Final Mini Project Lab #8

The Station Fire

In this project, we made maps in order to investigate the Station Fire in LA County during August and September 2009. It was the largest wildfires that threatened many people's home and burnt a large area, 160,577 acres. It was only the tenth largest fire in the States. Two firefighters' lives were taken away by the fire while they were battling the blaze. Many people were affected or evacuated due to the fire, 209 building were destroyed including 89 homes, the fire started in the Angeles National Forest near the U.S Forest Service Ranger station on the Angeles Crest Highway which was believed that it was an arson case. And the authorities have launched a homicide investigation.

The Station fire has burned about 144,000 acres of the Angeles National Forest, it has largely affected the ecology, burning down the home of the animals, and destroyed those hiking areas that many people love in Los Angeles. The blaze nearly burnt the building and areas in the cities nearby, like La Cañada Flintridge, Glendale, Acton, La Crescenta, Littlerock and Altadena, as well as theSunland and Tujunga, which are all the near the city of Los Angeles. It burned on the slopes of Mount Wilson and threatened many TV, radio or cell phone antenna on the mountain' s summit, and mostly important, it almost burned the  Mount Wilson Observatory, which has many significant telescopes and expensive astronomical facilities. Some of the Los Angeles Crest Highway was closed because of the guardrail and sign damage.

This is the reference map that shows the temporal expansion of the Station Fire perimeter and the major freeway network in Los Angeles. We can see how far did the fire spread within those few days, and we can see the exact number of the amount of acres burned in different timing from the attribute table which is one of the good use of ArcGIS.

Image from California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (http://frap.cdf.ca.gov/data/fire_data/fuels/fuelsfr.html) that shows different kinds of surface fuel. This figure is useful for looking at the near map that I created, it shows the some of the level of fuel load of different vegetation. For example, the level of fuel load of the hardwood forest littler is low. 

From this map, we can tell the distribution of different vegetation around the Los Angeles Area, and then we can find out what type of vegetation did the fire burned and could that help making the fire worse. Different kinds of vegetation are represented by different colors. The materials that being burnt in the fire are mostly Tall Chaparral, which is purple in color in the map. It is a highly flammable vegetation, and is known as fire follower, which grow as woody shrubs with hard and small leaves; are non-leaf dropping, and are drought tolerant. At first, the fire wasn't that bad since on august 29th , it was just burning some light fuel sources, mostly grasses and brush if we looked clearer. Those vegetation helped feed the fire and it started going to the steeper slope where the higher burning fuel plants are, such as the tall chaparral and mixed conifer forest. The vegetation gave the large amount of fuel to the fire to continue to burn. Many people was complaining that why there was no one to stop the fire within 48 hours which is still manageable, they thought the U.S Forest Service could have done something to stop this disaster.

The second map shows the fire zones, the hospitals and the freeway distribution in Los Angeles in order to find which one is the most dangerous and mostly affected one back at that time. So, from looking at the attribute table, the nearest hospitals are Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital, Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center, and San Gabriel Valley Medical Center. They are all located in the edges of the fire zones or right next to it. 

This map shows the elevation, the area of parks and station fire zones. The south facing slope helped the fire to move to an area with rugged and steep terrain and stronger fuel sources as the map above shows. And luckily, the fire didn't really burn into the urban areas, which would obviously led to a large amount of people getting injured or even died. The fire basically located in the National Forest which has many vegetation to help the fire grow as the same time, unfortunately. Destruction of  the natural landscape and deforestation could led to other different problems later.

 Bibliography :

"Anger Fire Roars Across 100,000 California Acres".  CNN. http://articles.cnn.com/2009-08-31/us/california.wildfires_1_mike-dietrich-firefighters-safety-incident-commander?_s=PM:US

Bloometkatz, Ari.  "Fans Can't Wait to Hit Reopened Road". Los Angeles Times, http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jun/05/local/la-me-0605-angeles-crest-20110605

Bloomekatz, Ari.  "Station Fire Was Arson, Officials Say". Los Angeles Time, http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/09/station-fire-was-arson-homicide-investigation-begins.html

California Department of Fire and Forestry Protection.  http://www.fire.ca.gov/index.php

Emma Gallegos,Station Fire provides opportunity to understand the science of mudslides, http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/ci_14952909, Accessed on May 25, 2010

Los Angeles County GIS Data Portal.  http://egis3.lacounty.gov/dataportal/?tag=lar-iac

UCLA GIS Data Archive.  http://gis.ats.ucla.edu/

Lab 7 Census

Census maps that show different percentages of different races
In this lab, we are to make three different maps that show of  ‘Black’, ‘Asian’ and ‘Some Other Race Alone’ across the continental US, ranked by percentages, by ‘joining’ spatial and attribute data and setting the color ramp which makes it easier for the reader to understand the map without really looking at the attribute table in ArcGIS.

This is a map that shows the data of counties with a black alone population that is greater than zero all over the United States, ranked by percentage. We can tell the distribution of black alone population by seeing the different colors on the map. The lightest yellow represents the lowest percentage and the reddish orange represents the largest percentage. As you can see on the map, the southeastern part of the United States got the highest percentage of black alone, for example in places like Alabama and Georgia, since they have the darkest color in their areas on the map.   

This map represents all the minority group, which excludes the Caucasians, Blacks and Asian, population percentages in Census Bureau in 2000 all over in the United States. From the map, it shows that the other races alone population are mostly concentrated in the Southwestern part of America,  places like New Mexico, Texas and California, since they have the darkest purple in those area which indicates the largest other races only population.

This map shows the Asian population percentage throughout the United States Continental area. It depicts that highest percentage of Asian is located around and in California. And in some Northwestern areas, like Washington, have  some considerable amount of the Asian population too!

Overall, from those three maps,  they show that different groups, the blacks, Asians, and other minorities, tend to be having high percentage of their specific ethic group in a certain region. And also, the bigger cities of the country tend to attract bigger percentages of minorities. And coastal areas seems to have higher percentage of ethical group population, too. 

My overall impression for GIS is that it makes everything simple, it is time-saving way to introduce some kind of specific data since we can analysis things by looking at a map instead of reading a lot but still not know what it says. It is a professional program as well as user-friendly, it is hard to use GIS for the first few times since I am totally not a computer person, but it is fun to make stuff by myself and I really enjoy doing maps in GIS. Through the visualization and symbology, we now do not even have to get back to the Excel file or attribute table in order to find information, it is clear on the map showing different colors that represents different percentage. GIS is a really useful software. 

Lab 6 DEM in ArcGIS

         In this lab, I picked a place in Utah near Salt Lake City to be my selected area for this project of digital elevation models or DEMs. It is somewhere near the Wasatch National Forest which is also next to the Strawberry reservoir and Solider Creek Recreational Area. There is a freeway nearby .And it is basically middle of nowhere. I choose this area because it is a more rural area with more ups and downs and I would love to explore places like this since I love to be around the nature. The Wasatch Range is a mountains range that go across Utah and Idaho. It is considered as the western edge of the greater Rocky Mountains.Different colors from the slope map shows the degree of the slopes and the directions of that the slope is facing are also shown in the aspect map.

The Extent Information

top: 40.1802778degrees, 

left: -111.042778 degrees, 

right: -110.539444degrees,

 bottom: 39.926111degrees

Geographic Coordinate System:

GCS North American 1983

Lab 5 Map Projection

Conformal Maps

This figure shows the two different conformal projections, Gall Stereographic and Stereographic. The distance between Washington, D.C. and Kabul, Afghanistan are 7,151.14901 miles and 10,223.114052 miles respectively. 

Equidistant Maps

 This figure shows the two different Equidistant projections, equidistant cylindrical and equidistant conic . The distance between Washington, D.C. and Kabul, Afghanistan are 5,061.578567 miles and 6,972.480093  miles respectively.
                                                                     Equal Area Maps

This figure shows the two different equal area projections, Hammer Aitoff and Equal area cylindrical  . The distance between Washington, D.C. and Kabul, Afghanistan are 8,329.886632 miles and 10,050.793381  miles respectively.

None of the projections is prefect for every task. There are different pros and cons for using different projections, which depends on the intention of making that maps, so we have to think carefully before choosing the projections for our maps. It could be very different and data could be wrong if we used the inappropriate projection for a specific task. There are different distortions of maps. The graticule could be a guide to distortion.

We have to consider what matters the most for us in order to get the right projection. We have to think about some questions like is "the distances accurate?", "is it easy to obtain the shortest path between two points?", "are the directions correctly oriented?", " is the shape of the land right?", " are the ratios preserved?" etc...

In this task, we have two equal area, two equidistant and two conformal map projection. They all have their own kind of distortion of the presentation of the Earth, they are named and classified based on the properties that they contain! Conformal have the correct shape and preserve angular relationships but not distance. , it is useful for finding the size and the shape of specific area. For example, environmental scientist might use it for checking the size of the ice caps or land area .  Equal Area has preserved the area, this type of map would be useful for observing the changing of the size of an area or feature. Also, equidistant projection only preserve preserve distances along the parallels of different places on the map, distance over a short area .


Overall, there is no best map for all purposes since none of the projection can show equal area, distance, and shape all at once. But projection is really important since we can present people the wrong impression and wrong information when we use the wrong projection and there is any distortion that affect the observation or the main point of creating that map.

Lab4 Introducing ArcMap

It is my first time to really creating a map by using arcGIS and I do think it is a bit hard for me, which is not a computer person at all. I always made mistakes without even knowing why so I would have to go back and check what I did wrong. But I think I would get better when I am more familiar to this software. It is kinda fun       for making my own map though it is not as easy as I thought.

In my opinions, ArcGIS has more potential than its pitfalls, as people nowadays are more aware of the Earth that we are living, ArcGIS provides us more information for both academic or daily use! It made it so much easier to analysis the data that we have in hand and helped a lot for explaining why some kind of phenomena are happening all over the world. It increased productivity with better quality, people can find out where the problems are and they tried to solve it. It put everything in a big picture, people can see it all in a glance!

People can even search things and data easily since people can tell things by seeing the symbols and scales, it would be much more easier than reading books or essays, newspaper could explain more in a big picture then a few paragraphs.

However, there are some pitfalls, too. For example, for me as a new learner for GIS, I have a lot of difficulties in using GIS and it takes a lot time to learn this professions. Not everyone can easily approach this program ! People in university like me and my classmate have to take a lot of classes in order to master in using GIS! And other pitfall is people can use the wrong data or exaggerated data to mislead people, and some time people with little knowledge would get faked by the big companies which have very cunning marketing method! 

Google my map! Neogeography

N
View Fun and Historical Alamosa Traveling Plan in a larger map


This is my map for my future trip to a small town called Alamosa in Colorado. I like exploring small towns, there are always something historical and cultural that you can't tell until you really go there.  It basically maps out the route that I would take if I really go there. It would be a two-day trip and  I will go there by plane, so arriving at the Alamosa Regional Airport. Then, I will be going to different places like Alamosa National Refuge, Zapata fall etc and ending my first day by camping at night, which would be the best way to feel the power of nature. In the next day, I would start my journey from Little Medano Creek and going for a relaxing hot spring spa afterward. And I would staying in Comfort Inn for that night. It would be an amazing trip for nature-lovers since there are many reserved places and natural landscape in and around Alamosa. 


Neogeography is a fun way to play around with maps and locations. There is a huge potential for this new-found technology, and it is getting more and more important, from business to own-use for navigation. It is easier for us to make our own maps now, everyone can create one in their own laptops, even small kids to elderly or those without any geographic knowledge.  It also increased our geographic awareness. For example, People nowadays can get direction and other information before actually going out simply from Google map or other Mashups.  So that people won't get lost and probably can get to their destination more on time, also they can share their maps online or printed with their friends and co-workers for navigation to business uses. 


Although Neogeography gives us a lot of fun and convenience, there are still some pitfalls in it! Since everyone can make their own maps, there could be some different standard of expressing oneself, so it could be confessing or hard to understand others' maps. Some maps can be misleading or easily to be misunderstood, since most of the Mashup creators are not professional in making maps, they just believe everything on the website or did something really wrong without noticing it. That's why we have to use our geographic knowledge to analyse different maps from different sources before really trusting everything in the Internet! The bad thing is we have to determine the quality, accuracy, reliability and responsibility of the maps that we are using, but sometimes we just don't look at the map carefully. 


However, I think Neogeography's good outweighs its bad. It makes it easier and more accessible for everyone to the geography by creating their maps. We can still learn a lot from Mashups, and most of the time, it is reliable to use Google Map or the other resources. It would be best if the technology can overcome the cons of Neogeography. By that time, I believe many people can be a professional geographer, too! 

Week2 Lab 2 USGS Topographic maps

GIS Lab 2

1)      Beverly Hills Quadrangle

2)      Canoga Park, Van Nuys,  Burbank, Topanga, Hollywood, Venice,  Ingiewood

3)      Topography compiled 1966.

4)      Datum used to create the map are : Selected hydrographic data compiled from NOS/NOAA, North American Datum of 1927 (NAD27) : Projection and 1000-meter grid: Universal Transverse Mercator, zone 11 and 10 000-foot ticks : California Coordinates System of 1927, and also the North American Datum of 1983 (NAD83).

5)      1:24,000 scale

6)   a) 240x5= 1200meters. So, 5 centimeters on the map is equivalent to 1200 meters on the ground.

b) 2,000x5=10000feet. So, 5 inches on the map is equivalent to 1.89393 miles on the ground.

c) one mile on the ground is equivalent to 2.64 inches on the map.

d) three kilometers on the ground is equivalent to 12.5 centimeters on the map.

       7) The contour interval on the map is 20 feet.

       8) a) the Public Affairs Building    34°4’28’’N,  118°26’18’’W ( 34.074 degree N, 118.438 degree W)                 

         b) The tip of the Santa Monica Pier    34° 00'31''N, 118° 29'52’’ W (34.00861 degree N, 118.498 degree W)

         c) the Upper Franklin Canyon Reservoir 34°07’12’’N ,118.24’39”W (34.12 degree N, 118.41083 degree W)

9. What is the approximate elevation in both feet and meters of:

a) Greystone Mansion (in Greystone Park) 560feet = 170.68800 meters

b) Woodlawn Cemetery 140 feet = 42.7 meters

c) Crestwood Hills Park

700 feet = 213.36 meters

  10. The UTM zone of the map is zone 11

11.  3763 northing and 361.5 easting

12.   1,000,000 square meters

13. 

14. 14 degrees north

15.  From north to south.

16. Crop out (i.e., cut and paste) UCLA from the map and include it as a graphic