Day: January 15, 2010

Spatial Assessment and Analysis of Vulnerability: GIScience Applied in the Interdisciplinary Domain of Hazard and Climate Change Research

/ Matt Artz

06 – 07 July 2010,  Salzburg, Austria

“This theme is expected to highlight different developed and currently investigated methodologies to spatially assess vulnerability. It will specifically address the issue of vulnerability assessment, independent from conceptual discussions. The focus will be on the review and discussion of different methods of GIScience employed to assess, quantify and represent vulnerability as integrated spatial phenomena. Within a workshop session, current achievements and future research challenges will be identified and formulated.

“Topics:

  • Assessments in the domains of disaster risk reduction, climate change, natural hazards and human security;
  • Methods for indicator selection and index construction;
  • Scale issues in vulnerability assessments;
  • Validation and accuracy of vulnerability assessments;
  • Spatio-temporal visualisation of complex indicators.

“The workshop is scheduled for Tuesday, July 6 and Wednesday, July 7, 2010 and will be followed by the annual GI_Forum. In addition to presentations ranging from different scholarly schools of vulnerability the workshop will focus on output oriented discussion sessions.

“The papers will be peer-reviewed and published in a book.”

Remapping the World’s Population: Visualizing Data using Cartograms

/ Matt Artz

…from the Winter 2010 issue of ArcUser…

“The Worldmapper project has successfully produced a series of maps to visualize data concerning a range of issues facing the modern world based on the idea of density-equalizing maps. With this approach, ArcGIS 9.3 plays a crucial role as an interface to convert suitable raster datasets and produce updated cartograms. The data is converted using ArcMap’s ArcToolbox, while the cartograms were calculated using a geoprocessing tool available from ESRI’s ArcScripts site. The final visualization was performed in ArcMap. This article introduces and evaluates further new mapping approaches that move depictions beyond their simple descriptive form. It gives an insight into these new developments, focusing on subnational-level data that has, until now, been neglected.”

Research Associate, Texas Fisheries and Wildlife Coop Unit

/ Matt Artz

Research Associate needed ASAP

Location: Texas Fisheries and Wildlife Coop Unit, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas

Timing and duration:  To be filled ASAP and funded at least through Sept 2011.

Duties: Support principal investigator and coordinate with other investigators and cooperators from USGS, Texas Tech University, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, New Mexico State Game and Fish Department, Texas Commission on Environmental  Quality, and others on a large scale meta-analysis project examining the impacts of climate change and water quality on fish communities and algal blooms, including database management, statistical and landscape level analyses, report writing, manuscript preparation.

Minimum requirements:  Master’s degree in biology, hydrology, or natural resource related field, experience with ArcGIS, statistical analysis, and professional writing skills.

Salary: $40,000 per year with benefits

Please send a cover letter and CV with references to:

Dr. Reynaldo Patiño
Texas Cooperative Fish & Wildlife Research Unit Texas Tech University Agricultural Sciences Rm 218 Mailstop 2120 Lubbock, TX 79409-2120
(806) 742-2851
reynaldo.patino@ttu.edu