Final GIS Assignment: Mapping the Station Fire

The Station Fire was a devastating wildfire that began in the Angeles National Forest on August 26, 2009 and was finally fully contained on October 16, 2009. Hot, dry weather conditions worked against the efforts of firefighters. It was determined to be an arson fire that killed two firefighters and injured 22 more people. The maximum wind speed the day the fire began was 15 miles per hour. A mild wind, but just enough to move the fire up to higher slopes. The winds throughout the ordeal were all blowing south, towards the direction of rays from the sun.

At the higher elevations of the Angeles National Forest the denser trees trapped heat easier than the brush at the lower elevations of the forest. This made fire suppression very difficult for the crews on the scene compared to the more common Southern California brush fires. According to Auburn University, slope affects fire in two ways. On a windy day, winds tend to blow up-slope as they let off heat and cool off in the higher elevations. During a wildfire, this wind will carry the fire up-slope along with it. The wind will also carry hotter temperatures and kindle in order to "pre-heat" higher elevations before the fire reaches those areas. Up-slope winds can be as fast as 5-10 miles per hour, a pace that is very fast for firefighters to keep up with.

Once the fire reached elevations higher than 1000 feet, it spread more quickly. For example, in the map above, the fire spread 7.406 miles on the August 30, 2009 00:25 from the previous measurement on August 29, 2009 14:55. In the day prior, the fire had spread a paltry 2.1 miles at the lower elevations. According to Weise and Biginer, a fire burning up-slope shows the "highest rates of spread, greatest potential for damage, and greatest difficulty to control."

The aspect, the way the slope faces, is also critical in determining the effects of a wildfire. How much heat the wildfire receives from the sun can determine how much control firefighters will have in containing the fire. Slopes that face south receive the most intense solar radiation, thus reducing the amount of humidity, faster evaporation, and warmer temperatures. Because of the lack of moisture, most brush is dry and good for fire kindle. The majority of the mountains in which the Station Fire took place in were Southward facing.

According to Butler et al, the size of the fire increases as the slope increases with wind being the dominant variable. Their experiment also emphasizes the importance of preheating the kindle ahead of the spread of the fire. Since the kindle is preheated, the resulting fire is uniform, without gaps firefighters could use to kill the fire in an easier manner. Instead, the firefighters must face a wall of flames burning at the same temperature.

"InciWeb the Incident Information System: Station Fire." InciWeb November 10, 2009. http://www.inciweb.org/incident/1856/

"Topgraphy's effect on Fire Behavior." Fire at Auburn University December 1, 2011. https://fp.auburn.edu/fire/topos_effect.htm

"History for Burbank, CA." Weather Underground December 5, 2011. http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KBUR/2009/8/26/DailyHistory.html?req_city=Glendale&req_state=CA&req_statename=California

Butler, B.W., W.R. Anderson, and E.A. Catchpole. "Influence of Slope on Fire Spread Rate." The fire environment—innovations, management, and policy; conference proceedings (2007) 26-30. http://www.fs.fed.us/rm/pubs/rmrs_p046/rmrs_p046_075_082.pdf

Weise, David R. and Gregory S. Biging. "A Qualitative Comparison of Fire Spread Models Incorporating Wind and Slope Effects." Forest Science 43, no 2 (1997). http://www.fs.fed.us/psw/publications/weise/psw_1997_weise000.pdf

Census Data!

This map gives a visual representation of the Asian population in the United States by density in the year 2000. The dark pink areas, areas with the highest Asian population density, tend to be in counties with large cities. Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, Chicago, Philadelphia and New York City all show up in dark pink on the map. The lightest pink areas tend to be in Wyoming, Montana, and Nevada. Wyoming and Nevada are not heavily populated areas to begin with, and makes sense that they would be light pink. The light pink areas of Nevada are also not heavily populated.

This map is a visual representation of the Asian population in the United States as a percentage of the county in the year 2000. There are many counties in the Midwestern United States that have no values for an Asian population percentage, meaning that none or very few Asians live in those counties at all. Similar to the population density map, counties with the country's largest cities have a higher percentage of Asians living inside it.

This is a visual representation of counties with an Asian population greater than 25% as of the year 2000. Only two counties in the continental United States meet this criteria: San Francisco County and Santa Clara County. The cities of San Francisco and San Jose are within the borders of these two counties. These two counties have historically had a high Asian population due to migration patterns.

This is a visual representation of the Black population in the year 2000 by population density. Similar to the Asian population maps, the areas with the highest density (dark blue) are around the country's largest cities. Chicago, New York City, Detroit and Los Angeles all show up as dark blue. The Midwestern United States and Idaho, Wyoming, Montana Nevada, Utah, New Mexico and Oregon all have very low rates for Black population density.

This is a visual representation of the percentage of Black population by county in the year 2000. Counties with the percentage of Black population are in the southeastern United States, namely Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, North and South Carolina, and up to Virginia. The rest of the United States pales (or blues) in comparison to these percentage numbers, even in the big cities. There are even a few counties in the Midwestern counties where there is no data at all. Even entire states are a dark blue (Montana), meaning there is less than a .01% Black percentage across the entire state. Reno, Las Vegas, and San Bernardino and Alameda Counties are the only areas in the western United States that are not some varying shade of blue, and are green instead.

This is a visual representation of counties with Black population greater than 25% in the year 2000. The southeastern United States from Louisiana up to Virgina are all a rose color representing this. There are pockets in the Northern United States with this same rose color, including Chicago, Detroit, and St. Louis. This reflects the history of the Black population in the United States dating back to slavery, and then the migration to the North to big cities to look for better jobs and less racial discrimination.

This is a visual representation of counties with a Some Other Race Population above 25% in the year 2000. All of the dark pink areas which represent above 25% are west of the Mississippi River. The majority of them are also in Texas and California, with one pocket in eastern Washington. My first guess is that these may be people of Native American descent answering the Census in this manner. My second guess is that it may be Hispanic/Latino people answering the Census instead of choosing 'White' as their race. However, we will never know why these people answered in the way they did.

This is a visual representation of counties across the continental United States that have Black, Asian or Some Other Race population greater than 25%. The southeastern and southwestern United States, with some pockets in the north, are the parts of the United States that fit these criteria. It does not seem there is any pattern when Black, Asian and Some Other Race are put together on one map. The only pattern is that they tend to be in the southern United States, which may be just a question of weather preference, a result of racial discrimination, or history. The map tells too little and I personally do not know.

My map series has taught me a lot about the distribution of races across the continental United States. Some patterns fit with historical facts, and some do not. I feel this map can help me understand electoral patterns in regards to race, income patterns in regard to race, and other demographic data that can make a difference when analyzed.

At the end of this exercise, I realize the GIS tests a person's patience skills more than computer skills. Simple mistakes can make an image look sloppy, and it takes a patient soul in order to go back and do everything all over again to get it just right rather than just letting things look the way they are. The attention to detail does not take away from the joy it produces, however. When I look at these maps and see how colorful and how informative they are, I know that it was a product of my blood, sweat and tears. GIS is only as useful as the person at they keyboard makes it out to be. Manipulating data is the most eye-opening part of GIS as it can solve urban planning issues, ethnic tension issues, and every other issue under the sun. I hope to continue working with GIS in this manner.

Lab 6: 3-D Elevation Models!

The Geographic Coordinate System this map receives data from is GCS North American 1983.

Decimal Degrees:
34.51694 degrees North, 119.5483 degrees West
34.51694 degrees North, 118.6316 degrees West
34.015 degrees North, 119.5483 degrees West
34.015 degrees North, 118.6316 degrees West

I chose this area because it encompasses the neighborhood I live in, Chatsworth. Chatsworth is known for its topography, with lots of peaks for hiking such as Stony Point and Rocky Peak. The topography of the area gets steadily more hilly and hits higher elevations as it goes more inland from the Pacific Ocean. These hills are important not only from a geographic standpoint, but serve as the political boundary lines between Los Angeles County and Ventura County. The slope map, unfortunately, does not show variation and is less useful than I hoped it would be.

Lab 5: Projections!

Map Projections
Map projections make all the difference when analyzing a map. They distort the size, the area, the distance, and even can distort our perceptions of the type of people that live in certain areas. For example, the Robinson Map convinced people in the United States that they were superior to people in the southern hemisphere because of the difference in land size. However, this map was skewed and made South America and Africa, two large continents, seem smaller than those of the northern hemisphere. This helped justify imperialism and other extremely racist attitudes towards these people. Projections also make all the difference in distance for sea captains, pilots, and the regular four-door sedan driver. Since distance can vary up to thousands of miles, and since gas is very expensive, the correct map and route is essential for an efficient trip.

Equidistant Projections!

As you can see, just being equidistant does not mean that all related projections are going to look exactly the same. Equidistant conic and equidistant cylindrical cover different parts of the Earth and, thus, produce different distortions of the Earth's land mass. In the equidistant conic projection Antarctica looks very large, as if it's encircling the Earth in an embrace rather than a continent on the South Pole. In the equidistant cylindrical projection Antarctica does not look nearly as imposing, merely large. The equidistant conic also centers the North Pole in the middle of the map, while the equidistant cylindrical projection places the North Pole as the top of the map.

Equal area projections!

The cylindrical equal area map skews the extreme northern and parallels to seem thinner than they actually are. Canada, Greenland, Northern Europe, Russia, and Antarctica seem thin and stretched out at the northern and southern edges of the earth when they are not that way in reality. The Bonne equal area projection makes the Earth into the shape of a heart. While an extremely endearing projection, it is not in any way accurate. Australia and South East Asia are extremely skewed in this projection, making them seem smaller than they actually are.

Conformal projections!

The Eckert I conformal projection map projects the Earth into the shape of a diamond. Another endearing shape, but only accurate in the bulge in the middle. The shapes of the landmasses are impressively well preserved, with only Australia's slight slant as the only thing that really bothers me. The stereographic conformal projection is decidedly different from many projections I've encountered growing up. Australia is an extremely large landmass on this map. So large it doesn't even fit entirely on the map. In fact, New Zealand does not even make it on to the map (nobody likes kiwis anyway). Meanwhile, as Australians assert themselves as the new hegemons, the continent of Africa has been reduced significantly. Could this be another justification for imperialism?

Lab 4

This introduction to geographic information systems was incredibly fun and a lot more rewarding and creative than I thought it was going to be. It took a lot of patience to figure out what exactly were the differences between ArcGIS 9 in the tutorial and ArcGIS 10 as the actual software that was being used. I can see now that geographic information systems takes a lot of patience in general, even if you know what you are doing. The painstaking process of following every direction meticulously drove the point home that this is a software that can do amazing things but only if used correctly. This is why neogeography is a cool phenomenon, but one with many downsides. Having a trained geographer create maps makes all the difference in cartographic processes.

I was concerned that maybe this first tutorial would turn me off from geographic information systems completely. I've thought about careers in public policy and planning and figured that GIS knowledge would assist me greatly in achieving those goals. I thought that if I did not like this experience, I would have to think of new fields to go into. Thankfully, although the process was long, it was fun and only piqued my interest in the planning field even more.

There are many advantages to using geographic information systems. One useful component are the layers. You can mix, match, and manipulate data to show only the information you want out of the tons of information available to you. The organization is impeccable and gets rid of a lot of work that would otherwise have to be done manually. Computers make the process of making maps much quicker than ones done by hand. In the event of an emergency, maps are critical to have, and the quicker processes make response more feasible.

However, the process of learning GIS is time-intensive and does not forgive mistakes easily. People can easily get frustrated with the software and stop from learning it altogether. The software market is also dominated by one company, ESRI, which hinders competition from developing possibly better tools. It is also easy to get carried away with the creativity allowed in GIS. Choosing a certain color scheme has all the effect in the presentation of the data and can either facilitate or harm the point you're trying to make.

Week 3: Neogeography Map

View Places I Want To Travel To in a larger map

Neography is a new phenomena of people taking the process of creating maps and geographic information in their own hands. People have a new geospatial awareness with access to technologies like the Internet and GPS devices that come standard with their cellular phones. With these new tools available to them, anybody can create their own Google Map documenting sites of the American Civil War instead of referring to a textbook.

However, neogeography is not subject to the same academic and scientific standards geography is. The maps created by cartographers are subject to criteria and will be criticized harshly for any weaknesses. Accuracy is of the utmost importance for maps, as they are used by pilots when they fly, or the military when they determine how far their missiles have to travel. Maps created by neographers have no standards at all except for the whimsy of their creator. For example, when Geraldo Rivera drew the map of the US Army's forces in Iraq in the sand, he was criticized for giving away state secrets, something a professional cartographer would not have done. Yet, he is an amateur and not subject to the same standards.

Neogeography also relies on imperfect data, not the same data given to professional geographers and cartographers. Basic maps with lines as borders are satisfying for neographers, but leave much to be desired for the cartographer. They are also incomplete in terms of showing this data, and typically only display one subset of information as opposed to the many layers GIS can.

Week Two: Lab Assignment

1. What is the name of the quadrangle?
Beverly Hills Quadrangle
2. What are the names of the adjacent quadrangles?
Canoga Park, Van Nuys, Burbank, Topanga, Hollywood, Venice, Inglewood
3. When was the quadrangle first created?
1966
4. What datum was used to create your map?
North American Datum of 1927 (NAD 27). North American Datum of 1983 (NAD 83). National Geodetic Vertical Datum of 1929.
5. What is the scale of the map?
1:24,000
6. At the above scale, answer the following:
a) 5 centimeters on the map is equivalent to how many meters on the ground?
1200 meters
b) 5 inches on the map is equivalent to how many miles on the ground?
1.894 miles
c) one mile on the ground is equivalent to how many inches on the map?
2.64 inches
d) three kilometers on the ground is equivalent to how many centimeters on the map?
12.501 centimeters
7. What is the contour interval on your map?
20 feet
8. What are the approximate geographic coordinates in both degrees/minutes/seconds and decimal degrees of:
a) the Public Affairs Building; 34 degrees, 4' 15" North, 34.070833; 118 degrees negative, 26' 45" West,118.445833
b) the tip of Santa Monica pier; 34 degrees, 0', 40" North, 34.011111; 118 degrees negative, 29' 45" West, 118.495833
c) the Upper Franklin Canyon Reservoir; 34 degrees, 6' 0" North, 34.1; 118 degrees negative, 24' 45" West, 118.4125
9. What is the approximate elevation in both feet and meters of:
a) Greystone Mansion (in Greystone Park); 600 feet, 182.88 meters
b) Woodlawn Cemetery; 140 feet, 42.67 meters
c) Crestwood Hills Park; 700 feet, 213.36 meters
10. What is the UTM zone of the map? Zone 11
11. What are the UTM coordinates for the lower left corner of your map? 3763000 Northing. 3620000 Easting.
12. How many square meters are contained within each cell (square) of the UTM gridlines? 10000 meters
13. Obtain elevation measurements, from west to east along the UTM northing 3771000, where the eastings of the UTM grid intersect the northing. Create an elevation profile using these measurements in Excel (hint: create a line chart). Figure out how to label the elevation values to the two measurements on campus. Insert your elevation profile as a graphic in your blog.
720, 615, 640, 520, 480 ucla west,  420 ucla east, 415, 350, 290, 250, 150

14. What is the magnetic declination of the map?
 14 degrees
15. In which direction does water flow in the intermittent stream between the 405 freeway and Stone Canyon Reservoir?
South
16. Crop out (i.e., cut and paste) UCLA from the map and include it as a graphic on your blog.