Vanessa G's Final Assignment

Figure 1

             On August 25, 2009 at 3:20 pm a wildfire began in Los Angeles that would take more than a month to contain, claiming two lives with 144,000 acres affected. It began in Angeles Nation Forest close to the U.S. Forest Service and spread to as far as Sunland and Glendale communities. On September 3rd the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department found a substance near the area they believe the  fire starting which launched a homicide investigation that has yet to be solved. 

             The reference map above illustrates the complete area of Los Angeles that were effected by the fire which included 89 homes. It also has the outlines of the major freeway systems that run through Los Angeles because the freeway system in one of the greatest attributes of Los Angeles. I wanted to highlight how the fire did not reach any of the freeways although Angeles Crest Highway (Highway 7) and Azusa Canyon Highway (Highway 29) where closed because of the debris. Lastly, the boxed area in red is what the map below magnifies so that it can be further examined of what school districts were affected by the fire.

Figure 2

              When fires break out in any community schools can be largely affected by closures, reformed schedules or being a place for refuge for the entire community. The map above depicts the borders of the school districts that the fire spread to and on which days it reached certain districts. For example, the Azusa school district had the fire slightly cross its borders on the first day of the fire, August 26. Also, the Sulpher Springs Union School District was reached significantly on August 31. La Canada, Action Agua Dulce and Los Angeles School Districts were hit the hardest by the wildfire covering large parts of their areas.

              

               Neighboring School Districts that were not as badly affected by the fire were used by the American Red Cross to care for people who had lost their homes by the fire. Specifically, "the Glendale-Crescenta Valley (CV) Chapter of the American Red Cross opened a shelter at Crescenta Valley High School on Saturday August 29 to receive for residents whose homes were under an evacuation order"("Glendale- Crescenta Valley Chapter" ). By August 31 all schools in the Glendale and La Canada School District where closed postponing the start of their fall semester. Moreover, Sunland and San Fernando Valley schools in Los Angeles Unified as well as Pasadena Unified schools have cancelled or altered their athletic practices.

View from La Canada on August 30th, 2009

                The last visual is a video clip of the fire over La Canada in collaboration with the maps gives life to the project because even with ArcGIS, the maps created are only pictures but this video highlights the great danger the fire had to the communities it crossed. From what we learned in class about Web 2.0 and neogeography it encouraged me to add a video to make this presentation more complete. It is one of many ways to utilize the advances in geographic technologies and online presentation formats. Furthermore, since the video is from an amateur camera person it makes the point that we can all be geographers and document history for anyone to use.


Bibliography


Bloomekatz, Ari. "Station fire was arson, officials say; homicide investigation begins." Los Angeles Times. N.p., 3 2009. Web. 09 Dec 2012. <http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/09/station-fire-was-arson-homicide-investigation-begins.html>.  

 La Canada Flintridge, CA wildfire, August 2009. 2009. Video. Youtube.com, La Canaga. Web. 08 Dec 2012. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVGj7r3aGfs>.

"L.A. Now; Area Schools affected by fire in Angeles National Forest." Los Angeles Times [Los Angeles] 31 Aug 2009, n. pag. Web. 12 Dec. 2012. <http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/08/school-closures.html>.

Los Angeles County of Public Education. Los Angeles County Public Schools Districts. Los Angeles County: , 2010. Print. <http://schooldirectory.lacoe.edu/>. 

"Red Cross Shelter at Crescenta Valley High School." Glendale- Crescenta Valley Chapter. 2009: n. page. Web. 12 Dec. 2012. <http://arc-glendale-temp.axxiomportal.com/article.aspx?a=7542>.

  "Station Fire Update, Sept. 29, 2009." InciWeb: Incident Information System. Bureau of Land Management, 27 2009. Web. 09 Dec 2012. <http://inciweb.org/incident/article/9640/>.

Vanessa G's Lab 7

 Using ArcGIS, it is easy to take information from the U.S. Census to layout maps that

display pages of information on to a simple to view map. From these maps people can form hypothesis about what might cause a cluster of a certain value at some places and not another. Furthermore, it is simple to explore the possibilities of there being relationships to one map to another. For these maps above, they are similar because they all involve information on the changes of the United States population.

                 

              From all of the maps above, the map of the total number of people as counted by the 2000 U.S. Census gives us the least amount of information to work with because most of the counties are on the darker color spectrum. However, when looking at the map on the population density connections can be made about where most of the U.S. population is clustered even if for a small area. From the information above it is shown that most of the population is clustered around the coastal areas, then it can be further examined why the populations are the most dense in the coastal areas, maybe because the coastal areas have better vegetation or perhaps more employment opportunities. 

            On the other hand, looking at the information on the other two maps gives even more information about the United States population. For instance, the map on the difference from the 1990 Census to the 2000 Census sparks curiosity about the reasons for large changes in one place and negative in other ones. The map tells us that the greatest differences in population seems to have happen in the south western states bordering Mexico. This can lead to a conclusion that there probably was a large Mexican immigration rise in between 1990 and 2000. Contrariwise, the map also gives information that the middle regions and Alaska of the United States had a negative change in population. For this reason, an investigation might be launched as to why this is true, because of greater deaths or because of large amounts of migration or global warming?

            With so many possibilities of the way this data can be interpreted simply by laying it out on a map that is color coded, makes ArcGIS that much more interesting to me. I was able to take just one set of data from the Census and display it in different ways to get ideas about topics to further research for the behavioral patterns of the U.S. population. In addition it was much more simpler than I had anticipated so I found myself continuing to experiment with the information even after I had finished the lab. Lastly, after studying the maps I decided to do a short personal research project about why there were certain population changes in certain areas (as previously discussed) which I found interesting.

Vanessa G's Lab 6

The area depicted on the maps above is near a camp ground in Denver, Colorado with coordinates: top 39.8291666661, left -105.788888889, right -104.969444445, and bottom 39.3838888883. In addition the map that is used is from the GCS North American Datum from 1983. The area was preselected, however it is a good choice for this lab exercise because it is a terrain with mountains and part of a flat land.

Vanessa G's Lab 5

Conformal Mercator

Distance between Washington, D.C. and Kabul, Afghanistan: 12,606.58 miles

Conformal Stererographic

Distance between Washington, D.C. and Kabul, Afghanistan: 14,403.73 miles

Equal Area Berhamm

Distance between Washington, D.C. and Kabul, Afghanistan: 17,618.94 miles

Equal Area Bonne

Distance between Washington, D.C. and Kabul, Afghanistan: 13,648.98 miles

Equidistant Aitoff

Distance between Washington, D.C. and Kabul, Afghanistan: 18,501.82 miles

Equidistant Cone

Distance between Washington, D.C. and Kabul, Afghanistan: 14,267.36 miles

Creating theses maps where not all that difficult because the ArcGIS program has everything programed into the system so that the hardest part was picking out which maps to do. I did not know that maps come in a variety of different shapes that can even look like a heart with the equal area Bonne projection. However, since it is impossible to perfectly show the imperfect round earth on a flat surface it makes sense that there are dozens of ways to project the earth on a map. There are three main types of map projections: conformal, equal area, and equidistant which are displayed above. With these different map projects they have advantages and disadvantages.

On advantages in a conformal map projection is that the latitudinal and longitudinal lines consistently intersect at right angles and preserve shape as shown in the Mercator and Stereographic maps above. On the other hand, we have equal area maps that preserve area, that is the same area on the whole earth is scaled to the same area on the map. These projections have a more ellipse like shape than other map projections as shown above. Lastly, equidistant lines preserve distances along certain lines of the map but not between points that are not near the center. This imperfection is just on of many flaws with trying to recreate a round earth on a flat surface.

For example, it is easy to see from the maps about that conformal maps do a terrible job at depicting the proper area of different countries making small ones seem larger than other ones. Conversely, equal area maps can not retain consistent grid lines as conformal maps, as shown in the two projections above. Lastly, as mentioned before equidistant maps can not measure correct distances outside of certain lines and if the points are not near the center, it is easy to see by noting the difference in the two map projections above are larger than any other type of projection.

It is important to learn about these map projections because it gives everyone more of an understanding of the way the earth is difficult to project in a map. Moreover, it will help us question what are the true shapes and sizes of different places on the earth. With this we can better understand different map projections and figure out ways to make it more accurate.