Day: February 8, 2010

University of Arizona Developing a New GeoDesign Curriculum

/ Matt Artz / 2 Comments

The College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (CALA) at The University of Arizona is “developing a number of new and important programs that will build on CALA’s tradition of excellence including sustainable real estate development, responsible property investment, and the new field of Geodesign.

“Creation of a new Design Curriculum. CALA has become a national educational leader in the new field of Geodesign. Geodesign combines the rich geographic digital mapping and data base power of Geographic Information Systems with the three dimensional imaging and modeling capabilities of Building Information Modeling. Together, these tools will allow architects, landscape architects, and planners of the future to design in 3-D at the landscape scale while assessing multi-dimensional impacts and implications of design alternatives.”

The National Geospatial Digital Archive: A Collaborative Project to Archive Geospatial Data

/ Matt Artz / 1 Comment

Journal of Map And Geography Libraries, Volume 6 Issue 1, 2010: Preservation of Digital Geospatial Materials

Tracey Erwin; Julie Sweetkind-Singer

“The National Geospatial Digital Archive is a collaborative project between the University of California at Santa Barbara and Stanford University. The project was funded by the Library of Congress through their National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP). The goal of the collaboration was to collect, preserve, and provide long-term access to at-risk geospatial data. The project partners created preservation environments at both universities, created and populated a format registry, collected more than ten terabytes of geospatial data and imagery, wrote collection development policies governing acquisitions, and created legal documents designed to manage the content and the relationship between the two nodes.”

Development of a Geospatial Screening Tool to Identify Source Areas of Windblown Dust

/ Matt Artz

Environmental Modelling & Software, Volume 24, Issue 8, August 2009, Pages 1003-1011

Ilias G. Kavouras, Vicken Etyemezian, and David W. DuBois

“Soil properties and air-mass backward trajectories were integrated into a geographical information systems (GIS) tool to identify geographical regions that were likely to have significant influence on dust concentrations at Class I national parks and wilderness areas in US. The Windblown Dust Index (WDI) was introduced by spatial analysis of wind erosion and land use/land cover data for North America to identify potential area sources of windblown dust. The spatial probability density maps of backward trajectories were utilized to determine the number of trajectory points that passed near a grid cell at speeds higher than a specified threshold value. Analysis of data for the Salt Creek and White Mountain wilderness areas highlighted the significant potential of both local and regional sources of windblown dust at the two sites, with evidence for seasonal variation. These data are useful in evaluating the importance of windblown dust source areas and developing cost-effective targeted studies and/or mitigation strategies.”

Application of an Enhanced Spill Management Information System to Inland Waterways

/ Matt Artz

Journal of Hazardous Materials, Volume 175, Issues 1-3, 15 March 2010, Pages 583-592

Janey S. Camp, Eugene J. LeBoeuf, and Mark D. Abkowitz

“Spill response managers on inland waterways have indicated the need for an improved decision-support system, one that provides advanced modeling technology within a visual framework. Efforts to address these considerations led the authors to develop an enhanced version of the Spill Management Information System (SMIS 2.0). SMIS 2.0 represents a state-of-the-art 3D hydrodynamic and chemical spill modeling system tool that provides for improved predictive spill fate and transport capability, combined with a geographic information systems (GIS) spatial environment in which to communicate propagation risks and locate response resources. This paper focuses on the application of SMIS 2.0 in a case study of several spill scenarios involving the release of diesel fuel and trichloroethylene (TCE) that were simulated on the Kentucky Lake portion of the Tennessee River, each analyzed at low, average, and high flow conditions. A discussion of the decision-support implications of the model results is also included, as are suggestions for future enhancements to this evolving platform.”