Mini Project

The above maps show the pattern of fire spread in the Los Angeles County.  As seen from the map above the fire spreads to the green areas on the map since the slopes are steep here and there is grass and trees that the fire can feed on. The fire prone area as we can see is right in the center of LA county and fortunately only a few highways pass through it.

The theme of my map is the fire spread due to topography. The fire spreads form the the higher slopes to the lower slopes. Also the wind direction affects the spread of the fire in the sens that the fire spreads in the direction of the wind.

The fact that the fire prone area is right in the center of the county is highly dangerous although since very few highways pass through this region, very few percentage of the population is prone to it. 

Bibliography:
Greninger, Mark. "All Station Fire Perimeters." Los Angeles County Enterprise GIS. Los Angeles County Enterprise GIS. Web. 09 Dec. 2011. <http://egis3.lacounty.gov/eGIS/index.php/2009/09/02/all-station-fire-perimiters-as-of-september-2-0702-complete-ste/>.



"LA County." UCLA Mapshare. UCLA. Web. 9 Dec. 2011. <http://gis.ats.ucla.edu//Mapshare/Default.cfm>.

"LA County Highways" UCLA Mapshare. UCLA. Web. 9 Dec. 2011. <http://gis.ats.ucla.edu//Mapshare/Default.cfm>.

"The National Map Seamless Server Viewer." Seamless Data Warehouse. Web. 09 Dec. 2011. <http://seamless.usgs.gov/website/seamless/viewer.htm>.

Assignment 8

ArcGis makes it easier to make maps and customize them. Here there are three maps made using ArcGis that show percentage of different poplulation in differnet parts of United States of America.

The above map shows the percentage population of African-Americans in different parts of United States of America. AS we can see from the map the Black population is densely concentrated in the south-east region of the country where the color is very dark. On the other hand, the population of Blacks is almost nil in the mid-west part of the country. Also we see that on the west coast there is thin population of African-American which almost dies down as we go north.

The above map describes the percentage of Asian Population in different parts of the country. As the legend describes, the dark color represents a strong population while lighter colour represents weaker population. The map clearly represents the south west region of America with a dense Asian population while the rest of the country has only a small percentage of the population.

This map describes the population of races other than White, Black or Asian. It could be Hispanice, Native American or other minorities. Blue color denotes a strong population of other races while green denotes weak population. As we can see from the map in parts of south-west America and south America the there is a dense population of other races while in the rest of the country they are scattered

Lab 6 Assignment

The region I chose is from east California. As we can see from the map posted the elevation of the region varies significantly with distance. There are four maps posted. The first map that is posted is the 'Hillshade' map that tells us about the terrain of the area we have chosen. The second map is the 'Aspect' map that gives us information about the direction at which the specific area of the DEM face. The third map is the 'Slope' map that describes the slope at different map part of the region and finally the last map gives us 3D illusion of the entire region.

Here are the maps

Map Projections

The distance between Kabul and Washington DC in this map is 13158 km.

The distance between Kabul and Washington DC in this map is 24129 km.

The distance between Kabul and Washington DC in this map is 13336 km.

The distance between Kabul and Washington DC in this map is 12725 km.

The distance between Kabul and Washington DC in this map is 11121 km.

The distance between Kabul and Washington DC in this map is 16252 km.

Significance of Map Projections

There are different map projections to represent the Earth. Earth is a three dimensional object that needs to be represented on a two dimensional surface. Therefore we have different map projections that stress on different characteristics of the Earth.

The conformal map projection preserves angles locally. The Mercator and World Stereographic are the two conformal map projection posted. In both the maps the angles have been preserved that is the angles projected on the sphere are the same as on the map. However the conformal maps distort the area and that is the reason the poles appear larger than the area near the equator. We can see in both the maps that Canada is almost the same size as Africa which is not true. These maps are helpful to represent small areas. And we can see from the measurements of distances from Kabul and Washington DC that the distances are more than the actual distances.

The next map projection is the equidistant map projection. As the name suggests, equidistant map projections preserve distance from standard point or line. In the project submitted, Azimuthal Equidistant and Two Point Equidistant are two types of equidistant map projections. These map projections. This map will show the correct distance from the standard point to any point in the world. Like in Azimuthal Equidistant one particular city is chosen as the standard city all the distances measured from that city are preserved.

The last map projection is the equal area map projection. Again as the name suggests this map preserves equal area. In the maps submitted, the Mollweide and sinusoidal are the two equal map projections. We can see from the distances measured from Kabul and Washington DC that the distances are close to the actual values. This type of representation is usually used to male world maps since they preserve the area of all the countries.

GIS is a software that helps us us to work with maps and geographic system and edit them at our convenience. It is an amazing software, that can also help amateurs work with maps. As I was working with ArcGis, I experienced its potentials and pitfalls.

Among the potentials, I would say GIS, helps the editing of the maps very easy and comfortable. the fact that you can make the maps the way you want is highly advantageous. The feature allows us to build our own maps, like building your own roads, highlighting the cities and the characteristics you want and work with them. Also, GIS eliminates most of the calculation required to make the maps. For instance, the calculations required for the scale of the map and calculating the distance between two points are all the done by GIS, thus reducing the work. Along with all the properties, GIS is very user-friendly and makes the work very easy.

Among the pitfalls, I did not experience many. Some drawbacks I saw were that, it sometimes became complicated to use some simple tools like resizing the map and these complexities can distort the maps. Along with it, I believe that GIS accuracies depend on the source data which sometimes could be unreliable.

No matter, how many pitfalls, GIS might have, it is a great system that helps to manipulate maps according to the users will and helps the user understand the science of maps much better. 

My mashup

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=207108120669446174779.0004aef9690fda09683f0&msa=0&ll=28.531844,77.246203&spn=0.010689,0.021136

This link takes you to my map mashup that gives you a small tour of the area I grew up in. 

Lab 2 Assignment

1) Beverly Hills Quadrangle

2) The adjacent quadrangles are Canoga Plark, Van Nuys, Burbank, Topanga, Hollywood, Inglewood, Venice and 'Pacific Ocean'

3) The first quadrangle was created in 1966.

4) Datum is mathematical model of Earth. National Geodetic Vertical Datum of 1929 was used to create the map.

5) The scale of map is 1:24000

6)a) The scale is 1/24000
    1/24000 = 5/x cm
    x=1200m
   
   b) 1/24000=5/x in
        x = 1.893 miles

   c) 1/24000 =  x/1
       x= 2.64 in

   d) 1/24000=x/3
        x=12.5 cm


7) Contour interval of map is 20 feet.

8) The approximate coordinates are
a)
b) 34 degrees 28 seconds N and 118 degrees 28 minutes 58 seconds
c) 34 degrees 6 minutes 11 seconds North and 118 degrees 24 minutes 43 seconds
   
9) The approximate elevation of the following are
a)  570 feet
b)  140 feet
c)  680 feet

10)The UTM zone of the map is zone 11

11) The UTM coordinates of lower left corner of the map are 3763000m northing and 362000 easting.

12) 1000000 square meters are contained within each cell of the UTM gridlines.


13)

14) The magnetic declination of the map is 14 degrees.

15) Water flows to the south to Stone Canyon Reservoir.

16)

The above map was taken from DMRC.com. It shows the map of metro in Delhi. The interesting thing I find about the map is that it shows how the Delhi metro has spread out itself all over Delhi reducing the number of people travelling by bus and thus reducing the traffic on the road. Also, the way the map has different colors for different routes and marks all the stations with bug dots which makes it easier to read and understand it.

 

This map was taken from the website - Smoke Free Partnership. It deals with smoking related deaths in the different parts of the world. If we look closely, we see that in the this problem is highly prominent in the first world countries where the percentage of smoking related deaths is more that 15%. The poor countries where the number is far lower and this can be attributed to the fact that poor countries have adopted this habit fairly recently. I believe smoking is a habit that is usually picked in a young age and over time it becomes difficult to quit it. Personally, I feel the only way to discourage cigarettes in the society is to tax them high. This will at least discourage children of middle-class from buying them and thus the percentage of smokers will automatically come down.

The above map was selected from the website - https://www.amherst.edu/taxonomy/term/1706. The map is shows the various degrees of light pollution at night. It is interesting to note that the problem is prominent in the countries that come in the developed or the developing categories including United States of America, majority of western Europe, densely populated parts of India and China. This phenomenon is also known as over-illumination and is responsible for unnecessary energy consumption, interference with astronomical observatories and like any other pollution disrupts the ecosystem in several ways.