Lab 8

 

On August 26, 2009, the Angeles National Forest received a call for initial attack reponse to a fire that had ignited on the forest near the Angeles Crest Fire Station.

The Station Fire started off Angeles Crest Highway (SR2) approximately one mile above Angeles Crest Fire Station around 3:30pm. The Station Fire, named because of its proximity to a nearby USFS Ranger Station has burned over 160,000 arcs of land within the Angeles National Forest and near surrounding foothill communities of La Canada Flintridge, La Crescenta, Acton, Soledad Canyon, Pasadena, Glendale, and Sierra Madre.

The first map above is the reference map of the 2009 Station Fire, which shows the attacked area from August 29 to September 2. On the reference map, the elevation of the attacked area is also presented. Although we can see that the fire mainly occurred on a higher elevation area, and the onset of winter conditions at higher elevation could assist firefighters in achieving full control of the Station Fire, the higher elevations of the San Gabriel Mountains where dense stands of timber retained heat despite suppression efforts. Moreover, the naturally steep and extremely rugged terrain had also caused difficulties to the firefighters to gain control of the Station Fire.

The second map above is a thematic map which shows the boundaries of school districts relatively to the locations of the Station Fire. We can see that the most affected school districts were Acton-Agua Dulce Unified School, La Canada Unified School, and Los Angeles Unified School Districts.  On September 2, the Los Angeles County Office of Education announced that all schools in Acton-Agua Dulce Unified School Districts, Los Angeles Unified School District, and Pasadena Unified School District would not in session until later days. La Canada Unified School District schools resumed normal schedule on September 2, and Glendale Unified School District schools were opened on September 2 and resumed to a normal school schedule beginning the morning of September 3.

However, it seems unreasonable that why the schools in La Canada Unified School District were in session when other school districts that seemed less affected were not. The reason might be that the Station Fire grew in northward direction for the most part, and perhaps most of the schools in the La Canada Unified School District are in the south part of the school district. Moreover, whether the schools would be open or close not only decided on their distances away from the fire, but also the air quality of the area. Even though the La Canada Unified School District is within the Station Fire affected area, the air quality may not be at the significantly health concerned level. Therefore, the district officials decided to remain the schools open started September 2.

As of September 3, 2009, approximately 10,000 residences were threatened, two Los Angeles County firefighters were killed; over 4,735 personnel were working the fire. 64 residences and recreational cabins have been confirmed as destroyed long with 3 commercial and 27 others. The Station Fire was the result of arson after investigators examined forensic evidence form scorched landscape off Angeles Crest Highway. But fortunately, most of the school had no major loss, and all of them returned to normal school schedule after few days of the Station Fire had been taking full control.

Bibliography

Fire and Aviation Management Station Fire Initial Attack Review: Report of the Review Panel. Rep. N.p.: United States Department of Agriculture, 2009. Print.

Pringle, Paul. “L.A. County Fire Doubles in Size; More Homes Destroyed; Mt. Wilson Threatened.”LA Times. LA Times, 31 Aug. 2009. Web. 14 June 2012. <http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/08/la-county-fire-doubles-in-size-more-homes-list-mt-wilson-threatened.html>.

"Station Fire." InciWeb: Incident Information System. N.p., 20 Nov. 2009. Web. 13 Dec. 2012. <http://www.inciweb.org/incident/1856/>.

"Station Fire." Station Fire. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Dec. 2012. <http://interwork.sdsu.edu/fire/resources/StationFire.htm>.

“Station Fire Update.” LASD Blog. County of Los Angeles, 3 Sep. 2009. Web. 14 June

2012. <http://www.lasdblog.org/Pressrelease/PR_Folder/SFUpdateTH-01.pdf>.

Lab 6

I obtained the data of this location from the UCLA Geography 7 class website, under Week 7 with the file name "dem." The extent information of this location is:

Top: 38.8291666661

Left: -105.788888889

Right: -104.969444445

Bottom: 39.3838888883

Shaded Relief Model

Slope Map

 

Aspect Map

3D Image

Lab 5

Conformal Projection

Mercator

Distance between Washington, D.C. and Kabul, Afghanistan –

Geodesic: 6930.974697 Miles

Loxodrome: 8097.020337 Miles

Great Elliptic: 6905.413763 Miles

Stereographic

Distance between Washington, D.C. and Kabul, Afghanistan –

Geodesic: 6965.062964 Miles

Loxodrome: 8082.927656 Miles

Great Elliptic: 6918.667463 Miles

Equal Area Projection

Bonne

Distance between Washington, D.C. and Kabul, Afghanistan –

Geodesic: 6,952.617257 Miles

Loxodrome: 8103.369102 Miles

Great Elliptic: 6934.483772 Miles

Behrmann

Distance between Washington, D.C. and Kabul, Afghanistan –

Geodesic: 6849.348747 Miles

Loxodrome: 8166.374623 Miles

Great Elliptic: 6909.309873 Miles

Equidistant Projection

Equidistant Conic

Distance between Washington, D.C. and Kabul, Afghanistan –

Geodesic: 6905.408254 Miles

Loxodrome: 8166.374623 Miles

Great Elliptic: 6849.353962 Miles

Azimuthal 

 

Distance between Washington, D.C. and Kabul, Afghanistan –

Geodesic: 6934.478105 Miles

Loxodrome: 8068.550472 Miles

Great Elliptic: 6930.680444 Miles

Map projections are mathematical transformation which transform the earth’s three-dimensional surface to create a flat map sheet. There are different kinds of map projections, and different projections cause different types of distortions. In conformal projections, local shapes are preserved by drawing the perpendicular graticule lines. However, the drawback of conformal projection is that the shapes are greatly distorted for larger areas. For example, in the Mercator Projection, Antarctica looks almost three times of the size of North America. And in the Stereographic Projection, North America looks a lot larger than South America.

To distinguish equal area projection and conformal projection are difficult unless documented or measured. In equal area projections, the area of displayed features are preserved. However, other properties, such as shape, angle, and scale might be distorted. For instance, in the Bonne Projection, Australia looks almost the same size of North America. And in the Behrmann Projection, the top of North America looks very squished and Greenland only contains a very small area. While in equidistant projections, the distance between certain points are preserved, but scale is not maintained correctly throughout the entire map. For example, both the Equidistant Conic Projection and the Azimuthal Projection portray Australia much larger, in the Azimuthal Projection, Australia is even larger than Africa.

Map projections are significant for us to understand the shape, area, and distance of the world we are living in, and different map projections allow people to use them in different purposes. For instance, in this lab, equidistant map projection would be useful for measuring more accurate distance between Washington, D.C. and Kabul, Afghanistan. But the perils of map projections would be that when people are not aware of the distortions of the map projections, they might be confused by the inaccurate information, such as that Australia is larger than Africa!

Although there are many drawbacks of map projections, in general, map projections are still very useful in human’s lives. And since map projections are transformations of three-dimension to two-dimension, it becomes easier for people to measure distance between two points, calculate area, and understand the shape of the lands. Without map projections, it would be inconvenient to do all these things, just imagine that a geographer holding a spherical earth trying to measure the distance between Washington, D.C. and Kabul, Afghanistan! However, the technology of making the map projections can be improved and perhaps someday there can be a map projection that contains least distortions.

Lab 4

In this lab, we learn to use some basic ArcMap™ skills by following the instructions on the ArcMap Tutorial. This tutorial guides us to create a set of maps for a county that is planning to expand its airport, and there are five exercises which each contains different skills of ArcMap. In each exercise, we learn to explore the existing data and working with these information into geographic features or tables. To finish all the exercises, it takes about five to six hours.

While following the instructions on the tutorial, I face some difficulties in Exercise 3 with the population density table. I have tried it several times using the Field Calculator to calculate the population values for each tract in people per square mile. However, I could not get the right values and the information does not even show in the table.  So I start over again from the “Adding data from ArcCatalog,” and later I find out that the reason I cannot get the right value is that I did not close the tract_pop table and TRACT_ID table before proceeding with the join, and the information on the table becomes incorrect from that point. Also, because the tutorial is written for ArcMap version 9.3, and we are using the latest 10.1 version in the computer lab, some of the features are different than explained in the tutorial. Especially the steps with the Editor Toolbar, I am not too sure whether simply skip these steps will affect the outcome of the map or not. But the rest of the tutorial is clear and relatively easy to follow.

As learning to use the AarMap, I find that this is a very useful software of GIS because it can combine many information and data onto one map, and make it easy to read and understand for the readers. In this specific tutorial, by using the ArcMap, we can easily identify whether there is any school that is within the noise contour, or categorize different land use based on different styles portray on the map, and even show population density on a single map. Also, we can use the ArcMap to create graph that shows the number of parcels of each land type. Base on different propose, we can use the ArcMap to reveal these information in different ways to make it easier for the readers to understand.

Although the ArcMap is relatively easy to use and operate and it has great potential to GIS, it sill has some pitfall to GIS. I believe there is much to improve for the software itself. Such as that while I was doing Exercise 3, I did not close both the tract_pop table and TRACT_ID table, so I did not get the right result. However, on the layout it did not show any other window that is left unclosed, and it became hard for me to find which step I did wrong. This is probably an error, and there might be more errors that can lead to significant wrong outcomes. Moreover, after I store my data and map into my flash drive, I cannot successfully reopen it on different computers. The software cannot find the files and data itself; instead, I have to manually search the data.

Lab 3

Google Maps - New York City Trip Planner

Neogeography is usually applied to “the usage of geographical techniques and tools used for personal and community activities or for utilization by a non-expert group of users.” In this lab, we learn to use a pre-existing mapping toolkit, Google Maps, to create maps of our own. The map I create is a map that provides information about New York City and some places that might be interesting for tourists of New York City. By using the Google Maps toolkit, it is easy to indicate places and landmarks on the map. Also, the text edit box of the Google Maps is very helpful for putting in information of the places and landmarks, such as pictures, URL of the official websites, videos, and addresses. As more and more people create their own maps and shows information on their maps, the Google Map users are able to absorb more knowledge of the area and its surroundings.

However, there are some pitfalls of using the Google Maps toolkits to create our own maps. For example, I can add a placemark at anywhere and indicate that it is the Statue of Liberty, but in fact it is not where the Statue of Liberty really located. The false information can lead other people who use my map as a reference to the wrong place. Moreover, the accuracy of the map should also be questioned. When I put down a placemark or draw lines that indicate the route, I am not sure that whether the placemark or route is accurate or it is actually off places, I sometimes can only indicate the approximate location and routes.

Lab 2

The 7.5 Minute Map

1.     What is the name of the quadrangle?

The name of the quadrangle is “Beverly Hills”.

2.     What are the names of the adjacent quadrangle?

The names of the adjacent quadrangle are “Canoga Park,” “Van Nuys,” “Burbank,” “Topanga,” “Hollywood,” “Venice,” and “Inglewood.”

3.     When was the quadrangle first created?

The quadrangle was first created in 1966.

4.     What datum was used to create your map?

The North American Datum was used to create this map.

5.     What is the scale of the map?

The scale of the map is 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?

5 centimeters on the map is equivalent to 99.97 meters on the ground.

b)    5 inches on the map is equivalent to how many miles on the ground?

5 inches on the map is equivalent to 1.89 miles on the ground.

c)     one mile on the ground is equivalent to how many inches on the map?

one mile on the ground is equivalent to 2.64 inches on the map.

d)    three kilometers on the ground is equivalent to how many centimeters on the map?

three kilometers on the ground is equivalent to 12.5 centimeters on the map.

7.     What is the contour interval on your map?

The contour interval is 20 feet on the map.

8.     What are the approximate geographic coordinates in both degrees/minutes/seconds/ and decimal degrees of:

a)     the Public Affairs Building;

34˚N26’30”

b)    the tip of Santa Monica pier;

118˚W04’30”

c)     the Upper Franklin Canyon Reservoir

34˚N07’30”

9.     What is the approximate elevation in both feet and meters of:

a)     Greystone Mansion (in Greystoe Park);

540 feet or 164.6 meters

b)    Woodlawn Cemetery;

140 feet or 42.7 meters

c)     Crestwood Hills Park;

600 feet or 182.9 meters

10.  What is the UTM zone of the map?

The UTM zone of the map is 11.

11.  What are the UTM coordinates for the lower left corner of your map?

37 62 000

12.  How many square meters are contained within each cell (square) of the UTM gridlines?

1,000,000 square meters are contained within each cell of the UTM gridlines.

13.  Skip

14.  What is the magnetic declination of the map?

The magnetic declination of the map is 14˚ east.

15.  In which direction does water flow in the intermittent stream between the 405 freeway and Stone Canyon Reservoir?

The water flow south in the intermittent stream between the 405 freeway and Stone Canyon Reservior.

16.  Crop out (i.e., cut and paste) UCLA from the map and include it as a graphic on your blog.