climate change and understanding its impact on natural and human systems. I look forward to a lively online discussion at the Spatial Roundtable.”

Dangermond, an environmentalist who is a strong advocate of sustainable environmental management, has demonstrated a lifelong commitment to developing technology for monitoring and managing sustainable systems. In so doing, his company, ESRI, or Environmental Systems Research Institute, has become the world’s leader in GIS technology.

“I invite environmental professionals who use GIS in their work to visit the Spatial Roundtable to discuss how organizations and businesses use this technology to help us understand and respond to climate change,” Dangermond said.

Dangermond kicked off the climate change conversation by asking, “What do you think are the benefits of using GIS technology to advance climate change science?” He has invited special contributors to join the discussion and invites site visitors to add their comments. The climate change topic discussion will be active from December 13, 2009, through January 31, 2010, and will remain accessible for review in the Spatial Roundtable archive through 2011.

Visit www.spatialroundtable.com and join the conversation.

[Source: ESRI press release]

The Role of Geological Modeling in a Web-based Collaborative Environment

In Geography, Modeling, Spatial Analysis on December 10, 2009 at 8:22 am

…from the 2009 Three-Dimensional Geologic Mapping Workshop held by the Illinois State Geological Survey…

Keith Turner and Frank A D’Agnese

“Over the past two decades, a series of sophisticated three-dimensional modeling technologies have been developed to address the need for a precise definition of subsurface conditions (Turner, 1991). Because geological modeling requires the extension of traditional GIS methods (Turner, 2000; 2006), the modeling process remains technically challenging. In 2001, during a conference sponsored by the European Science Foundation, four major impediments to the greater use of subsurface geological modeling by a broad spectrum of users were identified (Rosenbaum & Turner, 2003). These constraints were: (1) a lack of 3D/4D mathematical, cognitive, and statistical spatial tools, (2) a lack of cheap modeling tools designed for the shallow subsurface that can be operated without specialist personnel, (3) the inability of models to depict natural variability of geological systems, and (4) a shortage of case histories. By 2008, these constraints had been largely overcome with the use of new modeling software and techniques and, importantly, with an understanding of the needs of the client (Kessler, et al., 2008).”

Video: Performing Proper Density Analysis

In ESRI, GIS, Spatial Analysis, Video on December 10, 2009 at 8:18 am

The purpose of this video is to explain the importance of the decisions that you make when running a density analysis, such as the neighborhood radius and the classification method that you choose for rendering your results.

Part 1

Part 2

Evaluating Hydrological Response to Forecasted Land-Use Change: Scenario Testing with the Automated Geospatial Watershed Assessment (AGWA) Tool

In Environmental Science, Modeling on December 10, 2009 at 8:17 am

…in Proceedings, 3rd Interagency Conference on Research in the Watersheds, Estes Park, CO, September 08 – 11, 2008. USGS, Corvallis, OR, 79-84, (2009)…

KepnerR, W. G., D. J. Semmens, M. Hernandez, and D. C. Goodrich.

“Envisioning and evaluating future scenarios has emerged as a critical component of both science and social decision-making. The ability to assess, report, map, and forecast the life support functions of ecosystems is absolutely critical to our capacity to make informed decisions to maintain the sustainable nature of our ecosystem services now and into the future. During the past two decades, important advances in the integration of remote imagery, computer processing, and spatial-analysis technologies have been used to develop landscape information that can be integrated with hydrologic models to determine long-term change and make predictive inferences about the future. Two diverse case studies in northwest Oregon (Willamette River basin) and Southeastern Arizona (San Pedro River) were examined in regard to future land-use scenarios relative to their impact on surface-water conditions (e.g., sediment yield and surface runoff) using hydrologic models associated with the Automated Geospatial Watershed Assessment (AGWA) tool. The base reference grid for land cover was modified in both study locations to reflect stakeholder preferences twenty to sixty years into the future and the consequences of landscape change were evaluated relative to the selected future scenarios. The two studies provide examples of integrating hydrologic modeling with a scenario analysis framework to evaluate plausible future forecasts and understand the potential impact of landscape change on ecosystem services.”

Quote of the Day

In Climate Change, Environmental Science, Quotes on December 10, 2009 at 8:16 am

“Kennedy chose to go to the moon.  Our generation must choose to remain on planet Earth.”

–Maldives President Mohammad Nasheed

UGA Professors Win NASA Grant: Students Will Use Spatial Analysis to Study Effects of Climate Change on Birds

In Climate Change, Environmental Science, Spatial Analysis on December 8, 2009 at 3:52 pm

By Sandi Martin, Public Relations Coordinator, University of Georgia

University of Georgia professors in two schools have received a $447,000 grant from NASA that will offer undergraduate students a year-long combination of classroom and field classes studying the effects of climate change on birds.

NASA’s three-year global climate change education teaching and research grant funds instruction activities that are scheduled to begin with fall 2010 classes. The grant will fund fall, spring and summer courses that will teach students about global climate change models, research methods and designing field experiments. The final course in the lecture and lab series—to be held during summer classes—will have students perform their experiments in the field. That field experience will make students more competitive for graduate schools and jobs, said Jeffrey Hepinstall-Cymerman, an assistant professor of landscape ecology in the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources. Hepinstall-Cymerman said the students will use NASA data, models, spatial analysis, statistics and field methods while studying the effects of climate change on birds and bird migration.

“This training offers a unique opportunity for students to obtain an understanding of the complexities and challenges involved in predicting floral and faunal responses to a changing climate, in addition to exposing them to important field and analytical methods at the cutting edge of applied ecology,” he said.

Hepinstall-Cymerman and two other professors in the Warnell School, Robert Cooper and Michael Conroy, are lead investigators on the grant, which also includes Marshall Shepherd, a professor in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. As part of the grant, the team will install ground sensors at Whitehall Forest, a research forest located off campus and managed by Warnell, and at the Coweeta Long Term Ecological Research station to allow students to compare ground measurements with measurements made with NASA satellites. This will allow students to see how the satellite images covering large areas compare to detailed information gathered on the ground, Conroy explained. “This is an excellent example of how you use that technology to teach,” he said.

The effect of climate change on birds is sometimes overlooked when the controversial subject is debated, but Conroy notes that if springs continue to get warmer, then it affects when the primary food source for birds—insects—emerge. If birds don’t adjust to that change, he said, newly-hatched birds won’t have enough food.

Global climate models are key tools for studying aspects of climate change. Shepherd, through funding from a Northeast Georgia PRISM (Partnership for Reform in Science and Mathematics) grant, implemented a fully functional educational global climate model called EdGCM into weather-climate exercises in the department of geography. “I was familiar with the NASA-funded EdGCM model from my previous tenure at NASA and felt that it was the ideal platform for integrating climate modeling in an accessible manner for today’s ‘digital native’ students,” said Shepherd. He will assist with implementation of EdGCM into the project’s instructional activities and provide climate science expertise.

Although the NASA grant primarily funds instruction activities, the summer undergraduate research will offer undergraduate students the type of field research experience generally found only at the graduate level and will tie in with work Cooper is doing on breeding bird productivity along an elevational gradient at Coweeta. “The mountainside is a surrogate for climate change,” said Cooper, “and leafout and insect emergence will be later at higher elevations. Migrating birds that arrive in the spring to breed may be right on time to hit peak insect numbers at higher elevations, but not at lower sites, a phenomenon that is likely to be even more extreme with increasing global temperatures.”

[Source: University of Georgia press release]

Jack Dangermond in UNEP Climate Action 2009: “Climate Change Is a Geographic Problem…”

In Climate Change, ESRI, Environmental Science, GIS, Geography on December 8, 2009 at 3:07 pm

…in Climate Action 2009…

Climate Change Is a Geographic Problem That Requires a Geographic Solution

By Jack Dangermond, Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc.

“Geography is a fundamental science that helps us describe the natural and human systems of our planet. Geography is central to studying systems that contribute to and are influenced by climate change. Geographic information systems (GIS) technology gives you a comprehensive understanding of complex systems so that you can make informed, actionable decisions. People use GIS to view and manage information about geographic places, analyze geographic relationships, and model geographic processes. GIS is the foundational technology that lets local, regional, and global organizations collect, manage, and analyze a myriad of physical, biological, and cultural data describing the Earth. It is proving to be very useful for climate change modeling, decision support, policymaking, prediction, response, and adaptation.”

Data Basin: Connecting Scientists, Practitioners, Managers, and Policy-makers with Spatial Datasets, Tools, and Expertise

In Climate Change, ESRI, Environmental Science, GIS on December 8, 2009 at 10:51 am

“Data Basin is an innovative, online system that connects users with spatial datasets, tools, and expertise. Individuals and organization can explore and download a vast library of datasets, upload their own data, create and publish projects, form working groups, and produce customized maps that can be easily shared. The building blocks of Data Basin are datasets, maps, projects, people, groups, and centers.

“Data Basin’s tools are designed to meet the specific needs of scientists, practitioners, managers and policy-makers, yet Data Basin does not require any technical skills. Data Basin is designed for people interested in integrating spatial data into their daily work (i.e., inquiry, problem-solving, communicating messages, etc.).

“Data Basin contains geospatial information that resides in datasets. Data Basin contains four searchable categories of datasets: biological, physical, socio-economic, and imagery.  A dataset could be coordinates where a bird species has been observed, boundaries of land managed in various ways (e.g., US Forest Service), a thematic image of vegetation types, or the results of a model that shows changes in the habitat distribution of a species under different climate change scenarios. Data Basin is populated with a large and continually growing body of datasets, including both raw data (e.g., monitoring data on temperature and precipitation, road networks) and analytical results (e.g., projected changes in suitability for a species or ecosystem, interpretations, or recommendations).”

Colombian University Student Wins Prize for GIS Study of Malnutrition and Agrobiodiversity

In Education, Environmental Science, GIS on December 8, 2009 at 10:42 am

“Emmanuel Zapata Caldas, a geography student at the Universidad del Valle in Colombia, has won second prize at the XVIII National Geography Event for his work, carried out in collaboration with CIAT, on the spatial analysis of malnutrition in Latin America. Reproduced below are some of his results for Colombia, which he kindly made available to us.

“For this particular analysis, Emmanuel looked at the prevalence of anemia and used secondary data on poverty and agricultural production to identify sites in Colombia where the biofortification of different crops could have a significant impact on this aspect of malnutrition. Congratulations to Emmanuel for his prize, and his interesting work.”

Fragments of the City: Stanford’s Digital Forma Urbis Romae Project

In GIS, Geography, Social Science on December 8, 2009 at 8:54 am

…in the Proceedings of the Third Williams Symposium on Classical Architecture, Journal of Roman Archaeology suppl., 2005…

David Koller, Jennifer Trimble, Tina Najbjerg, Natasha Gelfand, Marc Levoy

“In this article, we summarize the Stanford Digital Forma Urbis Project work since it began in 1999 and discuss its implications for representing and imaging Rome. First, we digitized the shape and surface of every known fragment of the Severan Marble Plan using laser range scanners and digital color cameras; the raw data collected consists of 8 billion polygons and 6 thousand color images, occupying 40 gigabytes. These range and color data have been assembled into a set of 3D computer models and high-resolution photographs – one for each of the 1,186 marble fragments. Second, this data has served in the development of fragment matching algorithms; to date, these have resulted in over a dozen highly probable, new matches. Third, we have gathered the Project’s 3D models and color photographs into a relational database and supported them with archaeological documentation and an up-to-date scholarly apparatus for each fragment. This database is intended to be a public, web-based, research and study tool for scholars, students and interested members of the general public alike. Fourth, these digital and archaeological data, and their availability in a hypertext format, have the potential to broaden the scope and type of research done on this ancient map by facilitating a range of typological, representational and urbanistic analyses of the map, some of which are proposed here. In these several ways, we hope that this Project will contribute to new ways of imaging Rome.”

Casey Trees: Using GIS to Restore, Enhance, and Protect the Tree Canopy of the Nation’s Capital

In Environmental Science, GIS on December 8, 2009 at 8:45 am

Casey Trees is a Washington, DC based not-for-profit organization dedicated to restoring, enhancing, and protecting the tree canopy of the Nation’s Capital.

Since 2001, Casey Trees has used GIS:

  • For inventories and surveys including neighborhood analysis
  • To share information with District and Federal Government partners, citizens, business improvement districts and other organizations
  • For canopy analysis to set objectives for programs and strategic planning
  • To measure success and track performance

More information

An Agenda for Development of Vertically Georeferenced, Web-optimized, Subsurface Information

In Environmental Science, Geography on December 8, 2009 at 8:35 am

…from the 2009 Three-Dimensional Geologic Mapping Workshop held by the Illinois State Geological Survey…

Harvey Thorleifson

“Geological mapping is an essential service provided by geological survey agencies at the federal and state/provincial level. The mapping represents an authoritative prediction regarding the composition, structure, and origin of sediments and rocks, based on observations and inferences backed by research on material, process, and history. This spatial accounting is needed to support the progress of research and societal applications related to energy, minerals, water, climate change, waste disposal, construction, and hazards.”

Developing a Routing Priority Map for Geospatial Modeling of CO2 Pipeline Deployment in the People’s Republic of China

In Climate Change, Environmental Science, GIS on December 8, 2009 at 8:32 am

…in The Journal of Young Investigators, Volume 19, Issue 18…

Ari A. Zwick

“Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technologies are currently being researched as a potential component of a global portfolio of technologies to help reduce anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) to the atmosphere. In China, currently a leading emitter of CO2 and a potentially critical player in future carbon emissions reduction strategies, it is important to evaluate the economic feasibility of CCS to understand its potential for large-scale deployment. This paper describes the development of a high resolution geospatial model to assist in efforts to estimate the construction costs of pipelines for transport of CO2 from sources to storage sites. The model assigns relative weights to geographic features throughout mainland China to form a relative prioritization map that may be used to model pipeline routing along paths that are likely to represent the lowest cost paths. The final routing priority map (RPM) differentiates between areas according to their relative cost for routing from sources to sinks. The RPM represents the weighted combination of all overlapping geographic and cultural features included in the model. By using the RPM in conjunction with a routing protocol, grid cells with low priority values (i.e., those for which construction and/or societal costs would be higher) would be avoided in favor of cells with higher priority values, all else equal. This mode of estimating least-cost pipeline routing could represent a significant enhancement to existing methodologies used to estimate CO2 transport costs for CCS in China.”

Quote of the Day

In Geography, Quotes on December 8, 2009 at 8:29 am

“Geography is Destiny in Medicine.”

–Jack Lord, MD

GEOINFORMATIK 2010, 17 – 19 March 2010 in Kiel, Germany

In Conferences, GIS, GIScience on December 8, 2009 at 8:09 am

In 2010 the conference “GEOINFORMATIK” takes part for the second time as a joint event organized by both the German scientific Society for Geoinformatics (GfGi) and the GiN e.V. The main theme of GEOINFORMATIK 2010 is “The World Online”.

Call for Papers: International Journal of Applied Geospatial Research

In GIS, GIScience, Modeling, Science, Spatial Analysis on December 8, 2009 at 8:05 am

The Editor-in-Chief of the >International Journal of Applied Geospatial Research (IJAGR) invites authors to submit manuscripts for consideration in this scholarly journal. The following describes the mission, coverage and guidelines for submission to IJAGR.

The International Journal of Applied Geospatial Research (IJAGR) publishes research that exemplifies the usage of geographic information science and technology (GIS&T) to explore and resolve geographical issues from various application domains within the social and/or physical sciences. IJAGR is designed to provide planners and policy analysts, practitioners, academicians, and others using GIS&T useful studies that might support decision-making activities.

IJAGR is interested in research highlighting various GIS&T application domains that span the social and physical sciences. Topics to be discussed in this journal include (but are not limited to) the following:

  • Biogeography
  • Business and marketing geography
  • Climatology
  • Economic geography
  • Geography of crime
  • Geomorphology
  • Historical geography
  • Medical geography
  • Military geography
  • Natural hazards
  • Political geography
  • Population geography
  • Soil geography
  • Tourism geography
  • Transportation geography
  • Other geographic subfields

More information

Michigan Tech Research Institute Image Analyst Receives Top Honor in Field

In Imagery on December 8, 2009 at 7:49 am

…from Michigan Tech News…

“Chuck Olson has been doing image interpretation and analysis for more than half a century.  Now the senior image analyst at the Michigan Tech Research Institute (MTRI) in Ann Arbor has been recognized for his contributions with one of the highest honors his professional society can confer: Honorary Member of the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS).

““This is a very big deal,” said Colin Brooks, research scientist and manager of the Environmental Science Laboratory at MTRI.  “It is ASPRS’s highest award, and there are only 25 honorary members at any one time.”

“The lifetime award is given to recognize individuals who have rendered distinguished service to ASPRS or who have attained distinction in advancing the science and use of geospatial information. Olson qualifies on both counts.”

Loma Linda University Inaugurates New Health Geoinformatics Lab

In ESRI, Education, GIS, Science, Social Science on December 8, 2009 at 7:22 am

ESRI and Loma Linda Announce Collaboration for Designing Healthy Communities

Loma Linda University (LLU) today inaugurated a center with two new computer laboratories that will be used to teach students in the health professions how to use geographic information system (GIS) technology to better understand and improve human health across the world. The Health Geoinformatics Laboratory center will provide undergraduate and graduate students with hands-on experience in applying modern information system technologies that combine maps and satellite imagery with data about the geographic locations of diseases, health care resources, and sociodemographic characteristics of communities. ESRI was represented by Jack Dangermond, founder and CEO of ESRI in the ribbon-cutting ceremony in front of the state-of-the-art Health Geoinformatics Laboratory. The center is located in the university’s new Centennial Complex that was recently completed at a cost of approximately $85 million.

The Health Geoinformatics Laboratory is equipped with modern GIS software including ESRI’s spatial statistical tools for public health epidemiology, specialized logistical software for optimizing health care delivery, and geographic digital dashboards that enhance health informatics. LLU undergraduate students can pursue a bachelor of science degree in public health, health geographics, and biomedical data management, and graduate students can obtain certificates in health geoinformatics and specialized offerings in areas such as environmental health, global health and development, and spatial epidemiology.

University president Richard Hart, M.D., DrPH, spoke of the University’s long-standing vision to produce a skilled and educated health workforce that will contribute to the enhancement of community and global health. He noted that the inclusion of the Health Geoinformatics Laboratory within this new global learning hub is a critical part of the university’s objective to connect with the world and think about problems in a different way.. He went on to say, “I am deeply appreciative of ESRI and their partnership with us. We are moving into a new age of information sharing, health planning, and of connecting with the world. This technology and the lab will help prepare us for that future.”

ESRI president Jack Dangermond, noting that he was born at the Loma Linda Medical Center, thanked Loma Linda for assisting him over the years, especially when he first established ESRI. He said, “This new lab will combine great talent in health science education with emerging talent in technology in the geospatial field. We are moving from the position of using geographic information systems to describe the world to help us take responsibility for the future of our world. This center will participate in that evolution of designing our future and participating in building a healthier world.”

Hart and Dangermond also announced that ESRI and LLU will jointly host the first Designing the Healthy Community international invitational symposium. The meetings are intended to bring together the best minds in public health to share new ideas about using GIS to make the world a healthier place. The inaugural event is planned for 2010 and will be held at both the Loma Linda University campus and ESRI’s Redlands headquarters.

NPZVISUALIZER 1.5: Nutrients, Phytoplankton, and Zooplankton Visualization Tool

In Environmental Science, Modeling, Visualization on December 7, 2009 at 1:11 pm

…from Neil Banas, University of Washington Applied Physics Lab…

“This is a tool for exploring the dynamics of coastal marine ecosystems, developed as part of the NSF RISE project.”

[via Jim Tobias]

GIS Solutions for Pacific Isles Saluted

In Climate Change, GIS, Science on December 7, 2009 at 12:15 pm

…from the Fiji Times…

“Geographical Information System and Remote Sensing technologies are sometimes the most practical way to get fast and accurate data on geographic changes in Pacific Island Countries.

“Pacific Islands Applied Geoscience Commission director Cristelle Pratt said many island countries are were using these technologies for vegetation mapping to monitor the amount and extent of coconut, mangrove and other vegetation cover for a range of reasons.

“She said the technology could also help prepare for and deal with natural disasters and climate change.”

Scientists Believe Current Models Do Not Accurately Represent the Sensitivity of Global Temperatures to CO2

In Climate Change, Modeling, Science on December 7, 2009 at 11:13 am

…from The Telegraph…

“The scientists compared temperature reconstructions from sediments in the ocean floor with a global climate simulation model which aimed to map climate three million years ago.

“Study leader Dr Dan Lunt, from the University of Bristol, said: “We found that, given the concentrations of carbon dioxide prevailing three million years ago, the model originally predicted a significantly smaller temperature increase than that indicated by the reconstructions. This led us to review what was missing from the model.”

“They believe current models do not accurately represent the sensitivity of global temperatures to CO2.

“Climate models used by bodies such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change often fail to take full account of such effects, said the researchers, whose findings are reported in the journal Nature Geoscience.”

Post Doctoral Research Scientist, Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets

In Climate Change, Education, Environmental Science, GIS, Geography on December 7, 2009 at 10:58 am

The Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets (CReSIS) located at the University of Kansas is a Science and Technology Center established by the National Science Foundation in 2005. Its mission is to understand and predict the role of ice sheets in sea level change.

CReSIS is currently inviting applications to fill a post-doctoral position in geophysical data management and processing of CReSIS field data.

Required Qualifications

  • Ph.D. in Geography, Geosciences, or related field.
  • Proficient in the use of GIS software tools as evidenced by applicable coursework or work history.
  • Strong written communication skills as demonstrated by application materials and publications.

More information

Ph.D. Graduate Assistantship to Investigate Spatially‐explicit Relationships between Human‐induced Stressors and Environmental Landscape Factors, University of Florida

In Climate Change, Environmental Science, GIS on December 7, 2009 at 10:47 am

Fall semester 2010 (mid Aug. 2010)

Soil and Water Science Department, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL.

Applications are invited for the position of a Ph.D. student to investigate spatially‐explicit relationships between human‐induced stressors (such as land use and climate change) and environmental landscape factors (soil, climate, land use / land cover, terrain, geology, and hydrology). A goal of this research is to gain insight into biophysical feedbacks (soil‐vegetation‐water‐atmosphere interactions) and carbon dynamics modulating sequestration and/or losses of carbon in a mixed upland/aquatic ecosystem.

Simulation models (e.g. DayCent) and/or mixed deterministic/stochastic methods will be used to conduct this research.

Desired skills: Ecosystem modeling, database management, geostatistics, statistics, GIS, and environmental sciences or related discipline.

Contact Sabine Grunwald, Associate Professor, sabgru@ufl.edu (352‐392‐1951 x204) and submit a curriculum vitae and letter of intend to apply (pre‐screening).

For admission into the Ph.D. Program offered by the Soil and Water Science Department, University of Florida (http://soils.ifas.ufl.edu) a complete application must be submitted following the guidelines at http://soils.ifas.ufl.edu/academics/application.html.

Application deadline is March 30, 2010

New Book: The Impact of Climate Change on European Lakes

In Books, Climate Change, Environmental Science, Modeling on December 7, 2009 at 10:37 am

Edited by Glen George

“In this book, scientists from eleven countries summarize the results of an EU project (CLIME) that explored the effects of observed and projected changes in the climate on the dynamics of lakes in Northern, Western and Central Europe. Historical measurements from eighteen sites were used to compare the seasonal dynamics of the lakes and to assess their sensitivity to local, regional and global-scale changes in the weather. Simulations using a common set of water quality models, perturbed by six climate-change scenarios, were then used to assess the uncertainties associated with the projected changes in the climate. The book includes chapters on the phenology and modelling of lake ice, the supply and recycling of nitrogen and phosphorus, the flux of dissolved organic carbon and the growth and the seasonal succession of phytoplankton. There are also chapters on the coherent responses of lakes to changes in the circulation of the atmosphere, the development of a web-based Decision Support System and the implications of climate change for the Water Framework Directive.”

Resource for the Future Launches Global Adaptation Atlas

In Climate Change, Environmental Science, GIS on December 7, 2009 at 9:27 am

“The Adaptation Atlas is a dynamic mapping tool, developed by Resources for the Future, in collaboration with a diverse network of partners.

“As adaptation is both a global and a local problem affecting populations and ecosystems around the world, it is natural that responses will be sector-, site-, and population-specific. Success depends on site-specific attention and effective large-scale real-time coordination of impacts and actions. Without this, we run the risk of investing in adaptation measures that could undercut one another.”

2010 UCGIS Education Award Call for Nominations

In Education, GIS, GIScience on December 7, 2009 at 9:11 am

The University Consortium for Geographic Information Science (UCGIS) Education Committee is pleased to invite nominations for the 2010 UCGIS Education Award. The award is presented annually to an individual who has made outstanding contributions to GIScience education. Announcements of previous awards are published at http://www.ucgis.org/ucgisawards.htm.

The award is intended to recognize continuing professional contributions of both national and international significance to GIScience education. Such contributions may be reflected in:

  • Sustained effectiveness in the teaching of formal GIScience courses;
  • Generating enhanced public awareness of GIScience through informal science education;
  • Supervision of outstanding undergraduate and graduate students who enter careers in GIScience education and research or GIScience related professions;
  • Authorship of significant GIScience textbooks;
  • Authorship of significant journal articles, book chapters, or monographs concerned with GIScience education;
  • Leadership in GIScience curriculum development and program design; and
  • Leadership in the development of GIScience education policy in academic and professional organizations and the public sector.

Nominations must include the following information:

  • Nominee’s name;
  • Nominee’s affiliation(s);
  • Nominee’s contact information;
  • Substantial evidence of the nominee’s specific contributions to GIScience education as set forth above(including references to significant GIScience education publications);
  • A substantial discussion of the significance of the nominee’s contributions;
  • Nominator’s name;
  • Nominator’s affiliation;
  • Nominator’s contact information; and
  • In addition to the nominating letter, one or more letters supporting the nomination should be obtained (these may be sent directly to the Chair of the UCGIS Education Committee and need not be included with the letter of nomination).

Nominations will be reviewed by a subcommittee of the Education Committee. The Education Award Subcommittee may identify additional nominees, or may recommend that no award be given in a particular year. The name of the person selected for the award, if any, will be forwarded to the UCGIS Board for final approval. All GIScience educators worldwide are eligible for the award, except for previous awardees and current members of the Education Award Subcommittee. However, only people affiliated with UCGIS member institutions may make official nominations. Please see http://www.ucgis.org/Membership/members.asp for a list of institutional members.

Nominations should be forwarded in PDF format to Steve Prager, UCGIS Education Committee Chair, by March 1, 2010, via electronic mail (sdprager@uwyo.edu ). Supporting letters should be sent to the same address.

The award will be presented at the UCGIS Summer Assembly June 15-16, 2010, in Hilton Head, South Carolina.

[Source: UCGIS press release]

Analysis of Community-contributed Space-and Time-referenced Data (Example of Panoramio Photos)

In GIS, Spatial Analysis, Temporal Analysis on December 7, 2009 at 9:06 am

…from the Proceedings of the 17th ACM SIGSPATIAL International Conference on Advances in Geographic Information Systems…

“Space- and time-referenced data published on the Web by general people can be viewed in a dual way: as independent spatio-temporal events and as trajectories of people in the geographical space. These two views suppose different approaches to the analysis, which can yield different kinds of valuable knowledge about places and about people. We present several analysis methods corresponding to these two views. The methods are suited to the large amounts of the data.”

Harvard University Center for Geographic Analysis: November 2009 Newsletter

In Education, GIS on December 7, 2009 at 8:36 am

Highlights include:

  • CGA 2010 Conference Announcement: Research on Religion
  • Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names available for Harvard Use
  • GeoTime Software Available for Trial
  • Harvard University Web Map
  • HealthMap on the iPhone
  • UCGIS 2010 Winter Meeting
  • Call for Papers: GIScience Research Track
  • 2010 GeoDesign Summit
  • Geography of a Recession

…and much more…

Video: Hot Spot Analysis

In ESRI, GIS, Spatial Analysis, Video on December 7, 2009 at 8:28 am

The purpose of this video is to walk through a hot spot analysis, with a specific focus on choosing the right parameters for your analysis. Part 1 helps you choose a conceptualization of spatial relationships. Part 2 helps you choose an appropriate distance band by allowing your data to guide the process.

Part 1: Choosing a Conceptualization of Spatial Relationships

Part 2: Choosing an Appropriate Distance Band

Part 3: Understanding Your Results

Spatial Biodiversity Analyst-Phylogeographer: Post Doctoral Fellow at CSIRO, Canberra, Australia

In Environmental Science, Spatial Analysis on December 7, 2009 at 8:27 am

“The Centre for Plant Biodiversity Research requires a qualified, skilled and motivated scientist to research spatial biological information from the Australian National Herbarium together with phylogenetic data and environmental attributes (such as climate, terrain, soils) to map spatial patterns of biodiversity in environmental space.  The appointee will develop and test hypotheses relating to contemporary distribution of particular plant groups in relation to phylogenetic relationships as well as developing predictive approaches to conservation planning at regional and national scales.

“The successful applicant will work in a team to develop and maintain standards for the capture, management, visualization, analysis and delivery of the spatial content in the organization’s databases, as well as to validate and maintain the spatial data quality. The successful applicant will further develop this team by leading collaborations among CSIRO Plant Industry, the Biodiversity Theme (BRABA) and non-CSIRO scientists throughout Australian and internationally.”

Spatio-temporal Analysis of Alpine Ecotones: A Spatial Explicit Model Targeting Altitudinal Vegetation Shifts

In Climate Change, Environmental Science, Spatial Analysis, Temporal Analysis on December 7, 2009 at 8:11 am

…in Ecological Modelling, article in press…

Ramón Alberto Díaz-Varela, Roberto Colombo, Michele Meroni, María Silvia Calvo-Iglesias, Armando Buffoni, and Antonio Tagliaferri

“There is general agreement in literature that Alpine vegetation belt ecotones have shown a trend of upward migration in the last few decades. Despite the potential of such shifts as indicators of global change effects in mountain ecosystems, there are relatively few works focused on their assessment in a systematic and spatially explicit way. In this work our aim is to quantify the altitudinal shifts and analyse the spatial pattern dynamics of mountain ecotones. We developed a novel procedure to delineate the current and former state of three characteristic mountain ecotones, which we formalised as forest, tree and tundra lines. Our approach is based on the recognition of altitudinal extreme outposts identified with ecotone locations at a slope scale. The integration of multi-temporal datasets allows the identification and quantification of altitudinal advances and retreats in the outpost locations for a given period. We tested the method in a section of the Italian Alps for the period 1957–2003. Results show a general trend of an increase in altitude for the three ecotones, despite the occurrence of occasional decreases. We estimate decadal altitude increments of 25 m for forest line, 13 m for treeline and 11 m for tundra line. We also identified changes in ecotone spatial morphology between the two dates, with significant implications in connectivity and colonisation dynamics.”

Mapping Locally Complex Geologic Units in Three Dimensions: The Multi-point Geostatistical Approach

In Environmental Science, Geography, Statistics on December 7, 2009 at 7:57 am

…from the 2009 Three-Dimensional Geologic Mapping Workshop held by the Illinois State Geological Survey…

G. Phelps and A. Boucher

“Multi-point geostatistics offers a way to map locally complex geology in three dimensions. The resulting maps are not unique; rather, many alternative maps are created, each conforming to known geology and expected geologic unit shape. The maps can incorporate important geologic characteristics, such as a general change in unit orientation across a basin and vertical continuity between units. The alternative 3D geologic maps, when viewed together, provide estimates of the geologic variability of the region, and can lead directly to estimates of uncertainty for process models that are built upon the 3D geology, such as flow and transport models.”

Happy 1st Birthday GISandScience.com

In GIScience, Science on December 7, 2009 at 6:21 am

GISandScience.com is one year old today!  365 days and 67,555 page views ago I was sitting in a hotel room with a bunch of ideas spinning around in my head, and decided to take the plunge.

  • Busiest Day: 846 page views on 18 November 2009 (GIS Day!)
  • Busiest Week:  3,733 page views the week of 16-22 November 2009
  • Busiest Month:  14,341 page views the month of November 2009

Monthly page views over the first year.

Most viewed posts and pages over the first year:

  1. Spatial Statistics, Geostatistics, and GIS: Free Training Available
  2. Accuracy of iPhone Locations: A Comparison of Assisted GPS, WiFi, and Cellular Positioning
  3. A Farewell Chat with David Maguire, ESRI’s Chief Scientist
  4. Top Nine Favorite Innovations in ArcGIS
  5. Integrating GIS with Models: A Bibliography
  6. About
  7. What Would Happen if the Earth Stopped Stopped Spinning
  8. Resources
  9. GIS and Climate Change Resources
  10. California Governors’ Global Climate Summit

Representing Reality: Imagery in the Cognitive, Social and Natural Sciences–12-15 May 2010, University at Buffalo

In Conferences, GIS, GIScience, Imagery, Science on December 4, 2009 at 7:25 am

A Conference presented by the University at Buffalo IGERT in GIScience

Deadline for submitting an abstract is 31 January 2010

“The use of imagery in representing reality has become pervasive throughout our world. With the advent of publicly-available geographic services such as Google Maps, advanced medical technologies for rendering genes and cells, and a multitude of satellites amassing data from remote locations, spaces and objects that were once abstractions can now be perceived in new and tangible ways.

“The GIScience IGERT at the University at Buffalo will be hosting a conference May 12-15, 2010 at the Adams Mark Hotel in downtown Buffalo, NY to address the theory and application of imagery across academic disciplines. In particular, this conference aims to attract Ph.D. students and faculty from IGERT programs, as well as researchers from a wide range of subjects, who incorporate innovative image resources into their research or address the conceptualization of reality as a digital format. The agenda will include featured speakers, research presentations, poster sessions and specialized breakout discussions.

“Additional target objectives of the conference include providing a forum for future multi-disciplinary collaborations in this genre and facilitating discussions on the advantages and disadvantages of an interdisciplinary approach to image analysis. The unique challenges and opportunities facing interdisciplinary researchers in an academic workforce will also be addressed.”

From 2D Cross-Sections to a 3D Model: A Toolset for Integrated Data Management, Modeling, and Visualization

In Environmental Science, Modeling, Visualization on December 4, 2009 at 7:05 am

…from the 2009 Three-Dimensional Geologic Mapping Workshop held by the Illinois State Geological Survey…

Nat Voorhies, Scott Bowen, Tom Battenhouse, Rob Porges, and Tax Fox

“Two-dimensional (2D) cross-sections are a common aid in understanding three-dimensional (3D) subsurface conditions for purposes including environmental restoration, water resource evaluation, and resource extraction. This case study describes translation of the institutional knowledge and interpretations captured on existing 2D hydrogeologic cross-sections into an integrated, dynamic 3D hydrogeologic framework model that flexibly supports site goals. A premium is placed on automation and structured data management, allowing geoscientists to focus on visualization and analysis rather than on data manipulation and model assembly.”

Evaluation of Regional Groundwater Quality using PCA and Geostatistics in the Urban Coastal Aquifer, East Coast of India

In Environmental Science, Statistics on December 4, 2009 at 7:02 am

…in International Journal of Environment and Waste Management 2010 – Vol. 5, No.1/2 pp. 163 – 180…

Y.R. Satyaji Rao, Ashok K. Keshari, and A.K. Gosain

“A systematic groundwater quality-monitoring program was conducted, and a total of 201 groundwater samples were collected. Multivariate and geostatistical techniques were employed to investigate major contamination types and its spatial characteristics in the study area. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) reveals that salinity (Factor 1) and nutrient (Factor 2) are very predominant contaminants in the shallow coastal aquifer. The factor (F1 and F2) scores of each well during three seasons were indicated a spatial correlation of salinity factor (F1) up to 10 km and no spatial correlation were found for nutrient factor (F2).”

Map of the Day: Analysis of Susceptibility for Threat (Removal) in Mass in the Locality of Santa Fe, Bogotá

In ESRI, Environmental Science, GIS, Map of the Day on December 4, 2009 at 7:01 am

…from the ESRI Map Book, Volume 24…

environment2_sm

“This map shows the risk for mass removal and the susceptibility level for trees. It contains city blocks and shadow relief created on the Bogotá digital elevation model (DEM). Mass removal occurs when large quantities of ground slide and shift after earthquakes, tremors, or heavy rains. Mass removal seriously damages urban infrastructures and, in many cases, threatens human life.

“The map indicates trees located in zones of risk for mass removal as well as the relief of the zone. The map is a valuable tool for the entities responsible for preventing and responding to mass removal. It shows the places where they have to intervene.

“Courtesy of Jardín Botánico José Celestino Mutis.”

Application of Multivariate Geostatistics in Delineating Management Zones within a Gravelly Vineyard using Geo-electrical Sensors

In Environmental Science, Statistics on December 3, 2009 at 3:04 pm

…in Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, Volume 68, Issue 1 (August 2009)…

F. Morari, A. Castrignanò, and C. Pagliarin

“In gravelly soils, surveys are generally time-consuming, labour-intensive and costly. This limits the possibility of adopting an appropriate sampling to determine within-field spatial variability. The potential use of electro-magnetic induction scans (EMI) to measure apparent electrical conductivity (EC) and improve the estimate accuracy of sparsely sampled primary variables was assessed in a 5-ha gravelly soil vineyard in Valpolicella, north-eastern Italy. EC was measured using a Geonics EM38DD operating in both horizontal and vertical mode. Geo-electrical investigations were also done in 18 positions with the electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) method to obtain high-resolution images of the soil profile. The spatial variability of soil properties and their relationships with EC in horizontal and vertical mode was estimated using multivariate geostatistical techniques. Spatial dependence between EC and physical soil properties (particle-size distribution) was explored with factorial kriging analysis (FKA) that could isolate and display sources of variation acting at different spatial scales, expressed as regionalised factors, which was followed by fuzzy c-means classification for zoning the vineyard. There was a generally close relationship between EC and the measured physical properties: EC was negatively correlated with the coarser texture components (gravel and sand) and positively with the finer ones (clay and silt). EC measurements were also consistent with ERT profiles, evidencing the presence of gravelly parent material, with low electrical conductivity, variably distributed in the 3 dimensions and affecting vine rooting depth. FKA isolated two significant regionalised factors which, with an acceptable loss of information, give a concise description of the soil physical variability at the different selected spatial scales. These factors, used in fuzzy c-means classification, allowed the delineation of zones to be managed separately. The results prove that EM38DD could be advantageously used to map soil spatial variability in gravelly soils, even if ground-truth soil samples are obligatory to understand and interpret the EC measurements.”

GIS Innovators in Health and Human Services Honored

In ESRI, GIS, Science on December 3, 2009 at 1:47 pm

Innovators in the use of geographic information system (GIS) technology in the health and human services fields received recognition from GIS software company ESRI recently. The Service, Vision, and Communication awards are announced annually during the ESRI Health GIS Conference, which was held September 21–23 this year in Nashville, Tennessee.

The Service Award was presented to Stephanie Bailey, M.D., M.S., chief of the Office of Public Health Practice, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The award recognizes individuals who do an outstanding job of advocating GIS technology and helping others understand its value and purpose in their everyday work.

“Stephanie Bailey is currently helping set public health practice standards and is a great friend of GIS,” said Bill Davenhall, global marketing manager for health and human services solutions, ESRI, as he presented the award. He added, “Behind every good leader are loyal followers—people who trust where the leader is heading—and she has a long history of public health competence at all levels, from the local to the state to the federal.”

Health InfoTechnics, LLC, of Brentwood, Tennessee, received the Vision Award, which honors organizations that use GIS in innovative ways. Health InfoTechnics supports health planning initiatives by providing market intelligence and support to hospitals, hospital systems, consultants, and investors. The company recently developed EnvisionHIT, a platform based on ESRI’s ArcGIS Server software, which delivers a robust, interactive, and intuitive visual environment for researching and viewing market data.

“Health InfoTechnics has taken a leap forward in meeting the community health information needs of the customers and, in doing so, has improved the spatial literacy of America’s health care system,” said Davenhall.

The Communication Award for excellence in map presentation, visualization, and communication went to three public health services professionals in Saskatoon Health Region, Canada. They are Tracy Creighton, GIS analyst, Public Health Observatory; Daphne Goodman-Eifler, supervisor of Tobacco Reduction Strategies; and Tanya Dunn-Pierce, manager, Health Promotion Department. The poster, Mapping the Availability of Tobacco Products to Youth in the City of Saskatoon, tells the story of using GIS to convert school health survey results into information that will help health officials develop policies for reducing tobacco use among middle school students. The study examined the locations of tobacco retailers near schools and used statistical analysis to identify potential correlations with student-reported smoking initiation rates. Maps displayed an overall view of the results.

For more information on GIS in health and human services and the ESRI Health GIS Conference, visit www.esri.com/health.

[Source:  ESRI news release]

Application of Three-Dimensional Geologic Models in Developing Groundwater-Flow Models

In Environmental Science, Modeling on December 3, 2009 at 10:27 am

….from the 2009 Three-Dimensional Geologic Mapping Workshop held by the Illinois State Geological Survey…

Claudia C. Faunt, Donald Sweetkind, and Randall T. Hanson

“Three-dimensional (3D) geologic models have been used to define the geologic framework of complex regional aquifer systems. These models define the stratigraphy and structure of lithologic units using data points defined by surface contacts, drill-hole data, and (or) geophysical data. Where data are missing, data points are derived from known data points on the basis of geologic principles. In recent years, 3D geologic models have been used to define the model domain and hydraulic properties of regional 3D groundwater-flow models. This paper illustrates how 3D geologic models were used to describe the geologic framework and provide the basis for groundwater-flow simulations of the Central Valley aquifer system in California and the Death Valley regional groundwater flow system (DVRFS) in Nevada and California. The groundwater availability of the Central Valley of California is being assessed as part of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) groundwater availability program (Faunt 2009). The Death Valley regional groundwater flow system (DVRFS), which contains the Nevada Test Site and Yucca Mountain, is being studied in cooperation with the Department of Energy (Belcher 2004). The geologic conditions and groundwater use in the Central Valley and the Death Valley regions are quite different, providing an opportunity to compare the 3D geologic modeling approach in two different geohydrologic regimes.”

UTSA Research Sheds Light on Central Texas Geology and Climate Change

In Climate Change, Education, Environmental Science, Spatial Analysis on December 3, 2009 at 9:32 am

…from USTA Today…

“Research projects by Stuart Birnbaum, University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) associate professor of geological sciences, and Daniel Lupton, a UTSA master’s student in geological sciences, reveal new information about Central Texas’ climate and water sources.

“Birnbaum’s team researched the ancient climate preserved in the chemical signature of samples from Kimble County, Texas, by taking rock samples from a 12-meter cliff exposure of the Hensel paleosol, an ancient soil estimated to be approximately 112 million years old.”

GIS and West Nile Virus: A Bibliography

In ESRI, Environmental Science, GIS, Geography, Science, Social Science on December 3, 2009 at 9:05 am

Alborino, G.  2003.  Halton Region’s West Nile Virus Information System.  ESRI International User Conference Proceedings 2003. 

http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/proc03/abstracts/a1107.pdf

Bangs, C. 2003.  GIS-enabled Surveillance System for West Nile Virus Neurological Syndromes.  ESRI Health Conference Proceedings 2003. 

http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/health03/papers/pap3035/p3035.htm

Bauer, C., and Gallagher, T.  2003.  The Incorporation of GIS Into a Local Mosquito Control Program.  ESRI International User Conference Proceedings 2003. 

http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/proc03/p0371.pdf

Clennon, J., Kitron, U., Lippold, A., McTighe, T., Norris, D., and Ruiz, M.  2004.  West Nile Virus in Illinois—2001 and 2002.  ESRI Map Book Volume 19. 

http://www.esri.com/mapmuseum/mapbook_gallery/volume19/health1.html

Conrad, E.  2001.  Tracking Mosquitoes Technology.  ESRI International User Conference Proceedings 2001. 

http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/proc01/professional/abstracts/a563.html

Conrad, E.  2001.  Tracking Diseases with GIS.  ArcUser July – September 2001. 

http://www.esri.com/news/arcuser/0701/wnvirus.html

Egbert, M.  2004.  Web-Based Disease Tracking: A West Nile Virus Example.  ESRI International User Conference Proceedings 2004. 

http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/proc04/docs/pap1131.pdf

ESRI.  2005.  Mobile GIS Enhances Prevention and Response for Texas County.  ArcUser April – June 2005. 

http://www.esri.com/news/arcuser/0405/wnv.html

ESRI.  2009.  HL7 and Spatial Interoperability Standards for Public Health and Health Care Delivery.  ESRI White Paper January 2009. 

http://www.esri.com/library/whitepapers/pdfs/hl7-spatial-interoperability.pdf

Fraser, M., Mak, S., Furnell, A., and Henry, B.  2008.  Using Surveillance of Mosquito Populations to Assess Larval Mosquito Control.  ESRI International User Conference Proceedings 2008. 

http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/proc08/papers/abstracts/a1284.html

Gibbs, K.  2004.  Comprehensive GIS Application for West Nile Virus Surveillance.  ESRI Health Conference Proceedings 2004. 

http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/health04/papers/pap3018.pdf

Hailey, C.  2005.  GIS for Integrated Pest Management.  ESRI Health Conference Proceedings 2005. 

http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/health05/docs/hailey_harriscountytexas_hug_2005.pdf

Hamer, G., Kitron, U., Goldberg, T., Brawn, J., Loss, S., Ruiz, M., Hayes, D., and Walker, E. 2009.  Host Selection by Culex pipiens Mosquitoes and West Nile Virus Amplification.  Am J Trop Med Hyg, Feb 2009. 

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19190226

Harten, H., and Piaskoski, A.  2008.  West Nile Virus Surveillance.  ESRI Health Conference Proceedings 2008. 

http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/health08/docs/mapgallery/c0000515.pdf

Henriques, W., and Raziano, T.  2004.  Using Geospatial Technology for Public Health Preparedness.  ESRI International User Conference Proceedings 2004.

http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/proc04/abstracts/a2112.html

Leblond, A., Sandoz, A., Lefebvre, G., Zellerc, H., and Bicout, D.J. 2007.  Remote sensing based identification of environmental risk factors associated with West Nile disease in horses in Camargue, France .  Preventive Veterinary Medicine Volume 79, Issue 1, 16 April 2007. 

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6TBK-4MKTXMW-3&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=82c667eeb6d509101865c4248b646f19

Minter, M.  2005.  Developing a GIS-Based West Nile Virus Infection Model.  ArcUser January – March 2005. 

http://www.esri.com/news/arcuser/0205/west_nile1of2.html

Nielsen, C., Armijos, M., Wheeler, S., Carpenter, T., Boyce, W., Kelley, K., Brown, D., Scott,  T., and Reisen, W.  2008.  Risk Factors Associated with Human Infection during the 2006 West Nile Virus Outbreak in Davis, a Residential Community in Northern California.  Am J Trop Med Hyg, Jan 2008. 

http://www.ajtmh.org/cgi/content/full/78/1/53

Rochlin, I., Ginsberg, H., and Campbell, S.  2009.  Distribution and Abundance of Host-seeking Culex Species at Three Proximate Locations with Different Levels of West Nile Virus Activity.  Am J Trop Med Hyg, Apr 2009. 

http://www.ajtmh.org/cgi/content/abstract/80/4/661

Ruiz, M., Brown, W., and Clennon, J.  2006.  Weather Conditions and West Nile Virus in Illinois.  ESRI International User Conference Proceedings 2006. 

http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/proc06/papers/abstracts/a1458.html

Shuai, J.  2006.  Integrated Real-Time West Nile Virus Surveillance Pilot in Canada.  ESRI International User Conference Proceedings 2006. 

http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/proc06/papers/abstracts/a1075.html

Stoto, M., Cheung, I., Estrada, L., Foster, V., Mele, L., and Smith, M.  2001.  Coordinated Regional Surveillance for West Nile Virus in Metropolitan Washington.  ESRI Health Conference Proceedings 2001. 

http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/health01/papers/hc01_p02d/hc01_p02d.ppt

Villa, P.  2004.  Fight the Bite With GIS.  ESRI International User Conference Proceedings 2004. 

http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/proc04/docs/pap2021.pdf

Wilbur, B., and Mundt, J.  2007.  Vector Borne Disease Surveillance using ArcWeb Services.  ESRI International User Conference Proceedings 2007. 

http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/proc07/papers/papers/pap_1100.pdf

Wraight, K, and Arnold, N.  2005.  West Nile in Washtenaw.  ESRI International User Conference Proceedings 2005. 

http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/proc05/abstracts/a2059.html

Winters, A., Eisen, R., Lozano-Fuentes, S., Moore, C., Pape, W., and Eisen, L.  2008.  Predictive Spatial Models for Risk of West Nile Virus Exposure in Eastern and Western Colorado.  Am J Trop Med Hyg, Oct 2008. 

http://www.ajtmh.org/cgi/content/full/79/4/581

Winters, A., Staples, J., Ogen-Odoi, A., Mead, P., Griffith, K., Owor, N., Babi, N., Enscore, R., Eisen, L., Gage, K., and Eisen, R.  2009.  Spatial Risk Models for Human Plague in the West Nile Region of Uganda.  Am J Trop Med Hyg, Jun 2009. 

http://www.ajtmh.org/cgi/content/abstract/80/6/1014

MidAmerica GIS Consortium (MAGIC) Seeks GIS Service, GIS Coordination, and GIS Innovation Award Nominations

In GIS on December 3, 2009 at 7:43 am

“Do you know someone who has made a significant difference in GIS? If you do, please nominate them for a MAGIC 2010 Award! Nominees for these awards may be individuals, groups or entities. Using the online nomination form, nominators should clearly outline the nature of the contribution being honored. The awards are voted on by members of the MAGIC Symposium Committee, and presented at the Symposium opening session on April 20th, 2010. Categories include GIS Service, GIS Coordination, and GIS Innovation. Nominations for the 2010 MidAmerica GIS Symposium must be received no later than January 8, 2010.”

Map of the Day: For the Love of the Lake, Historic Lakeshore Communities

In ESRI, Environmental Science, GIS, Map of the Day on December 3, 2009 at 7:40 am

…from the ESRI Map Book, Volume 24…

environment4_sm

“This map is part of a series of community maps of the town of Georgina produced by residents. Its purpose is to showcase what residents think is important about their neighborhoods and to help protect and enhance what is special. The map points out a nature reserve and a local stream, both important habitats for conservation.

“The Deer Park Road area is an important mature mixed forest providing habitat for a wide range of animals, birds, and amphibians. Private landowners in the area worked together with the Lake Simcoe Region Conservation Authority to create the Arnold C. Matthews Nature Reserve in order to preserve and steward the land in perpetuity.

“Boyer’s Stream connects protected core lands and Lake Simcoe, providing habitat for waterfowl, amphibians, and marsh birds and a potential upstream fish spawning route.

“Courtesy of the Alliance for a Better Georgina.”

GIS and Cancer Research: A Bibliography

In ESRI, GIS, Science, Social Science, Spatial Analysis, Temporal Analysis, Visualization on December 2, 2009 at 4:11 pm

Bagli, S. 2001.  EHHRA-GIS: A DSS for Health Risk Assessment.  ESRI International User Conference Proceedings 2001.

http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/proc01/professional/abstracts/a542.html

Balagopalan, M.  1999.  Communication of Health Risk Assessment by Integrating Geographic Information System (GIS) with Computer Dispersion Models.  ESRI International User Conference Proceedings 1999.

http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/proc99/proceed/PAPERS/PAP599/P599.HTM

Battioui, C.  2005.  Calculation of Health Disparity Indices.  ESRI International User Conference Proceedings 2005.

http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/proc05/papers/pap2395.pdf

Bellander, T., Berglind, N., Gustavsson, P., Jonson, T., Nyberg, F., Pershagen, G., and Järup, L.  2001.  Using Geographic Information Systems To Assess Individual Historical Exposure to Air Pollution from Traffic and House Heating in Stockholm.  Environmental Health Perspectives Volume 109, Number 6, June 2001.

http://www.ehponline.org/realfiles/members/2001/109p633-639bellander/bellander-full.html

Blewett, M.  2007.  Comparative Cluster Analysis for Establishing the Etiology of Multiple Sclerosis.  ESRI International User Conference Proceedings 2007.

http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/proc07/papers/abstracts/a1568.html

Borchers, R.  2006.  From Cases to Cartography: Geocoding and Mapping Wisconsin Cancer Incidence Using Nuanced-Match Criteria.  ESRI International User Conference Proceedings 2006.

http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/proc06/papers/abstracts/a1320.html

Brunton, H.  2005.  Extending ArcObjects for Statistical Cancer Analysis.  ESRI International User Conference Proceedings 2005.

http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/proc05/abstracts/a1543.html

Carlin, S.  2001.  Community Breast Cancer Mapping–Huntington, Long Island.  ESRI International User Conference Proceedings 2001.

http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/proc01/professional/papers/pap496/p496.htm

Carlin, S.  2001.  Community Breast Cancer Mapping–Huntington, Long Island.  ESRI Health Conference Proceedings 2001.

http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/health01/papers/hc01_p05c/hc01_p05c.html

Colak, E.  2005.  Creating GIS-Based Cancer Density Maps for Trabzon Province of Turkey.  ESRI Health Conference Proceedings 2005.

http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/health05/docs/pap1014.pdf

Colak, H., and Yomralioglu, T.  2008.  GIS Based Cancer Density Maps.  ESRI Health Conference Proceedings 2008.

http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/health08/docs/monday/gis_cancer_maps.pdf

Cowper, D.  2000.  Using GIS to Examine Physician Practice Patterns in the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Health Care System: Examples of Two Cancer Procedures.  ESRI International User Conference Proceedings 2000.

http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/proc00/professional/papers/PAP219/p219.htm

ESRI.  2006.  Mapping Papilloma Virus Disease Data Contributes to Cancer Risk Assessments: Using GIS Technology to Track Virus Prevalence.  ArcNews Fall 2006.

http://www.esri.com/news/arcnews/fall06articles/mapping-papilloma.html

Files, J., and Balamurugan, A.  2007.  Using ArcGIS/SaTScan to Detect Higher than Expected Cancer Incidence.  ESRI International User Conference Proceedings 2007.

http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/proc07/papers/abstracts/a1269.html

Foster, S., Stewart,  S., and Trivers, K.  2008.  Geographic Distribution of Prostate Cancer Incidence in the United States .  ESRI Health Conference Proceedings 2008.

http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/health08/docs/monday/geo_dist.pdf

Francois, T.  2009.  Racial Disparities in Breast Cancer Mortality in Chicago.  2009 ESRI Health GIS Conference Proceedings.

http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/health09/docs/tuesday/racial_disparities_in_breast_cancer_mortality_in_chicago.pdf

Gardner, J.  2000.  Breast Cancer Research Using GIS, Phase 2.  ESRI International User Conference Proceedings 2000.

http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/proc00/professional/abstracts/a145.htm

Garland, C.  2004.  Analyzing Head and Neck Cancer Incidence and Mortality Using GIS.  ESRI International User Conference Proceedings 2004.

http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/proc04/docs/pap1691.pdf

Gorham, E., Mohr, S., Garland, F., Garland, C., Grant, W., and Highfill-McRoy, R.  2005.  World Atlas of Ultraviolet A and B Radiation.  ESRI International User Conference Proceedings 2005.

http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/proc05/papers/pap1778.pdf

Graham, P.2009.  Using ArcGIS Server 9.3 to Power the Maine BioGeoBank.  ESRI International User Conference Proceedings 2009.

http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/proc09/uc/abstracts/a1576.html

Hansen, K.  2007.  Rural-Urban Differences in Stage at Diagnosis and Treatment of Colorectal Cancer in Nebraska .  ESRI Health Conference Proceedings 2007.

http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/health07/docs/rural-urban.pdf

Horner, M., Stinchcomb, D., Zao, J., and Cuccinelli, J.  2008.  Geography of Cervical Cancer: Baseline for HPV Vaccine Effectiveness .  ESRI Health Conference Proceedings 2008.

http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/health08/docs/tuesday/geography_cervical_cancer.pdf

Kennedy, T.  2003.  Modeling Historical Environmental Exposures Using GIS: Implications for Disease Surveillance.  ESRI Health Conference Proceedings 2003.

http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/health03/papers/pap3020/p3020.htm

Krenz, E., Krenz, V., Pinzon-Perez, H., Perez, M., and Hougan, P.  2003.  Barriers to Pap Smears Among Latina MediCal Enrollees Using GIS.  ESRI International User Conference Proceedings 2003.

http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/proc03/abstracts/a1044.pdf

Lai, S., Shen, Z., and Banks, D. 2006.  Inclusion of Non-Street Addresses in Cancer Cluster Analysis.  ESRI Health Conference Proceedings 2006.

http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/health06/docs/cancer_cluster.pdf

Lang, L.  2000.  Finding the link.  In:  GIS for Health Organizations .

http://esripress.esri.com/display/index.cfm?fuseaction=display&websiteID=39&moduleID=0

Ma, M. 2007.  Using GIS in Cancer Cluster Investigation.  ESRI Health Conference Proceedings 2007.

http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/health07/docs/using_gis_in_cancer.pdf

MacKinnon, J. 2007.  Detecting an Association between Socioeconomic Status and Late Stage Breast Cancer Using Spatial Analysis and Area-Based Measures.  ESRI Health Conference Proceedings 2007.

http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/health07/docs/detecting_an_association.pdf

Massaro, M., and Lee, C.  1999.  The Landscape of Breast Cancer in Georgia.  ESRI International User Conference Proceedings 1999.

http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/proc99/proceed/abstracts/a626.htm

McCall Garb, J., Schueler, J., Flannery, C., Pasini, A., and Wait, R.  2001.  Using the American Community Survey and GIS in Breast Cancer Screening.  ESRI International User Conference Proceedings 2001.

http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/proc01/professional/abstracts/a1045.html

McCormick, J.  2000.  Sampling Design Issues in Identifying Breast Cancer Sufferers.  ESRI International User Conference Proceedings 2000.

http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/proc00/professional/papers/PAP949/p949.htm

Mohr, S., Gorham, E., Garland, F., Garland, C., Grant, W., and Highfill-McRoy, R.  2005.  Mapping Vitamin D Deficiency and Breast and Colon Cancers.  ESRI International User Conference Proceedings 2005.

http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/proc05/papers/pap1468.pdf

Oliver, M.  2007.  GIS used to Analyze Race and Socioecomomic Status in Prostate Cancer Incidence in the Southeastern United States .  ESRI Health Conference Proceedings 2007.

http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/health07/docs/gis_used_to_analyze.pdf

Qui, F.  2003.  Spatial Pattern and Causation Analysis of Childhood Cancer in Texas.  ESRI International User Conference Proceedings 2003.

http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/proc03/abstracts/a0842.pdf

Ramroop, S.  2008.  GIS for Community Food Access and its Relationship to Cancer.  ESRI International User Conference Proceedings 2008.

http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/proc08/papers/papers/pap_1411.pdf

Shepard, J., and Shepard, W.  2002.  The Role of Geostatistical Tools in the Analysis and Visualization of Epidemiological Data.  ESRI International User Conference Proceedings 2002.

http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/proc02/abstracts/a0938.html

Stinchcomb, D. 2007.  Extensions useful for examining geographic patterns of health data.  ESRI Federal User Conference Proceedings 2007.

http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/feduc07/presentations/1073_nci_geographic_health_data_january_2007.pdf

Thorpe, N.  2003.  Childhood Cancer in Maryland: A Geographic Information Systems Approach.  ESRI Health Conference Proceedings 2003.

http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/health03/papers/pap3006/p3006.htm

Wells, K. 2009.  Residential Segregation and Prostate Cancer Post- Diagnosis Treatment Decisions.  2009 ESRI Health GIS Conference Proceedings.

http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/health09/docs/tuesday/residential_segregation_and_prostate_cancer_postdiagnosis_treatment_decisions.pdf

Williams Pickle, L., Heineman, E., Ward, M., Nuckols, J., Gumpertz, M., and Bell, B.  2001.  Applications of GIS to cancer research at the National Cancer Institute.  ESRI Health Conference Proceedings 2001.

http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/health01/papers/hc01_p01a/hc01_p01a.html

Geospatial Analysis of Rural Motor Vehicle Traffic Fatalities

In Spatial Analysis on December 2, 2009 at 2:27 pm

…a new report from the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration…

“In recent years, on average about 44 percent of traffic fatalities occurred in urban areas. NHTSA’s Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) codes the functional classification of land use by a binary indicator, i.e., if the location is a rural or urban area, as defined by the United States Census Bureau. However, this information is not enough to determine the spatial spread of the fatali-ties in the rural areas, i.e., are the fatalities occurring in suburban, exurban, or the outlying rural areas. The focus of this report is to determine the extent of fatalities that occur in rural areas that are close to urban areas. Some of these communities in rural areas that are close to urban areas have significant commuting ties with these urban areas. It would be of interest to law enforcement and highway safety planners involved in rural highway safety initiatives to quantify how many traffic fatalities occur in rural areas that are close to urban areas.

“FARS has begun reporting latitude and longitude information recently that facilitates the type of geospatial analysis required to quantify fatalities that occur near urban areas as a function of distance from the urban boundaries. The distances (buffer distances) used in this spatial analysis are 2.5, 5.0, 7.5, and 10.0 miles.

“While 44 percent of all traffic fatalities occur in urban areas, the percentage increases to 63 percent in an area that also includes the rural area within 2.5 miles of the urban boundary. The percentage increases to 73 percent 5.0 miles out, 81 percent 7.5 miles out, and 86 percent 10 miles out. In summary, about three-quarters of all traffic fatalities in the Nation occurred in an area that includes all the urban areas along with the rural areas that are within 5 miles of the urban boundaries.”

Science at Sea: Meeting Future Oceanographic Goals with a Robust Academic Research Fleet

In Books, Environmental Science, Science on December 2, 2009 at 11:58 am

…a new book from the Committee on Evolution of the National Oceanographic Research Fleet, National Research Council…

“The U.S. academic research fleet is an essential national resource, and it is likely that scientific demands on the fleet will increase. Oceanographers are embracing a host of remote technologies that can facilitate the collection of data, but will continue to require capable, adaptable research vessels for access to the sea for the foreseeable future. Maintaining U.S. leadership in ocean research will require investing in larger and more capable general purpose Global and Regional class ships; involving the scientific community in all phases of ship design and acquisition; and improving coordination between agencies that operate research fleets.”

Missouri University of Science and Technology Receives Tree Resource Improvement and Maintenance Grant

In Education, Environmental Science, GIS on December 2, 2009 at 9:46 am

The custodial and landscape services department at Missouri University of Science and Technology has received a $10,000 Tree Resource Improvement and Maintenance (TRIM) grant from the Missouri Department of Conservation. The grant will help fund an updated inventory and evaluation of campus trees.

To complete the inventory, Missouri S&T has contracted with Davey Resource Group, an experienced urban forestry consulting firm. Davey’s trained arborists and horticulturists will then complete a geographic information system (GIS) to locate each tree on Missouri S&T’s 236 acres, identify its species, evaluate its condition and project its lifespan. All information will be installed on an asset management computer program provided by the company. The completed program will allow campus landscapers to plan for maintenance and future replacement.

During the 2006 ice storm, many campus trees were damaged or destroyed. This project will allow the university landscaping staff to identify those damaged trees, prioritize maintenance needed on the existing trees and correct storm damaged trees.

“Missouri S&T takes great pride in its urban forest, open spaces and other natural resources,” says Randy Davis, assistant director of custodial and landscape services at Missouri S&T. “We also have a commitment to the urban forest of the Rolla community. Part of the beauty of Rolla is tied to the trees on campus.”

Once the project is complete, Davis says, the department will apply for additional funding for tree replacement. The campus may also be eligible for “Tree Campus USA” certification in 2010. Tree Campus certification recognizes of the university’s commitment to conservation and community beautification.

Working on the project with Davis is Jim Duncan, manager of custodial and landscape services, and Ed Dunn, campus landscape designer and arborist. For more information about the project, contact Missouri S&T physical facilities at 573-341-4247.

[Source: Missouri University of Science and Technology news release]

A Method for Investigating Population Declines of Migratory Birds Using Stable Isotopes: Origins of Harvested Lesser Scaup in North America

In Environmental Science, GIS, Geography on December 2, 2009 at 8:52 am

…from PLOSone…

Keith A. Hobson, Michael B. Wunder, Steven L. Van Wilgenburg, Robert G. Clark, Leonard I. Wassenaar

“Elucidating geographic locations from where migratory birds are recruited into adult breeding populations is a fundamental but largely elusive goal in conservation biology. This is especially true for species that breed in remote northern areas where field-based demographic assessments are logistically challenging.

“Here we used hydrogen isotopes (δD) to determine natal origins of migrating hatch-year lesser scaup (Aythya affinis) harvested by hunters in the United States from all North American flyways during the hunting seasons of 1999–2000 (n = 412) and 2000–2001 (n = 455). We combined geospatial, observational, and analytical data sources, including known scaup breeding range, δD values of feathers from juveniles at natal sites, models of δD for growing-season precipitation, and scaup band-recovery data to generate probabilistic natal origin landscapes for individual scaup. We then used Monte Carlo integration to model assignment uncertainty from among individual δD variance estimates from birds of known molt origin and also from band-return data summarized at the flyway level. We compared the distribution of scaup natal origin with the distribution of breeding population counts obtained from systematic long-term surveys.

“Our analysis revealed that the proportion of young scaup produced in the northern (above 60°N) versus the southern boreal and Prairie-Parkland region was inversely related to the proportions of breeding adults using these regions, suggesting that despite having a higher relative abundance of breeding adults, the northern boreal region was less productive for scaup recruitment into the harvest than more southern biomes. Our approach for evaluating population declines of migratory birds (particularly game birds) synthesizes all available distributional data and exploits the advantages of intrinsic isotopic markers that link individuals to geography.”

Geospatial Information Scholar Honored by Regional Science Association International

In Education, GIS, GIScience, Geography, Social Science, Statistics on December 2, 2009 at 8:25 am

Dr. Daniel Griffith, Ashbel Smith Professor of Geospatial Information Sciences in UT Dallas’ School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences, has been elected a fellow of the Regional Science Association International. He is one of only two Texas researchers to receive the honor.

Griffith has spent his career studying the Earth and how locations affect how we live. Because his research is global in scope, it’s appropriate that he was honored by an organization whose members work in countries throughout the world.

To have his life’s work recognized and applauded by his colleagues in regional science was a great tribute, Griffith said.

“I was very flattered,” he said. “This was one of my career goals.”

Griffith was one of 11 scientists honored this year. He and Dr. James LeSage of Texas State University are the first Texas-based academics to be named fellows. The group has elected about 50 fellows since the program’s inception in 2001.

Griffith is a past president of the North American branch. He came to UT Dallas from the University of Miami in 2005.

His research focuses primarily on spatial statistics, quantitative urban and economic geography, and applied statistics. He looks at economic and cultural data collected by governments and analyzes the influence of location and geographic features. Griffith teaches courses at UT Dallas about spatial statistics, geographic information sciences research design, mathematical statistics and spatial organization.

Griffith is the author of 15 books and has received many honors. He was selected as a Fulbright research fellow, a Guggenheim fellow and was elected a fellow of the New York Academy of Sciences. He is editor of Geographical Analysis and is a steering committee member of the International Geographical Union’s Commission of Modeling Geographical Systems.

Griffith received his plaque in November during the North American Regional Science Association annual meeting in San Francisco. The international organization has about 4,000 members worldwide.

The group’s scholars are interested in the regional effects of economic and social change. They take a multidisciplinary approach and use the latest quantitative methods and technologies to develop new models for impact assessment.

[Source: UT Dallas news release]

Florida Department of Environmental Protection Secures GIS for Entire Organization

In ESRI, Environmental Science, GIS on December 2, 2009 at 8:22 am

Enterprise License Agreement Improves Application Development and Productivity

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) now has an enterprise license agreement (ELA) with geographic information system (GIS) leader ESRI. The agreement provides unlimited amounts of ArcGIS software to meet the GIS needs of Florida DEP’s 3,500 employees around the state.

“The ELA gives us more flexibility,” said Jonathan Watson, GIS coordinator, Florida DEP Office of Technology & Information Services. “We can install ArcGIS software on as many servers as we need to develop more advanced applications and services. It also allows employees to access the GIS software they need anytime, day or night, so they can do their jobs effectively.”

Among its many geospatial initiatives, the department has encouraged its users to use its own authoritative imagery with supporting metadata. With its newly acquired GIS resources, that will be easier to achieve, as caching maps in 2D and 3D with ArcGIS Server makes the high-resolution, dynamic imagery faster while providing important information such as when the imagery was collected. With ArcGIS Server, Florida DEP will also update the Web application MapDirect (www.dep.state.fl.us/gis) with improved capabilities for better spatial analysis and decision making.

“Florida DEP has been a GIS leader in the state for the past 15 years,” said Christopher Thomas, ESRI government industry solutions manager. “The software and support the department has with this ELA give it the tools it needs to continue developing a GIS that supports operational and mission-critical applications.”

[Source:  ESRI news release]

Using GIS in Biodiversity Conservation across South Africa

In ESRI, Environmental Science, GIS on December 2, 2009 at 8:11 am

…from PositionIT…

“The South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) promotes easy and open access to biodiversity information. Through its Biodiversity GIS website it provides free access to biodiversity plans, maps and tools to support research, planning and decision-making.

“SANBI believes that biodiversity information must be made readily accessible if informed land-use decisions are to be made.  SANBI is the governmental organisation mandated to manage the country’s biodiversity. Along with managing the biodiversity is the challenge of managing all the information generated by SANBI and many of its partner organisations. Whilst managing the information is important, it is equally important to share this information with all stakeholders.

“The Biodiversity GIS (BGIS) unit has as its primary objective the provision of easy access to this spatial biodiversity planning information thereby facilitating its use in biodiversity planning and decision-making across the landscape.”

Map of the Day: Local Tree Plan, Chapinero, Bogotá

In ESRI, Environmental Science, GIS, Map of the Day on December 2, 2009 at 8:03 am

…from the ESRI Map Book, Volume 24…

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“This map analyzes biological corridors (linear strips of vegetation that provide a continuous or near-continuous pathway between habitats) and tree crowns (the area above the trunk) in the locality of Chapinero, Bogotá. It shows the trees modeled with an equatorial diameter buffer and integrated with a dissolve for biological research. The trees with their crowns close together serve as a biological corridor for local birds and insects. They also provide shade for people living in the city.

“Courtesy of Jardín Botánico José Celestino Mutis.”

Toni Fisher Takes Position as ESRI Higher Education Manager

In ESRI, Education, GIS on December 1, 2009 at 3:07 pm

Fisher Will Use Education and Experience to Promote Campuswide Use of GIS

Longtime geographic information system (GIS) educator Toni Fisher has joined ESRI’s Industry Solutions Group as the higher education manager, where she will encourage the use of GIS in building effective learning environments.

Fisher has undergraduate degrees in philosophy and environmental studies and a master of science degree in geographic information science conferred by Birkbeck College, University of London. Her GIS career spans a number of industries including forestry, telecommunications, city and county government, and mass transit. Working within these fields, Fisher was responsible for implementing and deploying GIS as well as training staff in GIS and GIS applications.

“One of my goals is to support institutes of higher education with enterprise deployment and browser-based GIS,” says Fisher. “Many schools have ESRI software but are not yet taking full advantage of the learning opportunities that an enterprise GIS installation can bring to interdepartmental projects.”

She adds that in these times of budget constraint, enterprise implementation is a key component to the efficiencies and cost reductions that can be realized with the use of GIS for administrative projects such as facilities management, asset inventories, and scheduled maintenance.

Michael Gould, ESRI’s director of education in Industry Solutions, says, “Toni’s comprehensive knowledge of our software and extensive teaching experience, as well as previous industry experience, make her the perfect person to assist higher education users in moving to enterprise GIS across the whole campus.”

For more information about ESRI’s higher education program, visit www.esri.com/university.

[Source: ESRI news release]

CorridorDesigner: A Toolbox for Creating Habitat and Corridor Models with ArcGIS

In ESRI, Environmental Science, GIS on December 1, 2009 at 2:53 pm

…from CorridorDesign.org…

“CorridorDesigner includes an ArcToolbox toolbox for creating habitat and corridor models with ArcGIS and an ArcMap extension for evaluating corridors.

“The Arizona CorridorDesigner toolbox was designed to work in conjunction with the general CorridorDesigner toolbox to streamline the design of wildlife corridors within Arizona. The AZ toolbox includes habitat parameterizations for species throughout Arizona modeled for the Arizona Missing Linkages project, and must be used in conjunction with the land cover and elevation layers downloadable from the corridordesign.org website.”

Movebank: An Online Data Repository and Community for Animal Tracking and Photo Monitoring

In Environmental Science, GIS, Geography on December 1, 2009 at 9:10 am

“Thousands of Biologists collect animal movement data but there are no tools to save or compare these. Most data are used once and then disappear into a filing cabinet.  Movebank facilitates long-term comparisons of these data making it possible to address pressing questions such as the effects of global climate change and human-caused landscape change.  It also compliments new technologies for collecting data in real-time by providing live interaction and alerts.”

Movebank Community Web Site

“We are are an open community with the common interest of remotely monitoring organisms in their habitats. We are biologists and engineers engaged in a dialog across disciplines and backgrounds. We hope this web site will serve as a venue to further communication among the diverse parties interested in the development and deployment of technologies for gathering data on free-ranging organisms.”

Mapping Loneliness

In Geography, Social Science on December 1, 2009 at 8:46 am

…from ScienceNews…

“A graphical representation of the social network of Framingham, Mass., shows lonely people clustering at the periphery of the network. Each point represents a person (greater loneliness from yellow to green to blue) and lines between points indicate types of relationships (red for siblings and black for friends and spouses).”

Spatial and Temporal Analysis of Tornado Fatalities in the United States: 1880–2005

In Spatial Analysis on December 1, 2009 at 8:29 am

…from Weather and Forecasting, Volume 22…

Walker S. Ashley

“A dataset of killer tornadoes is compiled and analyzed spatially in order to assess region-specific vulnerabilities in the United States from 1880 to 2005. Results reveal that most tornado fatalities occur in the lower–Arkansas, Tennessee, and lower–Mississippi River valleys of the southeastern United States—a region outside of traditional “tornado alley.” Analysis of variables including tornado frequency, land cover, mobile home density, population density, and nocturnal tornado probabilities demonstrates that the relative maximum of fatalities in the Deep South and minimum in the Great Plains may be due to the unique juxtaposition of both physical and social vulnerabilities. The spatial distribution of these killer tornadoes suggests that the above the national average mobile home density in the Southeast may be a key reason for the fatality maximum found in this area. A demographic analysis of fatalities during the latter part of the database record illustrates that the middle aged and elderly are at a much greater risk than are younger people during these events. Data issues discovered during this investigation reveal the need for a concerted effort to obtain critical information about how and where all casualties occur during future tornado and hazardous weather events. These new, enhanced data, combined with results of spatially explicit studies exploring the human sociology and psychology of these hazardous events, could be utilized to improve future warning dissemination and mitigation techniques.”

Download Datasets from the World Wildlife Fund’s Conservation Science Program

In Environmental Science, GIS on December 1, 2009 at 8:27 am

“The Conservation Science Program is developing its capacity to make available more of the data that WWF have created and/or improved. Currently this site only has a few datasets but our plan is to increase the available datasets on a regular basis.

“These data are available for use for valid scientific, conservation, and educational purposes and we request that the proper citations are used. Any modification of the original data by users should be noted.

  • WildFinder Database
  • Marine Ecoregions of the World
  • Terrestrial Ecoregions Base Global Dataset
  • Terrestrial Ecoregions of the World
  • HydroSHEDS (global hydrological database)
  • Global Lakes and Wetlands Database (GLWD)
  • Global 200 Ecoregions

Download datasets

Why we need to improve geographic literacy

In GIS, Geography, Science on December 1, 2009 at 8:27 am

…from the Kansas City Star…

“Year after year surveys reveal that only 37 percent of young Americans know where Iraq is and a large minority cannot locate the Pacific Ocean on a map.

“Like clockwork, commentators then write how horrible it is that America is so geographically illiterate. While it is true that geographic ignorance is a big problem, these commentators do geography no favors.

“Geography has long been thought of as merely the memorization of places. This is how it is taught by many schools.

“The notion that geography is just a memory game and not a science led some of the nation’s finest educational institutions including Harvard University to stop teaching geography in the 1940s and 1950s. Geography has been in exile ever since.”

The Geography of Air Pollution: Where are Pregnant Women and their Children at Risk?

In Environmental Science, Geography on December 1, 2009 at 8:27 am

7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m., Wednesday, 20 January 2010

Institute of the Environment, UCLA

Beate Ritz, M.D., Ph.D., Professor and Vice Chair, UCLA Department of Epidemiology will present “Air Pollution Impacts on Pregnant Women, Infants and Children”.

John Balmes, M.D., Professor of Medicine, UC San Francisco will present “Policy Approaches to Protect Communities from the Health Effects of Local Pollution”.

SDI Job Opportunities: Two Post-Doc Research Positions

In Environmental Science, GIS, SDI, Spatial Analysis, Temporal Analysis, Visualization on December 1, 2009 at 7:35 am

The European Commission Joint Research Center (JRC) Institute for Environment and Sustainability has two vacancies for Post-Doc Researchers:

Spatial and Temporal Analysis of Integrated Quantitative and Qualitative Information

The Grantholder will work in an exploratory research project which aims to demonstrate how information volunteered by the public can be quality controlled and used to complement official sources in the context of forest fires.

The project has four objectives:

  1. To develop, test, and deploy workflows able to quality control volunteered geographic information.
  2. To assess the value of volunteered geographic information in supporting both early warning, and local impact assessments of forest fires.
  3. To develop novel analytical and visualization techniques to communicate more effectively to the general public the concepts of risk.
  4. To advance spatial and temporal analysis of integrated quantitative and qualitative information.

The Grantholder will work in a team and contribute specifically to Objective 4 above. The ideal candidate has a PhD in geographic information science, environmental or social science, (or a university degree in these disciplines and 5 years research experience after the university degree giving access to doctoral studies).

Practical experience in spatio-temporal analysis is required as well as a good knowledge of spoken and written English.

Risk Mapping and Visualisation of Fuzzy Concepts

The Grantholder will work in an exploratory research project which aims to demonstrate how information volunteered by the public can be quality controlled and used to complement official sources in the context of forest fires.

The project has four objectives:

  1. To develop, test, and deploy workflows able to quality control volunteered geographic information.
  2. To assess the value of volunteered geographic information in supporting both early warning, and local impact assessments of forest fires.
  3. To develop novel analytical and visualization techniques to communicate more effectively to the general public the concepts of risk.
  4. To advance spatial and temporal analysis of integrated quantitative and qualitative information.

The Grant Holder will work in a team and contribute specifically to Objective 3 above.

The ideal candidate has a PhD in geographic information science, computer science or engineering, (or a university degree in these disciplines and 5 years research experience after the university degree giving access to doctoral studies).

Practical experience in the analysis and visualization of fuzzy concepts like risk is required as well as a good knowledge of spoken and written English.

The deadline for receipt of applications is 15th December 2009 at 12:00 a.m. Milan time

MidAmerica GIS Consortium (MAGIC) 2010 Symposium: 18-22 April 2010 in Kansas City, Missouri

In Conferences, GIS on December 1, 2009 at 7:22 am

“GIS covers such a broad range of subjects, applications and types of people that use it, that developing a conference program that meets everyone’s needs is a challenging task. Even more challenging is an attendee trying to figure out exactly which sessions or topics will be most interesting and helpful. MAGIC 2010 is intended to focus the content of the presentation options into a program specifically geared to each attendee’s needs.

“Sessions will be categorized into:

  • Safe and Healthy: Using GIS in the public safety and health industries
  • Public Face of GIS: Moving GIS to the web and out to the public for mass consumption
  • Professional Development: Becoming a better GIS professional
  • Smart Growth: Managing the growth of communities with GIS
  • Saving Time and Money: Using GIS to become more efficient in what we do
  • Imagery and Remote Sensing”

More information

Map of the Day: Human Use and Management Chart, North Coast Section of Oregon

In ESRI, Environmental Science, GIS, Map of the Day on December 1, 2009 at 7:22 am

…from the ESRI Map Book, Volume 24…

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“The State of Oregon and Oregon’s Ocean Policy Advisory Council (OPAC) need geospatial information for the coastal and offshore areas of Oregon for planning. This map is one in a reference chart series showing human use and management. Generated initially to support the Oregon marine reserve proposal process, these maps were part of a larger effort that also mapped biological resources and seafloor and shoreline.

“The sea has traditionally been familiar territory to the fishing community. Other interests such as potential wave energy projects and marine conservation have emerged. The maps help OPAC members and others understand current and potential use of specific areas. The maps are used to facilitate planning, state and local discussions, and education efforts.

“Courtesy of Andy Lanier and Barbara Seekins.”