final project

In this final project for Geo 7, we use what we have learned in ArcGIS to analyze the station fire in Los Angeles County during 2009 summer. According to the station fire update, during the summer in 2009, the station fire started around the Angeles Crest Ranger Station on July 7, 2009 and ended October 27, 2009 finally. As we can see, this station fire lasted for a surprisingly long period, destroying large area in California. Based on CNN, "Bone-dry conditions in an area that has not seen a major fire in more than 60 years pushed a Southern California wildfire from 45,000 acres to more than 100,000 acres...has forced thousands of evacuations and threatened thousands of structures ". 

In this lab, we did a reference map first, as seen in the first picture. From the data on the Los Angeles County Enterprise GIS website, we download the all station fire perimeter during 2009, Summer. We can see there are more than twenty perimeters in the dataset. In this picture, I choose one fire on August 28th, one on August 29th and one on September 1st. Besides, I also download the elevation from the website for Los Angeles county in order to view the place of station fire.

From the picture,  we can see the station fire is concentrated in almost one area, which is around the mountains in the north east of Los Angeles county. The station fire covers pretty larger areas. The one on September 2nd covers larger area compared to the other two areas. Besides, we can see the place of station fire is around 2000 feet. Therefore, we can get that the fire take place on the mountain where there is few people and more trees. From picture three from Boston.com website, we can the fire burning heavily.

Furthermore, we did a thematic map in this lab, as seen the second picture. This map is about the relationship of water body and station fire in Los Angeles County. In this map, we can see the fire perimeters in the center in the yellowish color. Besides, the blueish color represent the water body. The dark blue point represent the wells and reservoirs. The lighter blue regions with dots in it represent the playas. The lighter blue lines represent the river lines. 

From this map, we can get the idea that there is a pretty clear relationship in the water body and station fire. As in the map, the regions where the fire took places is far away from the playas, wells and reservoirs. Although there are some river lines across or around the fire station region, the water amount of the river line is too little to put out the fire. While the playas, wells, reservoirs contains huge amount of water, providing the moisture to their areas and preventing the big fire station happening in those areas. From the picture four, we can see during the station fire, the helicopters carry the water, may be from the wells, reservoirs near it to put out the fire.

During this final project, I find out I am getting more and more flexible and confident using ArcGIS. By learning this software for around 5 weeks, I get to know about the power of ArcGIS. This software provide people a clear view and information about what is happening. Like in this project, from the maps I did in ArcMap, we can easily see the perimeters of station fire, the reason why it happens and the relationship between the fire and other factors. I hope in the future, I can get the opportunity to leaning more about the ArcGIS.

Reference

 Station Fire Update. LaCañadaFlintridge.com, 2009, September 10.http://www.lacanadaflintridge.com/docfiles/city/emrg_na_mis_090910_091045.pdf.

All Station Fire Perimeters. Los Angeles County Enterprise GIS. 2009, September. http://egis3.lacounty.gov/eGIS/2009/09/02/all-station-fire-perimiters-as-of-september-2-0702-complete-ste/

The Big Picture. Boston.com. 2009, September 2. http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/09/wildfires_in_southern_californ.html

Angry fire roars across 100000 California acres. CNN. 2009, August 31. http://articles.cnn.com/2009-08-31/us/california.wildfires_1_mike-dietrich-firefighters-safety-incident-commander?_s=PM:US

The National Map Seamless Server. Seamless Data Warehouse. http://seamless.usgs.gov/website/seamless/viewer.htm 

Lab 7

The first map shows the African American population ranked by percentage in different counties in US. We can see from the graph, The darker blue represent higher percentage of black population. The lighter blue, the lower percentage of population. From this map, we can see most African American population lives in the south east of US, such as Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and South Carolina. Some of counties contains 53% to 86% population of African American. While in other states,especially around west and central American, African American population is very low. Some of places is even below 4%.

The second map show the Asian American population ranked by percentage in different counties in US. The darker pink represent higher percentage of Asian population. The lighter pink represent lower percentage of Asian population. Overall, compared to African American, Asian population is much smaller in US. The most abundant area is in South California, Bay area, New York area and a small area in Washington state. In other areas, especially in south and central area, Asian population is relatively small.

The third map show the other races population ranked by percentage in different counties in US. We can see from the graph, the darker red represent higher percentage of other races. The lighter red, the lower percentage of population of other races. Overall, ,most other races population lives in the south west of US. As we expect, there are many Latin American population in the south west states such as South California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. Besides, we can see there are also large population in south Florida and north west of US. In other areas especially central and East, the population of other races are small.

In this lab, we create three maps for  population percentage for different races in US. We use ArcMap and ArcCatalog to join the excel data sheet and the normal map. After joining, we can easily see the excel data from the map. From this map, I think GIS is really useful and convenient for people's life. Before using GIS, I think it is really hard and boring for me to read through the data from excel. However, by using GIS, we can illustrate the boring figures into vivid maps. From these maps, we can easily get the ideas of these data. Overall, GIS bring us a convenient and vivid life.

Lab 6

The map I choose for this lab is a small area above LA county. The place is between Santa Monica Mountain and the Pacific Ocean. The coordinate for this regions is from 34. 29° N to 34.62°N and 119.67°W to 119.01°W. The Geographic Coordinate System for this map is GCS North American 1983.There are four maps: Shaded relief model, Slope map, Aspect map and the 3D map. These maps shows the areas from different levels of views, giving people different aspects. The map I choose for this lab is a small area above LA county. The place is between Santa Monica Mountain and the Pacific Ocean. The coordinate for this regions is from

Lab 5

The first picture is the conformal projection: Mercator and Stereographic map. The stereographic projection is a mapping tat projects a sphere onto a plane. It is the conformal projection because it preserves the original angles. However, it doesn't preserve distance or areas of the original figures. This projects is extremely useful in mathematics fields such as complex analysis, geology and cartography. However, the limitation of this projection is the extreme distortion as seen in the picture. The shape, equator, latitude, longitude are distorted by the projection. Therefore, this map will be hard for people to use. The second projection is Mercator. In his projection, latitude and longitude are in right angle. It preserves the angles and shapes. However, as the map goes to the poles. The scale increases and becomes infinite. This map is commonly used in navigation and is used for areas near the equator.

The second picture is equal area projection: cylindrical equal area and Behrmann equal area cylindrical projection. These two projections are similar. They both map longitudes as vertical lines and latitude as horizontal lines. They preserve the area of original figures. However, it distort the direction and distance especially near the poles. These projections is hard for use in research areas. However, they give people a clear view of world map.  The difference between the two projection is: Berhamn projection is narrower than the cylindrical equal area projection.

The third picture is equidistant projection: two point equidistant and azimuthal projection. Both projections preserve distance of the original maps. For the two point equidistant projection, distances from any point on the map to two control points scale to the geodesic distances of the same points on the sphere. This However, it distort the areas and directions. This projection is commonly used for use in measuring distance between two points accurately such as air routes. For azimuthal projection, it also preserve the distance, but not as well as the two point equidistant map. It shows distance and directions accurately from the center point, but distort shapes and size elsewhere.

In this lab, we measure the distance between Washington DC and kabul for each projection. For the conformal projection: The distance between two cities is 10164 miles for Mercator and 9960 miles for Stereographic projections. For equal area projection, the distance between two cities for the Berhamn projection is 8781 miles, which is a little less than the cylindrical projection: 10108 miles. For equidistant projection, the distance is 6648 miles for two point equidistant projection and 8341 miles for azimuthal projection. The true distance between two cities is around 6934 miles. Therefore, from the measurement above, we can see that the conformal projection and equal area projection both distort the distance between the two cities. Equidistant projections preserve the distant well: two point equidistant projection is nearly the same as the geodesic distant while azimuthal is a little bigger than 6934 miles. Therefore, form this lab, we can get the idea that each projection has their own purpose in use. If we want to measure the distant accurately, we would better choose the equidistant projections, especially the two point equidistant projection.

Lab 4

ArcGIS is a geographic information system (GIS) for working with maps and geographic information. It can be used by any people to use ,create compile, analyze, manage and share the geographic data.In this lab, we learn how to use ArcGIS by reading the software tutorial. By using the maps and data the professor provides, we create school and noise contour map, Land use within noise contour map, population density map, as well as a bar chart of land use in noise contour in ArcGIS. We learn about examining maps, creating legends, deriving data from the maps, adding roads on the maps etc.


Although I don't have any experiences in using geographic software, when I begin to learn how to use ArcGIS,  I discovered that it is not as hard as I thought. This program is pretty easy and clear to understand even for fresh people. The tools are clear without much explanation. Because the clear setting and the "undo" button, I can even do many creative options without worrying too much. Besides, the maps we tends to create is reality based. We may see such maps elsewhere before. Therefore, creating these maps will not be abstract so that we can get the idea without confusion.


Without much experiences in using ArcGIS, It won't be much for me to write about the difficulties I encounter. However, I do remember a difficulty I encountered while using ArcGIS. When we use the data view, we click the zoom in and zoom out button on the tools bar. When we switch to the layout view, there are more buttons relating to the map size. Sometimes,  click on the wrong button will mess up all the maps.


Overall, ArcGIS is a really powerful program. People can create the maps in detail and compile it with changes. Besides, this software can also create map with a special theme, such as the population density map we make. We can easily make the maps to illustrate the idea we want by gathering data in this software. Furthermore, ArcGIS also provides opportunities for everyone to create maps, encouraging people's interest in Geography. However, this widespread opportunities may bring pitfalls in ArcGIS. As we add the Airport Dr, which is not there at first on the map, people can edit maps based on their own knowledge and understandings in ArcGIS. Therefore, errors may be appeared in maps made by ArcGIS. Generally, ArcGIS is still a excellent software, providing benefits to people's life.

Lab 3

View Waikiki Beach Walking Tour in a larger map


This is a map called Waikiki Beach Walking Tour. It is a 1 mile walking distance along the famous beach in USA: the Waikiki Beach.We start at the hotel called the Royal Hawaiian. The first stop is the Waikiki Shopping Plaza,  a really nice mall where we can shop a lot. The second stop is the International Market Place. This is a traditional Hawaiian place, where we can buy traditional souvenirs and enjoy the authentic Hawaiian food. The third place is a really beautiful beach. Enjoy the nice view and be ready to relax! Then, we can go to the Honolulu zoo to see lots of cute animals. Last, we finish our tour with the Waikiki Aquarium. We can see many sea animals that we have never seen before. 




Neogeography also means "new geography". "It is commonly applied to the usage of geographical techniques and tools used for personal and community activities for utilization by a non-expert group of users"(Wikipedia). Nowadays, these types of techniques involves in most people's life. such as GPS, Google Map. People can easily to find the location they want to go through these tools. Besides, these techniques are also easily accessible. People can access these applications by any computers, lab tops, and phones. Therefore, Neogeography provide a easy life for everyone  in the world. 


However, neogeography still have many pitfalls. From my opinions, there are may be some inaccuracies in neogeography. Here are two main reasons. First, Anyone can create maps based on their personal knowledge. people's perspectives may be different from each other. Therefore, errors may be appeared in maps. Second, the world are changing nowadays. There are roads changing, new malls appearing, old restaurants disappearing everyday. Therefore, the speed of updating  maps often can't follow the speed of the changing world. This delay may cause the inaccuracy of neogeography as well. Overall, although neogeography may have some pitfalls, it still help people a lot.

Lab 2

1.Beverly Hills Quadrangle
2.Canoga Park, Van Nuys, Burbank, Topanga, Hollywood, Venice, Inglewood.
3.The map was first created in 1966.
4.North American Datum of 1927 was used to create the map;North American Datum of 1983 was shown by dashed corner ticks.
5.Fractional Scale: 1:24000
6.a)1200 meters
   b)1.894 miles
   c)2.64 inches
   d)12.5 centimeters
7.20 feet
8.a)34° 04'25"N and 118° 26'15"W, 34.0735N and 118.4375W
   b)34°00'30"N and118°30'00"W, 34.0083N and 118.5000W
   c)34°07'15"N and 118°24'35"W, 34.1208N and 118.4097W
9.a)600 ft, 182.88 meters
   b)140 ft, 42.672 meters
   c)800 ft, 243.85 meters
10. UTM Zone 11.
11. 3763000N, 362000E
12. 1000*1000=1000000 square meters
13.

14.The magnetic declination is 14° East.

15.The stream flows from north to south.
16.