ArcGIS Online Map

For this exercise, I sat around contemplating an idea I could accomplish with my limited GIS skills. I began by thinking of a nuclear fallout map I saw a few years ago. I’m from a relatively strange family, and both my biological brothers, as well as both of my brother-in-laws are preppers. They all have stockpiles of food and weapons, and for the quite a bit about SHTF, and TEOTWAWKI (I’ll let you figure those acronyms out yourself).  We are all in geographically different areas, but within Eastern Washington and Northern Idaho, that way, we have several potential areas for long term survival if the need arises. Okay, enough background, on to the actual project. I wanted to map the areas in the PNW that we safe areas for any number of calamities. I wanted to add several datasets, but unfortunately, the online version limited me to 1000 data points per file, which wouldn’t work.  So I zoomed into Spokane, figuring I would do a similar idea, but just based on the safest place to live in Spokane, as that stuff gets important when you are a dad and berated by your brothers for not being prepared enough.

I started by looking at the obvious stuff, I checked areas that could potentially flood (this seemed to be more important while I was living in FL), and checked areas for potential earthquakes. Northern Idaho had a slightly higher rating than the greater Spokane area, but all areas of Spokane seemed similar.  I then added a layer for wildfires, mostly because it was cool, but again helped me narrow down some areas of Spokane as potentially unsafe due to wildfire (mostly border areas).  I then added a layer about hazardous waste sites. No one wants to live near hazardous waste, and it could be sites for potential terrorist activities (I’m sounding like my brothers at this point).  The sites narrowed down my search even further, the valley was out, and so was the eastside of North Spokane.

I then checked alcoholic beverage spending. I have no idea if this correlates in any meaningful way, but I was under the assumption that drunken people may commit more crimes, I didn’t put too much stock in this layer, but was somewhat curious. I then really wanted to add crime data, but again, 1000 point maximum, so I actually used the City of Spokane GIS site to get a map, and again it seemed as based on this and other criteria NW Spokane seemed to be the safest area.  (I used a super scientific algorithm to determine this).  I then wanted to look at a few other criteria, mainly financial. Mainly the unemployment rate, under the premise that areas with less unemployment will have less crime (this seemed relatively true). I then looked at average household income under the same premise, as well as disposable income.  Interestingly enough, the area I live in seems to meet or exceed in all the criteria I looked at, so I am going to show this to my brothers and let them know how intuitive I am. 

I enjoyed this exercise, as I got a feel how easy it could be to produce maps with layers and criteria with real world implications. I’m excited to get more proficient with GIS so I can produce relatively usable maps with my particular interests. That and I might need to decide where to put a bunker one day. 

Census

I obviously don't know how to change the output into landscape. That being said, the overall project was quiet enjoyable. I'm starting to learn the ins and outs of ArcGIS, so using it to make such interesting maps is borderline magical. I've been inspired by this class to get a GIS certificate, which will increase my proficiency level. This series of maps explains the difference in the total number of people by county in the 10 year span between 1990 and 2000. The next map is the overall population by county in 2000, followed by the percent change by county, and the population density by county. The world is growing exponentially, and we are still incredibly luckily to have the resources available that we do in this country. That is going to change, and this series of maps speaks volumes to that fact. 

About 11,000 years ago, the world had roughly 6 million people. Today we have breached 7 billion people. I would enjoying doing a projection similar to this set of models, but by extrapolating into 30 or 50 years in the future (I'm sure this has been done). Also, if someone could tell me how to put my landscape file into a horizontal format, that would be wonderful. 

DTM

I chose a map on the area I just spent the weekend hunting in. In general the area is the Sherman Creek Wildlife Area, the bridge at Kettle Falls, and the surrounding areas. This area is considered the beginning of the Okanagan Highlands, and is mostly Ponderosa Pine forest with mixed conifers at higher elevations. The drainages generally are dominated by quaking aspen with a thick understory. Turkey, cougar, bear, and deer are hunted in this area. The geographical coordinate system is Datum of North America 1983, and the extent information is as follows: Top 49.00167^o, Left119.00167^o, Right 117.9983^o, and Bottom 47.9983^o. 

Lab 3, Week 4 Digitize those fields!

I could literally digitize fields all day. Who would know the polygon tool is such an enjoyable experience? This was a fun exercise, and I’m starting to gain a little hope that I might learn how to utilize GIS after all. I enjoyed digitizing, mostly because I could think of all the implications I could end up utilizing GIS for. For example, satellite imagery of hunting areas, digitized for where I see particular signs, areas of food, water, etc. I’m guessing there is even a way to input a number of variables, and then predict where certain game would be at different times of day. GIS could revolutionize my hunting strategy. I’m GIS has other potential uses too, but none so useful. 

It’s a good day to be alive.

GIS Tutorial (Kind of)

Luckily, I survived any grievous bodily harm I caused to myself during this lab. On several occasions, I punched myself in the face, cursed God, and contemplated dropping the class. I generally consider myself fairly sharp and somewhat tech savvy, so after drooling on myself in wonder, my word view was changed a bit.  I encountered two main problems during this lab. Occasionally, I would make an accidental change, and then be at a total loss on how to undo the change. I exacerbated this problem by continually clicking the undo button, only to fuck things up even worse. Secondly, the versions in the tutorial and the school computers were different. These inconsistencies lead me to aimless search through menus looking for the proper button (that may or may not look like the tutorial).

The potentials for GIS are virtually unlimited. It is a tool that is so valuable to understand, I am taking this class for no good reason other than I want to learn how to become proficient. While doing the lab, my mind was continually wandering to potential uses of GIS, and I had multiple ideas of maps I’d love to create. The implications to hard sciences are virtually limitless, for example, I have spent years searching for populations of a particular species of flower. With GIS, I could add multiple layers with preferred growth conditions and environments, and narrow my search areas substantially (I really don’t even know if this is true, but I hope so!). I could think of hundreds of other examples of how GIS could be useful in the sciences.

The pitfalls for the GIS are the learning curve. I made change my opinion of this as we progress, but after this exercise I am feeling somewhat disheartened. I can only hope it gets easier with use. In addition, people without the proper knowledge base could make inaccurate maps that others believe to be accurate. In my flower example, if someone walked up to me and handed me a map of potential sites, I would be inclined to believe them, even without investigation. They know more GIS than me, so they must be right, right? Furthermore inconsistencies in data can be propagated through GIS, adding another layer to unravel if a true hypothesis is found to be incorrect.

In conclusion, GIS is such a useful tool, users are willing overcome obstacles and potential problems to become proficient in its use. I imagine GIS will become increasingly more useful and user friendly as technology evolves. As the amount of users increase, the ability to distinguish poor procedures will increase within the community, reducing incongruencies.  If nothing else, learning GIS may make you contemplate your place in the universe

MyMap Lab

Outdoor Destinations near Spokane

8 years ago I had the opportunity to move. Prior to that day I had never even heard of Spokane. Outdoor recreation is a huge part of my life, and since moving in 2004, I have had the opportunity to explore a number of public use areas in the Inland Northwest. One of my favorite parts of living in Spokane is the sheer number of outdoor recreation areas we have within a few hour drive. For this assignment, I made a map of some of my favorite outdoor destinations close to home.

Making this map was the first time I dove into the world of neogeography. Neogeography is defined as people using a pre-existing toolkit to create maps on their own terms. Users have the ability to draw from a huge database of information, allowing the creation and sharing of substantive maps.Undoubtedly, neogeography will expand as more users discover the ease of sharing location data from any number of devices. 

The consequence of allowing users from all skill levels to share maps and location data will be the availability of unregulated maps and data. Determining accuracy of information is the responsibility of the viewer, and could lead to the propagation of inaccurate information. Also, in exchange for ease of use, users are confined by the pre-existing toolkit, which may not contain the exact information or styles the user initially wanted to convey.