LA Station Fire

 In this post we will be examing the Station Fire of 2009 in Los Angeles County. The station fire, burned in Los Angeles National forrest and forced thousands of evacuations and much a lot of damage. The fire Burned from August 26th until it was finally one hundred percent contained on October 16th nearly two months later. Over that period of time the station fire burned nearly 150,000 acres of land. It created a fight for firefighters that was uphill and unpredictable but luckily in the end they did contain it after some time and a lot of scares. It ranked 12th in a list of the biggest fires in California.

 

Using GIS I have created a reference map to show where the fire burned and how it changed over time in Los Angeles County. By looking at the map you can see the shaded releif model shows that the fire gre rapidly in the first week. On the August 29th about 7,000 acres had burned and by September first well over 100, 000 acres had burned.   Fire fighters struggled to contain the fire in the first week as flames reached over 200ft and the fire was creating its own wind patterns making it unpredictable and allowing it to crow to 100,000 acres in the first week.

 

In my reference map I have provided all the major highways in the area around the fire. During the time of this rapidly growing fire nearly 100,000 people were asked to evacuate their homes on a very short notice, while nearly all of them complied knowing the danger of this unpredictable fire. A map like this reference one can allow the state to block off highways that first of all are in threat by the fire but also the highways that need to be used for the full evacuation of the areas affected by the fire.

 

 

Here I above I have created a thematic map to reinforce or make easier the evacuation plans for certain regions and which highways to take. Glendale, Altedena, Littlerock, and Acton were all neighborhoods of LA that had be evacuated because the threat of the fire. In this map you can link each one of these neghborhoods to the closest highways, then block that highway from a certain point for the fastes possible evacuation of these thousands of people. When a fire like this breaks out firefighters have little time to evacuate regions in threat and for safety more people are usually evacuated than neccessary. You can see from this map above that it probaly would have been a good idea to evacuate the cities on the south-west part of the fire on highway 210 and then shut down 210 especially the southern part that runs close to the fire.

 

Also through this thematic map you can see that I have provided all the bodies of water nearby the fire. You can see from the map that all the bodies of water are surrounding the fire, Indicating how dry the land is on the inside. So these bodies of waters almost outlining the fire seem like they prevented it from spreading even further.

 

(Image of the Fire from Space.)

 

When an emercengcy situation or natural disaster of some sort breaks out like a the fire GIS is often called upon for many diffrent resoucres. To find the easiest evacuation routes for each region, the closest hospitals, schools, or urbanized areas that are in danger, and various of other resources and information to be provided for the safety of people and the community. In my maps I gave an example of what GIS could have provided in a very quick response to the fire growing to get people to safety as quick as possible and which regions needed to be moved the fastest.

 

 

References

"'Angry Fire' Roars across 100,000 California Acres." CNN. CNN, 31 Aug. 2009. Web. 10 June 2012. http://articles.cnn.com/2009-08-31/us/california.wildfires_1_mike-dietrich-firefighters-safety-incident-commander?_s=PM:US.

 

Staff. (2009, August 31). L.A.County fire doubles in size; more homes destroyed; Mt. Wilson threatened. Los Angeles Times. Accessed August 31, 2009.

 

Michon, Scott. "Earth Observatory." Earth Observatory. n. page. Print. http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=40011.

 

n. page. Print. http://www.fire.ca.gov/about/downloads/20LACRES.pdf.

 

Archibold, Randal C. "After a Devastating Fire, an Intense Study of Its Effects." The New York Times. 3 Oct. 2009. Web. 10 June 2012. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/08/la-county-fire-doubles-in-size-more-homes-list-mt-wilson-threatened.html.

 

 

 

Census Map Series

 

The first map shown above is a map of the population in the United States in 2000 that indicates the population of each county compared to one another. The darker the shade of purple in a region then the more populated the county is and vice versa. This map shows that the west coast, the north east region, and florida have pretty signifactn populations.



This second map as highlighed in the header, show the diffrence in the population in 1990 to 2000 in the United States. The darker the shade of coloring the more the population has grown in that region and the lighter(pinker) the more polarized the growing amount of people in that region has remained. By looking at the map above South California and Florda have grown the most while the Center of the country hasnt grown or has even shrunk in people in that region.  

This third map shows the percenatage change in population from 1990 to 2000 in the United States. It differs from Map 2 because it shows the percentage effect on population not the amount of people in a area, so it gives us a better idea of which regions populations went through a big change. Arizona and Florida have had significant growth in population percentage and the center of the state south of the dakotas has decreased in population pwercentage. 

 

The fourth Map shows population density for the year 2000 in the United States. So it shows the number of people per area, another way to look at overall population distributuion by counties of the United States. If a large county is relatively lighter it doesnt mean neccersarily that the county is very low in population it may just mean it is not as crowded, which means if a small county is the same color it is not more populated but just more crowded. This map shows us that New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles are three very populated regions.

 

 

These four Census maps based on the United States help to show population if diffrent ways. They provide a very quick and efficient way to see how population is changing and where it is greatest. This Lab allowed me to apply some of the skills I have learned and build new skills on top of them also. It helped to show me how GIS is applied into the real world in it normal every day efficent use. Census data is very important in almost every aspect of life and displaying it in a easy and quick visual way, like the four maps above, is very useful.

 

 

DEM

The area displayed above is south of Boulder in Colorado right around Golden Gate Canyon State Park. For the area displayed above the extent information (in decimals) is, Top: 39.8291666661, Left: -105.788888889, Right: -104.969444445, and Bottom: 39.3838888883. Information on the geographic coordinate system for the area displayed above; Spatial Reference, Datum North American 1983 with angular unit Degree (0.0174532925199433). Each of these maps above show valuable information about the aspect or the direction at which each slope face, slope inclination, hill shade or elevation, and a 3-D image of the area.

Map Projections: Equidistant, Equal Area, Conformal

Map Projections



 Map Projection is the process of converting a spherical model on to a planar model, which makes it easier to view the whole world at once. In this process you have some trade-offs to make though. What features such as, distance, area, and direction of your map do you need to reamin accurate and which ones can be distorted. There is no way to portray a perfectly depicted map with no distortion on a flat surface. Distortions can be dealt with and researchers have studied hundred of diffrent kinds if maps to categorize them into three specific types to make it easier for people to pick the map that has acurracy in the feature they need. When choosing a map you have to look at your problem and see if it need accuracy in distance, direction, area, or angles. Which is the most important and which is the least important. Then you can choose whihc will be the most helpful; conformal projection, equidistant projection, or equal area projection.

 

Conformal map projections are most frequently employed in large scale maps such as topographic maps or navigationals maps. Conformal maps preserve shape and local angles, creating a system of longitude and latitude gridlines. Conformal maps also lead to accuracy in local directions. Conformal maps arent often used on the world scale but can be helpful in comparing two countries or two continents such as the Americas.

 

Equidistant projections preserve distance when its is calculated from a designated point. Directions are all true from the center outward but shapes are all distored the further you get from the center. A equidistant projection is very useful for pilots who need to know the distance of a trip or an example we used in class was the korean missile crisis. How far does the missile need to be able to shoot to get to its designated target.

 

Equal area map projections preserve areas throughout the map but distorts shape and scale as you near the poles very badly. These maps are most efficient when studying tropical areas near the equator because there is very little distortion in any features. It can also be useful when comparing smaller regional areas because distortion remains on the same level for the whole area basically.

 

Transforming something from being three dimensional to two dimensional is not an easy task and of course there is going to be trade offs involved in the process. Yes there are positives and negatives in map projections varying on the three categories. As a researcher you need to know which projection has the features most suitable for your study.

Proposed Airport Expansion

Potential and Pitfalls

GIS has a lot of potential in using gathered data to produce a meaningful map. A map that can articulate and answer questions. Through GIS data output(maps), GIS has the ability to produce results of analyses to people who can make decisions about resources, networks, and etc.. Through prospective views and animations GIS conveys the earth and geographic information more effectively for decision making. GIS is a complex process of data entry and manipulation that results in a output for either professional analysis or a better understanding for the general public. 

GIS is very effective in data management and data manipulation. When working in ArcGIS you can choose two different views to manage and edit your data. Layout view, which allows you to look at all your maps or data at once and compare characteristics. Or Data view, which allows you to focus on one individual data file at a time and add important data to that one file for better analysis later on in layout view. In this tutorial during the data view we focused on adding layers to add different data types to our maps. The layers in GIS help to characterize or differentiate the maps, through adding or labeling features. When you have more different layers on all of your maps it makes analysis a lot easier. 

Another great potential of GIS abstraction, conveying real world objects onto the maps in ArcGIS through points, lines, and arcs on the map. In this particular tutorial for example, we had to edit a road by adding in lines. The drawing toolbar allows you to create or edit almost any object on the map. Which is very useful when planning things out in the real world, such as networks like water supply. 

When a engineer or architect draws in a new plan on ArcGIS they can compare the newly drawn in date(proposed data) with the current  situation to see how big of change it will be and how much supply is needed. ArcGIS's drawing tools allows professionals to plan ahead or to make current situations or data improved and better (as we did with the extension of the road). 

Despite the potentials of GIS, there are of course some pitfalls that come with it also. First, when using ArcGIS I could not work on my laptop because it is not suited for Mac's. The software was also fairly slow and lagging even on windows computers, which made the navigation and organization a little harder. Second, the whole software doesn't seem that user friendly to me. After spending four plus hours on the software I went through a lot of frustrating steps that should have been relatively easy but were made difficult by lags or errors. Furthermore, every time I logged on my maps wouldn't be the same way I saved them and I would have to go through a few steps to restore the data. These are all very small pitfalls though and can easily be overcome, ArcGIS's potential outweighs the pitfalls certainly. 

Santa Monica Run

View Santa Monica Run from Westwood in a larger map
Neogeography is about people using and creating their own maps on their own terms by elements of exiting tool set. It is an invention that relates to Web 2.0 by letting the user interact and control the outcome of the map. But Neogeography comes with many pitfalls, potential, and consequences. Pitfalls that come a long with neogeography are that anybody can make or edit a map. Sometimes this will lead to no accuracy or fake information, on purpose or often by mistake. Most people editing and making maps have no former map-making training so even if they have good intent it is hard to make a map reliable to the public. On the other-hand neogeography comes with a lot of potential. Anyone who has interest in map-making can do so and practice, with many reliable online sources and tools, to improve their skills. People can also share experiences and opinions through videos, pictures, comments, and links. If their is no pitfall and you find a reliable map you are looking for then there is the potential that you could find a very specific map that has only details you need and want.

The consequences of neogeography are always going to have positive and negative effects. A lot of more people will be making maps through their own specific view or details by the means of pictures, videos, and comments. But the information provided by these people could help some one if it is accurate or it could be harmful to someone if it is false info.

7.5 Minute Map

1) Beverly Hills Quadrangle.

2) Starting in the top left and ending in the bottom right. 1.Canoga Park, 2.Van Nuys, 3.Burbank,  4.Topanga, 5.Hollywood, 7.Venice, 8.Inglewood. No adjacent quadrangle was noted in the bottom left for 6.

 3) The Beverly Hills quadrangle was first created in 1966. However this is a 2012 revised version.      (Draft version 0.6.1.). 

 4) The datum used to create this map is the North American Datum of 1983(NAD 83) and the North American Vertical Datum of 1988. 

 5) The Scale is 1:24 000. Which is standard for most 7.5 minute topographic maps.

6) At the above scale,       

           a) 5 cm on the map is 1200 meters on the ground.
           b) 5 inches on the maps is 1.894 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 cm

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

8) Approximate Geographic Coordinates in both Degrees, Minutes, Seconds, and decimal degree:

          a) Public Affairs Building, 34º04'30'', 118º26'15''; 34.075, -118.44
          b) Tip of Santa Monica Pier, 34º00'25'', 118º30'00''; 34. 34.0069, -118.5
          c) Upper Franklin Canyon Reservoir, 34º06'25'', 118º24'50''; 34.11, -118.41

9) The height of,
         a) Greystone Mansion is 580 ft
         b) Woodlawn Cemetery is 140 ft
         c) Crestwood Hills Park 700 ft

10) The UTM zone is 11S.

11) UTM coordinates for the lower left corner of the map,
       3763000mN, 361000mE

12) 1,000,000 Meters are contained in each square unit.

13) Elevation along 3771000mN,

14) The magnetic declination is 14º East.

15) The stream between the 405 highway and the Stone Canyon Reservoir is flowing from North to South.

16) An image of UCLA extracted from the 7.5 quadrangle of Beverly Hills,