Mapping Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill- From the water up

by BRITTA RICKER PETERS on June 4, 2010 • google earth imagery map visualization • COMMENT

Here are some links to mapping initiatives taking place to monitor the disastrous Gulf Oil Spill.

This mashup by Paul Rademacher portrays the size of the spill in relation to major cities.  The map aims to give the reader a sense of the scale of this disaster (you will need the Google Earth browser plug-in).

Grassroots Mapping is covering the mapping of the oil spill. MIT students are using balloons and kites to map the disaster.

BP response maps – Static .pdf files

New York Times has a series of animated maps showing oil dispersion, where oil has made landfall, and links to multimedia coverage of the oil spill.

Also, almost every government agency is addressing the oil spill on their websites.

USGS is using satellite imagery. They also have a series of maps (static made with traditional GIS) showing the coastal washup of oil.

USGS data repository – Hazards Data Distribution System (HDDS). You could use this to make your own mashup!

NASA has the latest images of the oil spill here. They have also stitched together this movie. From a Geovisualization standpoint, this is a very simple animation of only satellite imagery but portrays a very powerful message.

EPA uses Google Earth!

This is by no means an exhaustive list of mapping the oil spill but a start.

Kumiko and I both did work mapping for FEMA in Louisiana post Hurricane Katrina and Rita back in 2005-2006. I spent about two months in the region and I would return in a heartbeat. The Gulf Coast is absolutely an amazing place full of people who are warm and fun loving hard workers.

The wildlife and ecosystem are extremely unique. If you ever get the chance, you have to check this place out! Holy cow! Actually I see that Alligator Bayou is closed and for sale!!! If you love wetlands and have some cash, buy it and preserve this wonderful place!

Quick AAG review

by BRITTA RICKER PETERS on April 28, 2010 • game geoweb google earth review web2.0 • 1 COMMENT

I was fortunate enough to attend and present at the AAG conference (and meet Kumiko’s new iPad) in Washington DC earlier this month. The AAG is always a great time to be introduced to new ideas, reconnect with old friends and put faces with names. The problem with the AAG is that it is sooooooo BIG! I never feel like I have been to enough talks. I am only going to blog about a few here.

In no particular order, I will first report on the session titled: Geovisualization, Geovisual Analytics, Cognition, Behavior and Representation I: Navigation and Spatial Cognition organized by Kirk Goldsberry and Sara Fabrikant (note: I got here late, it started at 8am). I was really interested in Sandra Metoyer’s talk. In short, she did a study testing interactions among geovisualization tools to measure spatial thinking and student learning. She found that interactive web based maps really helped students learn about complex spatial issues. Horray!

Another session that I found very stimulating was: Global Dialogues for Emerging Science & Technology Africa: Results of two years of collaboration between US Department of State, AAG, and EIS-AFRICA

This panel was chaired by Lee R. Schwartz – who holds the title THE GEOGRAPHER OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA! What a title! He is the head geographer for the U.S. Department of State. I was interested in attending this talk because it seems that Mr. Schwatz has his finger on the pulse of Neogeography and Web 2.0 and is trying to think of new ways that these tools can be used to help in the developing world. At the AAG last year I was fortunate enough to talk to him about his interests in incorporating new geospatial tools and software for a more inclusive process with state department work. Therefore when I saw this panel I was very excited to see what Mr. Schwartz has been doing! It seems like he is teaming with key players and they were all there to present their initiatives.

Panelists included:

Nathan Heard – U.S. Department of State
Charles Sebukeera – United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP)
Rebecca Moore – Google Earth Outreach (my personal hero! Read more about her and Google Earth Outreach to see why)
Carrie Stokes – USAID
Carmelle J. Terborgh – Federal/Global Affairs Team Lead, ESRI
Discussant(s):
Robert Swap – University of Virginia

I understand that panelists had a very limited time to present, but it seemed each shared a laundry list of projects that they were working on without actually explaining any of them in detail. They made it clear that they were “training the trainers” and not simply putting expats in Africa to do the job. Each speaker announced the need for a working organized Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) but they did not address how they were developing one and if Africans were involved in this the process. I did ask at the end and I was told they were going to discuss that in the next panel and made reference to the UN. This to me sounds like a top down approach to SDI development and participatory GIS. No one used the term public participatory GIS. There were very few academics in the room (I know this because they passed around a sign in sheet). Despite these minor let downs it was still great to see ESRI, Google Earth and the government working together to use their expertise and valuable tools to help Africa with issues such as public health, sustainable development, water resources management and a host of other vital challenges facing the African content.

Finally, my session was titled: Participatory Governance via Web 2.0 II and was organized by Dr. Renee Sieber of McGill University. There were several exciting panelist sharing their work harnessing the Geoweb for community engagement. All of the presenters were associated with the Participatory Geoweb research group funded by GEOIDE and the Canadian Government. My talk was titled: The potential for location-based services and serious gaming to enhance participatory governance and education. See my slides here.

Google Earth iPhone app

by KUMIKO YAMAZAKI on October 31, 2008 • google earth iphone review • 2 COMMENTS

Several days late but I finally got around to downloading the Google Earth iPhone app.

First thing to note is that it takes about 5 seconds to fully launch. However, once I got to panning and zooming, the images rendered rather quickly and was responsive to all my touching and pinching and tilting. (This was on my home wi-fi.. trying to use Google Earth on the Edge network will more than likely be painfully slow. Don’t bother.)

The app as we all know is free, and comes with both the Wikipedia and Panoramio layers in addition to the standard borders and labels. Currently there’s no way to overlay any other additional features but surely it’s only a matter of time.

Here’s an amateur video of me trying to use the Google Earth app very early on. You’d think I’m an iPhone noob after seeing me struggle to click on a Wikipedia article. My excuse: the iPhone accelerometer is too sensitive!

Google Earth iPhone app from kumiko on Vimeo.