Lab 7 - Fire Mapping

The station fire was one of the biggest fires within the recent years to occur in Southern California. Figure 1 is a reference map of the Station fire perimeter and encompasses not only the map area near the fire, but also areas where the smoke from the fire was visible. The bellowing tower of smoke was visible from areas as far south as Commerce and Montebello. The reference map also chronicles the progress of the fire over the span of about a week - with the lighter color representing the area first burned and slowly progresses to a darker shade of color to illustrate the expansion of the fire.

Figure 2 and 3 are the hillshdae map and aspect map of the region respectively. The hillshade map merely shows the elevation change and the mountain range of the region with the lighter shade being the higher elevation. The aspect map, on the other hands, shows what direction the sides of the mountain faces. This is useful in that upon closer inspection the majority of the slopes face southward. This is an interesting feature because for one thing, the fire started on the southern slopes and slowly progressed northward, meaning the fire progressed up the slopes during the fire. This phenomenon is important because naturally, fires tend to migrate uphill due to the rising of eat and as it rises it raises the temperatures of the shrubery and will easily ignite the shrubery higher up on the hill. Hence, this becomes the rationale behind the station fire - the fire expanded northward - partly due to the increasing elevation of the mountain northward and the concentration of fuel source located to the North.

Figure 4 is a map of fuel load found in the area. Although its rather difficult to see on the map, there is a ceoncentration of more flammable material that is located to the North, in the mountains. The urban areas to the south of the moutain contained only a small amount of natural fuel sources due to the urbanization and destruction of th elocal vegetation in the development of the area. As a result, the fuel load is more prevalent in the mountain ranges - with a large source of oak and pine trees - providing adequate fuel for th fire to expand farther.

Figure 5 is the map of urban area plotted in the same region as the fire perimeter. As illustrated by the map, there is actually some overlap between the urban area and the fire itself. During the fire itself, the nearby communities were in danger but some were actually destroyed (but most were safe. If we look at both figure 4 and figure 5, the fuel load type found is the urban areas are not as volatile as the load found in the mountain. The natural vegeation in the mountain were found in large abundances that helped the fire expand, while the urban areas lacked such volatile fuel load, hence the reason why the fire more easily spread to the North.

The Station fire ultimately burned approximtely 250,000 acres of land within the span of four weeks. The fire had the largest growth within the first week due to the large amount of fuel load found in the mountains. And due to the steep elevation of where the fire was burning, the management of the fire itself was rather difficult as the elevation became too difficult for firefighters to handle. Ultimately, the fire only destroyed 89 homes but threatened up to 12,000 homes at one time. The fire burned for about 49 days before finally reaching 100% containment on October 16, 2009. The Station fire is actually the largest fire in the Los Angeles area up to date.

Sources:
"ANF Station Fire FAQs 11 04 09 Final.pdf." Angeles NF - Station Fire Burned Area Emergency Response - BAER Implementation FAQ.

"CAL FIRE - Incidents." Fire Information. Web. 27 Nov. 2009. .

"National Map LANDFIRE Viewer." National Map/USGS Databse.


"Station Fire Threatens Hundreds Of Homes But Officials Believe Mount Wilson Is Out Of The Woods - cbs2.com." CBS 2 - KCAL 9 - Los Angeles - Southern California - LA Breaking News, Weather, Traffic, Sports. Web. 27 Nov. 2009. .


"U.S. Forest Service report: Station fire terrain too steep to fight safely | L.A. NOW | Los Angeles Times." Top of the Ticket | Karl Rove talks about Sarah Palin -- and Top of the Ticket | Los Angeles Times. Web. 27 Nov. 2009. .

Lab 6 - DEMs

 

 

 

The images above are all maps with the central focal point on Boulder, Colorado. To the West of the area are the Rocky Mountains, while to the East is the Great Plains of Colorado, hence the reason for the drastic difference in elevation. And it is because of this comparable difference that I decided to choose Boulder, CO as the center of the map. The elevation of the area has a moderate range, with the Great Plains being as low as 1,466 feet to 3,708 feet in the Rocky Mountains. The slope map is a map of interest here because a large portion of the map is just colored red - indicating the severity of the slope. Because this area is where the Rockys meet the Plains, the area is located on the downward slope and the slope map portrays just that: a (severe) downward slope. The area of the Earth that these maps capture are set by the longitude and latitude boundaries of -105.59 to -104.85 (W to E) and 40.18 to 39.87 (N to S) respectively. The maps are extracted from the data collected in the GCS North American Datum of 1983. 

Lab 5 - Map Projections

 

Map projections such as the various projections portrayed above are useful tools in terms of displaying the Earth's spherical surface as an image on a flat surface. This allows the users to judge distance, navigational directions, and approximate locations in the real world by using such map projections. The various map projections that are available out there allow different projections to be made for different purposes: if only a nautical heading is needed, the conformal projections can be used, if only distance is needed, an equidistant projection could be used. With the need to answer the various geographical questions available out there, more tools such as the numerous projections allow for more ways to analyze geographical data.

The existence of the various projections available out there are the result that no projection is perfect - different projections are used for different reasons. As a result, without the basic knowledge of map projections, a user may have a difficult time in obtaining accurate information from the improper projection. For example, the actual distance from Kabul to Washington D.C. is about 6,944 miles. The most ideal projection to be used would be an equidistant projection. However, even though we have selected the most ideal projection, the projection itselfis very limited in displaying the distance accurately. To be more specific, an azimuthal equidistant map projetion would be more desired because the equidistant map, in measuring distances, is most accurate only when the locale of interest (the starting point for the measurement) is located in the middle of the sphere, otherwise distances would become greatly distorted. For example, the equidistant conic map is the more accurate measurement for the distance between Kabul and Washington D.C. of the two equidistant maps. Had the center of the map been focused on either Kabul or Washington D.C., the distance between the two would have been more accurately measured.

While equidistant maps are useful for displaying the distances on the map accurately, they still may distort the actual size of the landmasses drastically depending on how far away they deviate from the center. In order to preserve the actual size of the landmasses then, an equal area projection would be more useful. However, with equal area projections a compromise must be made in displaying accurate distances. For the Bonne projection, it relies on the central meridian being the point of reference, the farther east and west we deviate from the meridian, the more distorted the water becomes (which may cause an inaccurate measurement between distances). However, since the area is preserved, the distance between Kabul and Washington D.C. wasn't drastically affected because they are relatively close to the meridian. As for the Hammer-Aitoff projection, it uses the equator as the central point of reference, the rest of the parallels of the equator are curves - the farther north and west we deviate, the more distorted the distance from North to West becomes. Once again, the distance according to the aforementioned projection is 8,447 miles, a mere 1,000 something odd miles off from the actual distance.

Lastly, the final map projection that must be discussed is the conformal map projection. These map projections are used to preserve local angles - meaning they are great for navigational purposes, when a heading is needed. The drawback behind these projections is that the farther we deviate from the equator and the middle of the map, the more distorted the shapes become, thereby rendering distances to be unusable due to its large variations with different map projections. The Mercator projection is the most common projection used - it preserves local angles but not the shape or size of continents that deviate far from the equator. Hence, the distance from Kabul to Washington D.C. calculated in the Mercator is 10,006 miles. In comparison, the Gall Stereographic projects a sphere onto a flat surface of the Earth. The projection may not distort the shape and size of landmasses, however, the distortions are not as great as that found in the Mercator map. In addition, for the Gall Stereographic projections, the projection uses 45 degrees N and S of the equator as points of interest, which provides the map with an overall sense of balance on the map - no section will become drastically distorted. The distance measured between Kabul and Washington D.C. by the computer on the Gall Stereographic map is 7,162, much closer to the actual value than some of the other projections.

Based on the discussion mentioned above, there are limitations as to what a user can do on ArcGIS without delving too in depth with the content. Despite these limitations, because different situations call on different maps, there still exists a multitude of map projections available to analyze the data. As long as the user considers what is the feature that is being compromised on the map projection and what the purpose of the projection is, ArcGIS can become a very powerful tool in geographic analysis.

Lab 4 - Intro to ArcGIS

Attached below are the map outputs from the ArcGIS tutorial:

ArcGIS is a convenient mapping tool that allows users to create more complex maps that can relate geography to an interrelated phenomenon. ArcGIS may not be as easily accessible than other open source mapping tools or simple mapping tools such as Google, but its because of its complexity and capabilities that it restricts access to those interested in relating earth's geographic features to a wide range of subject matters - including societal and environmental issues. ArcGIS, in that extent, is a more professional tool that focuses on mapping to provide geographic information and relationships rather than a user-centric tool that focuses on providing miscellaneous information.

In my first exposure to ArcGIS, it seems that the tool itself is very comprehensive and has a lot of aesthetic options that can be used to customize the graphical presentations. More importantly, the tool itself is not difficult to use, its just tedious to go through the steps to get the results desired. As long as there is data present, the tool becomes very useful in graphically presenting the data. Because the class itself is an introductory course to GIS, the labs where we utilize ArcGIS provides us with minimal experience in using the tool to map out geographical relationships between the Earth and the people. ArcGIS is a great tool for those within the research/academia field in establishing geographical relationships and mapping them out to illustrate a point of interest.

Despite the convenience of ArcGIS, there are some shortcomings of the software itself. The entire process of data collection and creating the maps themselves to illustrate a phenomenon is a tedious task. The unfortunate flaw underlying the process is that if a human error occurs somewhere along the data organization, it's a painstaking process to retrace the steps and correct the error. In addition, because of its intended audience, ArcGIS does require some understanding of basic computer programming to fully utilize the functions of ArcGIS. The general output of ArcGIS may not be as flashy or physically attractive as other mapping tools, it is still more informative/comprehensive in terms of the information presented by its output.

The introductory lab tutorial for ArcGIS was a great way to expose students to the capabilities of a professional mapping tool rather than a neogeographical mapping tool like Google Maps. While neogeography is a prevalent form of mapping for the general public, it is limited in how much information can be presented in the maps. ArcGIS and other mapping software, on the other hand, allow for more comprehensive analysis of various phenomenons within a geographical range. ArcGIS, in that sense, is perfect for studying anthropologic and environmental effects on a global scale by comparing various phenomenons and analyzing the map outputs from ArcGIS. Through such analysis, we gain a better understanding of the natural world and the underlying processes that may have an adverse effects on the natural world itself and attempt to develop policies that may slow the growth of adverse effects.