Week 8 - Census Maps

2000 US Census Data Map: "Black" Population, By Percent

The map above shows data collected from the 2000 U.S. Census on the population of those identified as "Black."  Population displayed by the percent that the race makes up of the county showed clear patterns of the concentration of Black Americans in the South and along the East Coast up to the Northeast.  Additionally, there is another noticeable concentration in Southern California and the Bay area.  The most densely populated areas of Black Americans centered in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina (as shown by the navy colored regions, as indicated by the legend).  The areas shaded grey are counties with no data in this subject area.

2000 US Census Data Map: "Asian" Population, By Percent

 The map above shows data collected from the 2000 U.S. Census on the population of those identified as "Asian."  The population concentration, displayed by percent Asian Americans make up a county, shows nearly no patterns of distribution in much of the United States;  however, the most densely populated areas of Asian Americans are found along the West Coast, which is not surprising as we share the Pacific Ocean with Asia.  There are many counties in Southern California with Asian populations above 5% of the county, but the county with the highest percentage of Asian Americans is in the Bay Area of Northern California.  Pockets of Asian populations are found across the United States with another area of many counties together with higher Asian populations surrounding New York, NY.  The areas shaded grey are counties with no data in this subject area.

2000 US Census Data Map: "Some Other Race" Population, By Percent

The map above shows data collected from the 2000 US Census on populations identified as "Some Other Race," and is displayed on the map by the percentage those residents make up their county.  Most of the "some other race" citizens reside in Southern California, the Southwest (including Utah, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico) and Texas.  There are also concentrations in southern Florida and New York City and Long Island.  Since "Hispanic" or "Latino" is not listed as an option in the census, it is likely that many of the people who identified as "some other race" have lineage from Spanish-speaking areas such as Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Central and South America.  This correlates with the patterns shown in the Southern areas of the U.S., particularly the areas connected to Mexico. The areas that match the maroon background represent areas without census data on this population.

GIS is incredibly useful in displaying data in a way that clearly shows patterns/trends/concentrations of a particular subject of interest.  The choice of data to use is essential in conveying the pattern of the map objective.  In this case, displaying patterns of race concentrations in the United States was best used by showing the percent the race makes up a county, as it allows each county to be more easily compared.  The maps showed much different patterns when population by number of people was used, since some counties have cities within them of huge populations with a more diverse population, while other cities were quite small.  So even there was a high proportion of Black Americans in a county in Georgia, for example, it looked like there were higher concentrations in Southern California, simply because some counties in Southern California are much larger in terms of total population.  So for population in numbers of these particular variables, there may be more total Asian Americans in New York than San Francisco, but this does not convey the objective of showing trends of where large concentrations reside due to the fact there are simply more New Yorkers than there are residents of San Francisco.  Though the data remains the same, the display by percent allows the map viewer to more clearly define areas of various population concentrations in the United States.  These three maps together show very interesting patterns that comprise the United States.  After examining these three maps based on census data, one may argue that the South and East Coast are home to a majority of the Black American population in the US, California and New York City are where most Asian Americans reside, while the Southwest (spanning from California to Texas) is where concentrations of "some other race" reside.  This data shows that our stirred "melting pot" of a country is in fact more like a somewhat balanced meal with various portions of the "plate" consisting of concentrations of separate identities or "dishes," which make up the main meal.  This has been demonstrated by the regional spatial data compiled and used with GIS programming to clearly indicate particular demographic trends in the United States.

Week 7 - DEMs in ArcGIS

Working with digital elevation models (DEMs)

The area I selected from the USGS Seamless Data Warehouse shows the south western coast of the United States, south of San Luis Obespo and north of Santa Barbara.  The models show the coastline met by the ocean along the left border of the map (shaded in grey on the aspect model and also very identifiable on the shaded relief model), flatland near the coast (particularly in the north western corner of the maps that could possibly be a lake), several main valleys, and progressive increases in altitude heading east (perhaps showing the south end of the Sierra Nevada Mountains).  The extent of these maps is included in the borders of -120.65444 on the left, 35.03667 on the top, -119.88028 on the right, and 34.61139 on the bottom.  The geographic coordinate system for these digital elevation models is: GCS North American 1983.  The following models work to provide viewers of an in depth look at the topography of the region, which include a shaded relief map, a slope map, an aspect map and a 3D model.

3D Model

Week 6 - Map Projections

Map projections vary because transforming a 3-dimensional spheroid into a 2-dimensional plane distorts certain portions of the 3-D surface in different ways (i.e. shape, distance, area, direction), depending on the projection.  Map projections are significant as they are created for different purposes and allow the map-user to use the best planar map for their specific intention, whether it be navigating across the sea or pin-pointing a target enemy.  Though 3-D maps (globes) are the best representations of Earth, they are not as functional as flat maps that can be transported, measured and reproduced as easily.  Globes also provide a general representation of Earth as a whole, whereas projections can not only be of the entire world (as shown here) but as more commonly fitted to different scales depending on what the map is going to be used for in order to provide the user a clearer representation of the particular area they are focusing on. 

For example, the conformal maps shown above are designed to preserve local shape and angular relationships by projecting the Earth with 90 degree angle, perpendicular graticule lines.  One of the most common conformal map projections is the Mercator map, which provides a grid map most commonly used for navigation, since it is more important to preserve angle relationships (that also preserve shape in small area scales) than preserving area when navigating across the sea. The Mercator map is an example of a cylindrical projection that preserves distance only along the equator, but distortion increases moving north and south from the equator.  Similarly, the Stereographic projection becomes increasingly distorted in terms of area and shape as one moves away from the center point.  These distortions are confirmed by the unusually high distance measured between Washington, DC and Kabul, Afghanistan (actual distance is closer to 11,000 km) in both of these projections.

Equal area maps are designed to preserve area, where all areas are reduced by the same scale and correspond proportionally with their counterparts that exist on Earth in reality.  Because of this, angles and shapes become distorted.  Equal-area maps are centered around central meridians (where distance is preserved) and become increasingly distorted as one moves away from the central meridian.  The Sinusoidal Equal-Area map is a common Equal-Area projection and is frequently used in atlases to show the distribution of countries when exact distances and shapes are not as important.  The distortion of distances is not as skewed as in the conformal map projections, but is still skewed in the higher latitudes, as shown by the higher than accurate distance between Washington, DC and Kabul in both the Sinusoidal and Hammer-Aitoff map projections.

The last of the three different types of  of map projections shown here are two types of equidistant map projections: the Two-Point Equidistant map projection and the Azimuthal Equidistant map projection.  Equidistant map projections preserve distance and direction only from the center of the projection or along a particular set of lines.  These types of maps are especially useful for airplane routes when centered on the city of origin, as it will then provide accurate distances and direction to any other location on the Earth. However, these maps are not useful in terms of identifying accurate shapes of locations as only the center point preserves area.  When projecting the entire world, as shown above, the equidistant map projections shows extreme area and shape distortion as one moves away from the central region (i.e. Australia in the Azimuthal Equidistant projection).  However, the Two-Point Equidistant projection did in fact display the most accurate distance between Washington, DC and Kabul, demonstrating it's usefulness in determining distance from a central point (it is off here since Washington, DC was not specified as the central point).

As demonstrated by these example maps, projections of the Earth display a wide variety of images used for very different purposes.  Choosing a projection is based on what feature is most important to preserve for your purposes, being area, shape, distance or direction.  Though some projections seem to display the Earth more 'normally' than others, it is important to remember that all 2-D representations show some type of alteration/distortion of Earth and it is significant to understand the manner in which the map was projected in order to identify exactly what it is that is most distorted.

Week 4/5 - Airport Expansion

Poster designed on ArcMap

ArcMap is an incredibly valuable program that is pretty simple to use and I can see how it can be useful for many different purposes.  Using ArcMap was particularly exciting for me as a student in the Geography department since it was the first map I made using GIS.  Learning and using the skill of GIS and map making will be advantageous in future jobs, especially because I plan to work in the field natural resources management and urban planning.  I imagine my focus in agriculture will require making many maps and using various layers in GIS to show data sets such as soils, crops, buildings, roads of not only what the environment looks like today, but how it looked in the past and how it should look in the future.

The ability to accompany maps with graphs, charts and statistics is a great feature of ArcMap as it helps paint the picture of what we are trying to show.  Though I was introduced to ArcMap only two weeks ago, I can already tell the organization, patience and creativity are key in developing a well designed poster.  Organization because there are a lot of information to use and edit and it is important not to mix up any data and use it in the wrong way.  Assembling the poster took a lot of time, primarily since I am new to the software, but also simply because it takes a lot of time working through the steps to layer everything in an organized way to to create several images to show the plan. Patience is important because like any form of technology, there will be problems.  Patience is required in both following the directions to learn the software and in waiting for the machine/program to do what you want.  For example, even in the poster shown here, the graph did not come out how I set it to look on ArcMap.  Saving it as a jpeg removed the "palette" color theme I had and made it difficult to see the bars on the graph.  Also, using a laptop with a trackpad not geared toward the left and right click functions (laptop borrowed from the CLICC lab) like a standard mouse also caused some challenges in trying to use the right-click function, especially when editing and extending Airport Dr.  Creativity is also important in having the ability to make connections with the data in order to figure out the best way to demonstrate what you are trying to show.  As the creator, it is easy to think that a map or graph displays your goal perfectly, when it make not make as much sense to someone in your audience, so designing several images (whether maps, charts, tables, etc.) is important for many different types of people to understand what you are trying to show.  Also, creativity is important for choosing the right colors for maps since colors are very useful in ArcMap and GIS!

I think there is a lot of potential for GIS because it helps us better understand the world that we live in.  Maps are also the foundation of construction, transportation and travel - three essential pieces to our economy and our lives.  Humans have kept records of what their environment looked dating back thousands of years ago, and during the age of explorers, geography and map making became more important than ever.  Now, with advanced technology, geography and map making is evolving again into something much more complex than simply recording where forests were located or mapping out trade routes.  GIS allows us to keep records and plan for the future.  It allows us to share information through images, an alternative means of communicating ideas as opposed to reading text, for example.  The potential for GIS to help us better understand the planet and ecosystems will not only better connect people to the land, but will also help people connect with each other through sharing the maps and working on collective projects, for example, working on finding the best way to expand the airport.

Pavan Sukhdev, founder of the UNEP project: The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB),  said, "You can not manage what you do not measure," which absolutely pertains to GIS.  GIS works to measure and manage our world, and therefore I feel that the potential is far greater than an pitfalls could be.  With trained GIS experts behind the wheel, ArcMap and GIS have the potential to help in many different disciplines from urban planning to public policy to agriculture and many others far beyond that. Printing out maps and saving progress in several locations takes away the pitfall of relying on computers (since again, technology can be quite unpredictable at times).  I suppose a pitfall could be that now all places can be tracked, targeted and mapped out, altering our idea of "privacy;" however, even the United States takes years tracking down individuals so it has not taken away the sense of privacy and the ability to hide altogether.  Since I am just beginning with GIS, I have not become fully aware of the issues surrounding GIS, but like everything else, I'm sure there is room for improvement.