Mini Project

Reference Map One

Reference Map Two

Reference Map Three

Theme Map

    Summary:

      

      It was the final project of this class. So I tried my best to combine all skills I learned this quarter to create those maps. Finally, I created 3 reference map and 1 thematic map. 

      

      The first one is a 2D reference map by land use. It's clear to know from this map that, luckily, the fire didn't damage and spread to highly used area, which means highly populated and highly developed. The second reference map is a 3D Fire Spread and Slope map. From this map, we can find out the relationship between the fire spread direction and slope of that area. The only information I got is that the fire destroyed area has relatively high slope than flat plain in the southwest, which is the location of the Los Angeles city. I guess it's because fire has been controlled moving forwards city area,which may cause catastrophic damage to Los Angeles, as well as the high density of wood in the north and east part from the starting point, which is easy to get on fire. The third 3D reference map I created is an aspect and fire spread map. It shows that the relationship between aspect of the mountain and direction of fire spread. I was surprised to find that the overall tendency of the fire spread is towards northeast and the aspect of that area is south west. At first it looks strange because from our view it should spread downward like water. However, it was upwards, which means towards a higher elevation--summit. And it was this discovery lead me to create my thematic map about the relationship between the location of summit and fire spread, which gives exciting results. I will explain that map later. 

   
        After creating three reference map, I started to summarize the data I got. The fire burned 160,557 acres and led to the destruction of 209 structures, including 89 homes (Station Fire). The station fire towards northwest at first and then northeast. It grew rapidly during the first few days (Aug.29th - Aug 31st) . Three days later, its speed suddenly decreased which means it was controlled after Sept. 1st. The fire took place in the northwest part of Los Angeles, and it seems the fire didn't affect city and residence as much as its apparent size increment, which enlarged several times comparing to the first day. However, from this spread and size I was really shocked by the power of nature. Human was so weak before disaster,  although the U.S. got probably the most advanced equipment in the world. The process of repairing is extremely long, even takes generations to come.

      The thematic map I created is about fire spread and summit. Because I guess there might be some association between the spread of fire and the location of summit. It's surprised to find that there seems to have tendency of fire spread towards summits. Basically, the place fire took place itself has high density of summit. After the fire got controlled in Sept. 1st, fire still moved slowly towards summit in the east. I guess part of the reason is that summit has high elevation and difficult to control the spread. Fire brigade may have difficulty in bringing equipment to the summits, thus diminish the rescue efficiency. Besides, there might be part of reason that  summit has higher density of forest. Fire and forests go back to the prehistoric, they have been with with each other for millions of years.(Forest Fire Basics) So fire would spread out faster and easier, in turn makes the rescue more difficult. However, city prefers to be built on plain rather than on hill and summit, so it was still kind of lucky that the impact on human life would be less and minimize the loss.  

      From these interesting discoveries, I suggest some points below. Firstly, pay attention to location of summit because it has relatively high probability to be on fire, record them and create a "The Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone" . Secondly, it's plausible to predict the direction of fire spread towards summit since the relatively high density of forest. Thirdly, if, unfortunately, there's fire which can't be controlled in a short time, the best way to minimize loss is making it spread towards summit because of the low population density, which may be the last choice we have. Fourthly, measure and report the Forest Fire insurance Rank Forecast more frequently, and we can pay more attention on the forecast on summit because it's more likely to have forest fire. If it's red flag, then we should pay more attention on those area. "The National Weather Service in southern California is changing the criteria that triggers a red flag warning for fire danger." This will assist fire agencies in their allocating and moving resources in anticipation of increased fire activity.(Red Flag warning/fire weather watches in discussions and headlines) Fifthly, We should continue improving the equipment for fire brigade. Like the WDNR Fire Equipment Center. "Because of the unique nature of equipment needed to most effectively suppress forest fires in Wisconsin, the Center is able to produce the specialized equipment at a cost 20%-50% below what can be produced in the private sector. "(Forestry Equipment Research and Development Center) California government can also build our own laboratory or research center to discover proper equipment in mountain area. At last, I found a website can give every day's flag level, which is good for people living near mountain area to know everyday.

       

      And it was also meaningful in the process of summarizing. From summarizing, I learned some new terms and got some new information. Such as Red Flag warning and fire equipment in mountain area. It's interesting to find those strange equipment which I have never seen before, even heard. So it's a gain both in academic performance as well as daily knowledge. Thank you for this project.

The Garage at the LeMay Center in Tomahawk

Bibliography

“Station Fire.” Incident Information System. 10 Nov. 2009. Web. 1 Dec. 2011.

"The Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone."VHFHS Zone. Los Angeles Fire Department. 2007. 09 Dec.  2011

<http://lafd.org/brush/zone.htm>

"Forest Fire Basics". A Brief Forest Fire Summary.By Steve Nix, About.com Guide. n.d. 09 Dec. 2011 <http://forestry.about.com/cs/forestfire/a/good_bad_ugly.htm>

"The National Weather Service in southern California is changing the criteria that triggers a red flag warning for fire danger."New red flag warning criteria in California. April 17, 2010 by Bill Gabbert

09 Dec. 2011 <http://gacc.nifc.gov/oscc/predictive/weather/myfiles/Watches_and_Warnings_for_California.htm>

"Forestry Equipment Research and Development Center" WDNR. 11 May 2011 09 Dec. 2011
<http://dnr.wi.gov/forestry/fire/LeMay/>

Data Source:

http://gis.ats.ucla.edu/Mapshare/   UCLA's Spatial Data Repository

http://seamless.usgs.gov/website/seamless/viewer.htm USGS Seamless Data Ware House

Summary Map 1:

It's easy to find out that the majority of population of Asian locates in west coast, especially California. This can also been proved by the large proportion of asian students in our school. I think this situation can be explained by the large immigration hundreds of years ago. Besides, there're also a relatively high percentage of Asian in the northeast coast around MA. However, Asians in middle of the U.S. is very rare. Many of them are even lower than 0.5 percent. So we can conclude from this map that the population of Asian cross the U.S. is not equally distributed, and most of them converges to cost of two sides of the nation.

Summary of Map 2:

It's very obvious to detect that the majority of Black population converges to the southeast part of the nation and reduces as it goes northwest. I'm really surprised to see this distribution because I'm not very good at history of Black people. However, this map gives me a really useful information about it. Besides, it's interesting to see that both Asian and Black people are rare in middle of the U.S.

Summary of Map 3:

The majority of population converges to southwest part of the nation, which is opposite to Black population. Maybe it's due to it's close to Mexico?  I'm not pretty sure though. Besides, there are very high percentage of other races along the west coastline, indicating the popularity of immigration oversea. However, it's easy to detect that the distribution is strongly stewed to east, which means only few other races in the east part of nation. 

Conclusion:

    Basically, I can conclude that the majority of Asian, Black and other races converges to coastline around the U.S., it may be due to the large quantity of immigration of labors generations ago. Besides, middle north of the nation has a extremely low percentage of all other races.  Moreover, if we add up the percentage of all three types of picture, we can find that west coast of nation should have the lowest percentage of White in the U.S. And except west coast and middle north part, the variance of other races around nation shouldn't be high or it's equally distributed.

    From this lab assignment, I'm impressed by the power of GIS in analyzing different types of data in a uniform format. It's difficult to detect the relationship of three different data simply from tables. However, GIS provides us a new way to reveal them to public. I met some problem in tutorial part of this lab, but once I got the skill, I finished these three work very fast. So it's not that difficult to popularize this technology to public. It should be useful in the future. 

Lab HW6

Information: 

Top:37.5419444438.        Left:-121.832222222. 

Right:-121.084722222.    Bottom:37.0961111104. 

Datum: D_North_American_1983. 

Comment: 

    It's the Northeast Part of Sunol Regional Wilderness.  It's about 350 miles from our school and very close to San Francisco. From my data I find that it's a not very steep mountain. And I graph 3 2d maps and 1 3d maps to reveal the information I got. The slope map gives us the information of how steepness the mountain is. The aspect map shows the direction of the slope; Hillshade is also a overall description of the mountain. And there's also a 3D map, though lack of statistics, provides an entirely new impression of map and a visualized view of actual world which is pretty interesting. 

3D Map

Lab HW5

The real distance between two cities is 11195600m
 Conformal Projection Map:

Distance:16256949m

Distance: 16347217m

 Equal Area Projection Map:

Distance:12733317m

  

Distance:16277532m

 Equidistant Projection Map:

Distance:10821337m

 

Equatorial Azimuthal Equidistant Projection Distance: 13382251m

    This week's homework is make 6 different projection maps, it seems an easy work because we just follow the same procedure and just switch between different projections that are already stored in ArcGIS.

    However, I really find the importance of the choice of projection from it. Basically, the most obvious different between them is three different types: conformal, equidistant and equal area. I can conclude easily from the measure tool in ArcGIS to tell that with different projection distant between two points may vary significantly. As six projections I chose, the distance between them varies from 10821337m to 16347217m. However, the real distance turns out to be 11195600m and none of six projections above gives the true value(it may be also due to the error in my measure). So that it's hard to have same distance using different projections even they are divided into similar category.

    Besides, it really challenged my impression of map. Because I always using city or road map to find direction, I took for granted that maps look similar and every information in it is accurate. So I was truly surprised when I saw those lovely and rare, for me, projections such as two points equidistant. It's much better to know from lab than ppt in lecture because I can change myself, choose whatever I want and see their information. 

    Moreover, I find within same category, there's still very big difference. their functions are also significantly different. For example, Two Point Equidistant Projection Map and Equatorial Azimuthal Equidistant Projection Map are both equidistant map, but they have very different function. The former is  commonly used in National Geographic Society atlases for maps of Asia, and it sometimes appears in diagrams of air routes, the later is useful for showing airline distances from center point of projection and for seismic and radio work.

    Finally, I can see from those different projection maps that how significant projection is. Different choice of projection can result in totally different map with various functions. And I realize it's still a tricky problem in projection since no single projection can preserve all three types of data. Maybe 3D map can help, but it's still a long way to go because it require a very strong infrastructure, for now, to make it prevalent.

Lab HW 4

Review:

    My experience of doing this homework is meaningful and impressive. At first, I just mechanically fellow steps provided on the tutorial, even the sequence of clicking a single button. I hesitated many times because I was afraid something would go wrong and make my results different. It's such an time-consuming and intensive work to do. If I finished it in that way, I will hate this software and even lose interest in GIS maybe.

    However, things changed when I was stratifying the colors of layers in the second map(Land Use within Noise Contour). I felt the power of GIS the first time. Every different attributes were revealed clearly and orderly in the lists, and the software automatically assign different light colors for them. With a few simple clicks, the map turns out to be animated and visualized. Those redundant and arcane statistics became understandable to everyone and the process to create is acceptable. 

    After understanding the power of ArcGIS, I continued to do this work with energy and curiosity. I realized that the procedures were not that inflexible. There are lots of different ways to reach the same results. And even if it was different, I could find out myself and get a better understanding of how it works. For example, at first I always forgot to switch between different maps when adding a new feature. But after I got familiar with it, I started to glance at the objects first and then switch to the frames I want, insert intended features without the guide of tutorial. At last, I would check with tutorials to see what's the difference between its and mine, why it looks like that and why it is better and so on. Then I got which is required work(like switching between frames), which is optional(like there are lots of buttons already on the front because we are using a newer version).

    After I finished my map, I start to evaluate this emerging technology. I find it is pretty cool to use the power of computer to create maps with which has numerous features, stratified layers and clear statistics. It really changed the old concept of map. In my previous impression, map is the just the paper in the hand or guide in an unfamiliar city. However, GIS creates a moving and multiple world that helps almost every area of life. It also helps to build visualized statistics in science researches. Besides, it is very easy to approach those data. Since it's easy to create and easy to understand, people don't need specific training to use it. Just follow instructions or even explore it themselves.

    However, I also found some pitfalls from my short experience.First, it requires advanced, wide-spread infrastructure to reveal it's power. When I was making this map, my computer crashed twice. Though it's easy to solve it, like improve the power of computer, it means it exceeds most computers in the world. It may work good in U.S., but what about other parts of the world? So it's still a long way to go and full of potential. Besides, It seems there's not a unified format or software. I can only use ArcGIS in computer lab because my laptop is macbook. If it's diverse in each software or system. It will hurt the development and Popularization of GIS. 

    In a nut shell, GIS is full of potential. It's my first time to touch it so specifically and it's a good experience. I'm glad to see a powerful technology in its growing phase!

Lab3 HW

View Trip to Westlake in a larger map

Geog Lab 2

1.Beverly Hills Quadrange
2.Canoga Park, Van Nuys, Burbank, Topanga, Hollywood, Venice, Inglewood
3. 1966
4. North American Datum 1927(NAD 27), National Geodetic Vertical Datum of 1929, North American Datum of 1983(NAD 83)
5.1:24 000
6.(a) 5cm/(1:24 000)=1200meters (b)5inch/(1:24 000)=1.894 miles (c)1mile*(1:24 000)=2.64inches (d)3km*(1:24 000)=12.5cm
7. 20 feet
8. (a)N34D04M30S, W118D26M20S.  N34.12503,W118.04889.(b)N34D00M50S, W118D29M40S.   N34.01389,W118.49444.(c)N34D07M10S,W118D24M30S.    N34.11945, W118.40833.
9.(a)500-700 feet/150-210 meters(b)140feet/42m(c)a little lower than 600-800 feet/180-240 meters
10.zone 11
11.N3762900,E361000.
12.1000meters*1000meters=1 000 000 square meters

13.  

14.14degree
15.it's flowing forward south.

16.

Geog7 HW1

Source from: http://ata.hannam.ac.kr/cities/hcc/beijing-ae+map.jpg

This is the one of my three maps I found attractive in the internet，though not very clear.

It's a map of Beijing, which, actually, central part of it.
What it attract me is the majesty and rigor revealed from it.
From this map, we can see it is many rectangular wall like Russian Matryoshka. Actually, hundreds of years ago, it's a way to divide people's social status and their ethnic. The innermost city is the famous Forbidden City, which is the palace of emperor, no citizens can enter it. the second is Imperial City. it is built for Man people, the dominant ethnics at that time. Any other ethnics without permission enter will be killed, revealing the majesty of power.
 Besides, I can also find lots of features of Chinese Geomancy or Fengshui. In other words, Beijing is a standard city built under the rule of Geomancy. It located in the north of China and face to the south. It's a very common Chinese feature, not only face to south have more sunshine and warm wind. It's also a symbol of supreme as emperor. North in China means failure and surrender. And north to the palace is a hill called Jing, south of the palace is a moat. It's a totally man-made hill and moat because that symbolizes safe and prosperity. The main palace of the forbidden city, the hall of supreme harmony, is exactly located at the fibonacci lines of it. 
Moreover, Beijing is also symmetric, its symmetry axis passes through all main palace of forbidden city, and other structures in the Imperial City, like Tianan Gate, Yongding Gate. Nowadays, there are also famous Bird Nest and Water Cube on it.
In a nut shell, though a faint map, I can also get lots of information of Chinese culture and Geomancy knowledge from it.

Source:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/70/Piri_reis_world_map_01.jpg

The second map I find is Piri Reis World Map, discovered serendipitously on 1929, through the philologic work of the German theologian, Gustav Adolf Deissmann(1866-1937). It's a very significant world map because it's a pre-modern map compiled in 1513 by a turkish admiral and cartographer called Piri Reis. Only half of this map survives now, which shows the western coast of Europe and North Africa and the coast of Brazil, but it's important for its demonstration of the extent of exploration of the world around 1500'. And there's also an amazing assumption that the southeast part of the map is the Antarctic coastline and mountains with incredible accuracy. And those information is almost impossible to discover until 1975, when human sent their first satellite to space, because those mountain were covered by heavy snow all over the year, which are hard to detect by naked eyes. 

 Though it's still a controversy of it's origin and the actual meaning of the antarctic part of the map. It's still attracting me because of the power and mystery of pre-modern society. How can they do such difficult job at that time without the help of advanced equipment. Maybe there was alien to help them? Or God? No one knows.

www.targetmap.com

The last one, which is much heavier than previous two----the death toll during the World War Two. Though it's hard to show the real damage it causes to each country and the world through dry number, it does evoke the aversion of human beings towards war. Through statistics of official number all over the world, the total number of death reaches 130 000 000 and 75 890 000 among them are innocent civilians. From this map, we also can find that almost every countries in the world get involved in this notorious war (except countries which can't give accurate estimate). No one won at last. It's very essential to stop such tragedy happens again, and it needs cooperation of countries all over the world. There must some other ways to solve international conflicts which are much better than using military power, and I see it as sign of civilization.