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.