lab 8: Mapping the Station Fire in ArcGIS

     The Los Angeles Station Fire was the largest and deadliest of these wildfires. It burned 160,577 acres (251 sq mi; 650 km²). It began in late August of 2009. As one can see in the center Digital Elevation map (DEM), the Station Fire was on middle ground, close to the highest points in L.A. county and the lowest elevation in the county.
     On the California Station Fire in LA County map(upper right corner), the area of the California Station fire is shown and there are blue lines all around it. These blue lines represent all the major roads and highways in Los Angeles county. As one can tell, there are very few major roads that were affected by the fire. This is good because there won't be much infrastructure to fix in comparison to the lower west side of the county, if the fire had been there. 
     The middle ground area targeted by the Station fire was a herbaceous area. This is depicted as green area in the lower left hand corner map that shows the vegetation around Los Angeles. As one can also see on the map, the Station fire bordered the yellow-orange area which is the urban area of Los Angeles. By the size of this fire and it's proximity to the city one can see the potential threat it posed on civilians in Los Angeles county. 
     In the lower right-hand corner, the map shows the fuel rank with in L.A. county. The area covered by the Station fire was an area with a high fuel rank for fires. When we compare the LA County Vegetation Map with the LA County Fuel Rank Map one see that herbaceous areas tend to be the type of vegetation that most fuel wild fires. So it is important to make sure there is a watch over vast herbaceous areas that could potentially turn into on of the largest wildfires.
     In the upper left map, we have a thematic map of California. It is divided by counties. It shows how common and severe it would be to have a fire in a particular county. As one can see both Los Angeles county and the California Station Fire are outlined in this map so that it could be compared to the greater California state. The Los Angeles county, relative to the rest of California, has a medium fire severity. It is neither uncommon nor super common to have fires in this part of California. So, something like the California Station Fire is to be expected but not too often. 






bibliography:

"CAL FIRE Administrative Boundaries (cdfadmin09_1)". California Department of Forestry and Fire 
Protection. Version 09_1. Fire and Resource Assessment Program, ESRI, Sept 2012. Web. 27 Nov. 
2012. http://frap.cdf.ca.gov/data/frapgisdata/download.asp?spatialdist=1&rec=cdfadmin

"Fire Hazard Severity Zones RECOMMENDED, 5-2008, Very High zones in LRA (fhszl06_3)". 

     California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Version 06_3. Fire and Resource 

     Assessment Program, Jun. 2008. Web. 27 Nov. 2012. http://frap.cdf.ca.gov/data/frapgisdata/

     download.asp?spatialdist=2&rec=fhszl06_3

"Fuel Rank". California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Version 05_2. Fire and Resource 

     Assessment Program, 2005. Web. 27 Nov 2012. http://frap.cdf.ca.gov/data/frapgisdata/download.asp?

     spatialdist=2&rec=frnk

Greninger, Mark. "All Station Fire Perimeters (as of September 2, 07:02) – Complete set". Los Angeles  
     County Enterprise GIS. 02 Sept. 2009. Web. 27 Nov. 2012. 
     http://egis3.lacounty.gov/eGIS/2009/09/02/all-station-fire-perimiters-as-of-september-2-0702-
     complete-ste/
"Los Angeles County". GIS at UCLA: Mapshare DB. Version 2008. ESRI, 01 Apr. 2008. Web. 27 Nov. 
     2012. http://gis.ats.ucla.edu//Mapshare/Default.cfm#
"Multi-source Land Cover Data (v02_2)". California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. 
Version 2002_02. Fire and Resource Assessment Program, 2002. Web. 27 Nov. 2012. 
     http://frap.cdf.ca.gov/data/frapgisdata/download.asp?spatialdist=2&rec=fveg02_2

Lab 7: Census 2000/2010

Percent of Black Population:
     Through this map one can see that the higher percentage of African-American population is along the coasts of the U.S.. If one compares both coasts the south-eastern part is actually the area with the highest percent population of of African-Americans. It is interesting to see that this is the area with the highest population of African -Americans because it is also the area that was known for having slaves till the civil war occurred.

Percent of Asian Population:
     On the "Percent of Asian Population" map one can see that the highest population of Asian-Americans are located on the western coast of the United States. One can infer that this is because the western coast is a closer to Asia, just across the Pacific. It is easier for Asians to immigrate to the western coast of the U.S. than to travel around the world across Euro-Asia, Europe, and the Atlantic ocean in order to get to America.

Percent of Other Population:
     The "Percent of Other Race Population" map shows that the most diverse places tend to be along the coast but more the west than the east side. From the west coast diversity of races actually extends inland somewhat more. The east coast is not as diverse except along the very edges and pretty much the whole of Florida. I think this is because immigration comes in at the borders of a country and also it's where international commerce occurs giving room to bring people of many races together.


I think I prefer using GIS in this context because it speaks about life at a certain place. Just from this one can infer things about cultural affairs, economic situations around these pointed areas, or can compare to historic events to present day events. From this one can take as much from it as needed and even add more data to complement what the maps they already have.

lab 6: DEMs in ArcGIS

   

     The area I chose to show was of San Diego County. The reason I chose it was because I am from San Diego and I was curious to see the difference in elevations around the county. It is a GCS North American 1983 projection. The extent of the map is listed as below:

Extent of my map:

• Left: -117.326111112028
• Top: 32.9280555545539
• Bottom: 32.5208333323043
• Right: -116.576944445311

Lab 5

how many miles separate Washington, D.C. and Afghanistan when crossing the Atlantic?
      Line measurement (Geodesic)
Segment: 100.364186 Decimal Degrees
Length: 100.364186 Decimal Degrees
       Line measurement (Loxodrome)
Segment: 117.407591 Decimal Degrees
Length: 117.407591 Decimal Degrees
       Line measurement (Great Elliptic)
Segment: 100.364268 Decimal Degrees
Length: 100.364268 Decimal Degrees

conformal
- mercator
Line measurement (Planar)
Length: 10,121.434879 Miles

Line measurement (Geodesic)
Segment: 6,934.478105 Miles
Length: 6,934.478105 Miles

-stereographic
Line measurement (Geodesic)
Segment: 6,934.478105 Miles
Length: 6,934.478105 Miles

Line measurement (Planar)
Segment: 9,878.038997 Miles
Length: 9,878.038997 Miles

equal area
-cylindrical equal area
-Eckert IV


     There are so many types of map projections. It can be confusing deciding which to use because it all depends on what will help answer one's questions most appropriately. It was kind of interesting to see how many options of map projections there are. Some can be more helpful than others. For example, I realized that a reason for why the mercator map is more commonly used is because it both is conformal and equidistant. This can be an advantage because one can acquire more information from a single map rather than having to deal with two or three or more maps simultaneously.
     It was kind of confusing when trying to figure out the maps and how to measure from Kabul to Washington DC. Mostly because it was unclear that to measure in miles the settings where to be changed in the tool settings not the data frame settings.

Lab 4: Introducing ArcMap

     Using ArcMap for the first time can be very difficult. Not knowing where certain buttons, or tools, are can be stressful because you'll spend half an hour trying to find a button that you are only going to use for a split second. Also, if ArcMaps is updated and the tutorial is not, things would have been slightly different and making it difficult to figure out.
     After going through four hours of four exercises, the fifth exercise is a bit easier because by then you've mostly have a sense for where all the tools are and how to find them. ArcMap can become easy with practice, but at first is not.  
      GIS is nice because you can create maps that project the same topic with different areas of focus. In other words, you can look at one thing from different areas and perspectives. By being able to add graphs to the maps, it can help understand the statistics that your map is representing. Also, by being able to add color to the maps, it can help to get a better visual representation of what you are trying to explain.
     The bad thing about ArcMaps or GIS is that they are constantly trying to be improved but the tutorials are not. I feel that if you are going to update these tools then you also have to update the tutorials so that users do not get confused.  Also there are tools that are repetitive and I feel that they should just be one general tool bar and then have the extra fancy buttons on other tool bars. For example, there are different zoom buttons on a lot of the tool bars and I think they should minimize the amount of these so that there are only about two or three: a layout view zoom button and a data view zoom button, and maybe a fixed zoom button.

Lab 3: Neogeography

View Places to Visit near Downtown San Diego in a larger map

 https://www.google.com/maps/ms?msid=218285822211737746576.0004cc3294a76c0150f75&msa=0

     Neogeography can be resourceful because it can give detail about certain things in a specific areas. It's resourceful because it portrays things that are interesting to one person that might be interesting to other. Its is good for creating maps with personal or community activities pointed out. It has potential because many people can create these types of maps using other geographical tools, so it becomes easier for non-experts to make them.

       The problem with neogeography is that it is not very formal and has little or no standards. When anyone can make a map of this sort, there is a chance that the information given is wrong. Sort of how in Wikipedia anyone can say anything so one is not guaranteed that everything is correct. Also if one gives someone a map of this type there might be things in it that don't correspond to what that someone is looking for. So if I give someone my map of San Diego, it might not work for them if they are trying to find a hospital because my map mostly labels places to visit not emergency places.

Lab 2: USGS Topographic Maps

1. Beverly Hills Quadrangle
2. Canoga Park, Van Nuys, Burbank, Topanga, Hollywood, Venice, Inglewood
3. created in 1966 and revised in 1995
4. National Geodetic Vertical Datum
5. 1: 24000
6. a)5cm : 1219.2 m
    b)5" : 1.89 mi
    c)1mi : 2.64"
    d)3km: 12.3cm
7. 10 feet
8. a) public affairs building:  34degrees/4'/30'' North, 118degrees/26'/15'' West     34.075, 118.4375
    b)tip of Santa Monica Pier: 34degrees/0'/30" North, 118degress West/29'/50"
                 34.008333, 118.497222
    c)Upper Franklin Canyon Reservoir:  34degrees/7'/20'' North, 118degress/24'/15'' West
                 34.122222, 118.404167
9. a)Greystone Mansion:    500 ft    152.4 m
    b)Woodlawn Cemetery:  40 ft     12.192m
    c)Crestwood Hills Park:  600ft    182.88m
10. Zone 11
11. 3763000mE, 362500m N
12. 1000
13.

        Elevations Chart

14. GN 0degrees48' / 14miles
15. North
16.

Lab 1 Interesting Maps

     This is a map of Kuwait City, Kuwait. It is a tourist map. It came from the Libraries site of the University of Texas at Austin. One can find this map and many other city maps here: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/map_sites/cities_sites.html
What I found interesting about this map was all the detailing. I think having drawings on the map can really help a tourist find something because sometimes buildings don't have names out front. It facilitates finding a place when you know what it looks like and you know the main streets.

This map is about the earthquakes that have happened in California and Nevada with in the last week. It came from the U.S. Geological Survey site, a  government webpage. What was most interesting was that majority of earthquakes have happened closer to the coast of California than out on the border between Nevada and California. Its also interesting that there was a whole cluster of earthquakes in the south of California, unlike the northern region where they seems to be in a line and more spread out. You can find this map here: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqscanv/

 This map is "the contiguous United States visualized by the distance to the nearest McDonald's". It is very interesting to see the amount of McDonald's in the United States. The amount is so incredible that it outlines the whole country. I found this map on Data pointed which is the home of artist and scientist Stephen Von Worley's data visualization research. You can this map at: http://www.datapointed.net/2009/09/distance-to-nearest-mcdonalds/