LA County Wild Fire Study

 

In 9th week's GIS lab, we are focusing on studying LA County's wild fire by applying all the knowledges that we learned from GEO 7 class. I have choose to study wild fire's effects on both natrual ecosystem and populated urban areas. In the first picture is the overall spread of wild fire throught out august and september in 2009. The fire appear to be spreading northward towards the mountain peaks. The fire first started in a very small and contained area; however, within a 12 hour shift, the fire has spread rapidly cross the wild land. The fire is very close to the Glendale area which is a populated city in LA county. In August 30th, the most notable spread of fire has occured. The fire has expanded quickly but did not brought devastating damages to populated places, since it remains in a vast wild land between Palmdale, La Canada Flintridge, and Agua Dulce. The Area lacks development because of high slope and complicated landscapes.
 
   The theme of my map is the station wild fire's effects on both significant ecological area and urban populated area in LA county. The Significant Ecological Area (SEA) Program is a component of the Los Angeles County General Plan Conservaition/Open Space Element. SEAs are ecologically important land and water systems that support valuable habitat for plants and animals, often integral to the preservation of rare, threatened or endangered species and the conservation of biological diversity in the County. While SEAs are not preserves, they are areas where the County deems it important to facilitate a balance between development and resource conservation. Wild fire occure in the plains normally in California. Invasive, non-native vegetation dies and re-sprouts year after year creating an unnatural buildup of dead plant material. While periodic fires are natural, and many native plants depend upon fire to reproduce, the intensity and frequency of these fires is altered by the presence of non-natives. As the map has shown the proposed SEA in 2011, 2 years after the station fire. Although the wild fire has barely burned on the side of SEA area, the fire has actually never developed in SEA.

   Although SEA has not been affected by the station fire,  however, wild fire has potentially effected the way we propose SEAs. As SEA requires biological diversity and valuable habitat for plants and animals, the area which station fire has occur certainly does not contains these traits. The areas are constantly under the threat of wild fire, and landscape is constantly changing with burns. these areas would not provide any valuable habitats or biological diversities. All of the SEAs are chosen around the area where wild fire occurs or somewhere no near the wild fire, such as coastal areas.

   Also the station fire has brought some impact onto the urban populated area. As shown in the third picture, showing the populated area in LA county. Although the wild fire has not enter populated area, more than 100 structures are burned and 2 firefighter has died in the incident. The wild fire has not entered the urban area, because first the station fire is actually a forest fire, which is burned towards the denser forest which is northward towards the peaks of San Gabirel Mountains. Secondly, the winds are blowing towards the mountain area. Also lastly LA county has thousands of fire fighters trying to contain the fire from burning into Glendale and Pasadena area. Luckly the fire has not enter the populated area as shown in the map.

  To conclude my report, the wild fire has threatened LA county for many years. These wild fires are part of natrual process which is vital to our natrual ecosystem. We cannot stop the wild fire from burnning through the wild lands; however, we can use GIS equipments and remote sensing tools to studying the wild fires, and try to find ways to prevent it from spreading out into other places, such as populated towns or SEAs. GIS equipments and remote sensing tools can also help people to stay away from wild fire threatened areas in the furture.


References

Wildfires in Southern California." Boston.com. The Boston Globe, 02 Sept. 2009. Web. 14 June 2012. http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/09/wildfires_in_southern_californ.html.

Franchino, Nick. "Significant Ecological Areas (SEA) – Proposed." Significant Ecological Areas (SEA) – Proposed. Los Angeles County GIS Data Portal, 12 Dec. 2011. Web. 15 June 2012. http://egis3.lacounty.gov/dataportal/index.php/2011/12/12/significant-ecological-areas-sea-proposed/.

Los Angeles County Department of Regional Planning." SEA Program. Department of Regional Planning, n.d. Web. 15 June 2012. http://planning.lacounty.gov/sea.

"CAL FIRE - Incidents." CAL FIRE - Incidents. California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, n.d. Web. 15 June 2012. http://cdfdata.fire.ca.gov/incidents/incidents_current.

Calasanz, Francis. "Los Angeles County Boundary." Los Angeles County Boundary. Los Angeles County GIS Data Portal, 27 Jan. 2011. Web. 15 June 2012. http://egis3.lacounty.gov/dataportal/index.php/2011/01/27/los-angeles-county-boundary/.

Percentage Distribution of Races in Continental U.S.

week 8 lab's main purpose is to use GIS program to relate and join with statistical charts and tables to create these distribution maps with given data. First group of pictures are percentage of distribution of Asians, Blacks and Some Other Race. 

First picture is the percentage distribution of Asians. From this map, we can clearly see that Asians are mainly cluster at the west coast, especially concentrated at California. Also there are some Asians clustered at north east United States, somewhere around New York. 

Second picture is the percentage distribution of African Americans. From this map, we can see that African Americans are mainly living at South East of United States. This trend is come from the history of United States, when United States used to allow slavery, and American people at South bought many Slaves from Africa to do labors. Many African American choose to stay at South even after civil war.

Third picture is the percentage distribution of some other races. These races are including Hispanic and middle eastern people. As we can see, many Hispanic people are clustering at south west area of America. This area used to be part of Mexico, until American has won the Mexico-U.S. war and bought the land from Mexico.

The second group of the pictures are census 2000 tutorial, which consists four major maps. From Number of people in 2000, we can see that most people are staying along the coast of U.S. and second picture the population growth shows that population in California, Nevada, Florida and New York is growing rapidly, while middle part of U.S. are leaving for the past decade. The third picture show the percent change in total population, to show that Nevada has the most dramatic population growth, follow by Florida and California. With population density at fourth picture, it shows that New York, California, and part of Florida are the most crowded place in U.S.

By using the GIS system to the distribution map, I found out that it is very easy to combine the table data with landscape map and create these informative distribution maps, when you learned how to properly combine the data and apply them. However, the data chart itself has a very restricted formation, and you have to have the correct formation in order to let the data to relate and combine. Overall, I had a very easy time to create these maps and this skill is very useful in the future.

Tryout GISArc10 different analytic functions

   The first Picture has the original DEM projection, with the following data:

extend information:

Top:41.4905555551

Left:-122.677500001

Right:-121.661111112

Bottom:40.9288888884

geographic coordinate system:GCS_North_American_1983

Datum:D_North_American_1983

Angular Unit: Degree (0.017453292519943295)

  This sector is chose at northern part of California, in the mountain valley. I choose this particular sector, because it has many mountains with steep slopes, which is helpful and informative when I am trying to analyze and learn from making GIS hill shades, slope, aspect and 3-D projections. 

Map Projections

This week in lab 5 we have done the Map projection with 3 different type of map projections, including confrontal, Equal Distant, and Equal Area. With each different map projection, we also measured the distance between Washington D.C. and Kabul. With this exercise, we will see each map projections' advantages and disadvantages. The top map is the original map that was given. follow by the second row which are two confrontal projections. Third row are two Equal Area projections, and the fourth row are two Equal distant projection.

The Confrontal projections are very pleasing to read, as every major continents are appeared to be on the map. when perpendicular gradients, you can find any place with accurate latitude and longitude mark with confrontal map. However this map has distorted proportions of area and distance. South pole becomes extremely big comparing to its actual size, and Africa became extremely small comparing to the actual size. This is a major draw back of confrontal projection. If someone want to study the general geographic shapes and actual areas of continents, the confrontal map can be very misleading, such as Africa is very large continent, but in Mercator projection, Africa is very small.

The Equal Area map projection is my most favored map projection type. because this map has every continent in its real shape and area. It is most applicable to people who wants to study the real geographic size of the Earth. However the disadvantage are that the continents appear to be narrower and end up disappear towards the top and the bottom of the map. Also some maps are not a cylindrical projection, but rather elliptical. Some places such as Australia will also become distorted in shape. The shape distortion towards the pole is inevitable in this kinds of map projection.

The Equal Distant map has accurate distance measure between two points and this map is greatly used in measure of missile lunches and traveling flight. This kind of maps are not for daily uses for ordinary people. most of these maps are appear to be spherical shape and all of the continents are concentrated on one side of the earth, and oceans on the other side of the sphere projection. the location and area of continents are distorted in this case. Sometime Equal Distant map can be hard to read when the true north is not available too. In general, there is no perfect map projection, but different map projections have different uses with their own advantages and disadvantages. 

GIS Application Tryout

    I have spend 5 hours to create the how poster with the help of the tutorial. Unfortunately my ArcGIS10 has crushed during the time span of creating a picture file out. Therefore, my file became corrupted and forced me to do this project again, which took me about another 4 hours. The ArcGIS10 is a great program with lots of functionality to create the maps that are needed. However there are some draw backs with its complexity and huge memory spaces it takes to run some of the calculations and creations. 

   There are lots of advantages of using GIS program to create maps. First, there are many functionality within the program to help you create maps. just as loading some of the given layers of the county map. Using the existing data to help you make your own map with your own purpose. Second, there are many features that will make your map look more complete, such as the legends, scare bar and the North Stars. You can change to different symbols to represent schools, and change colors to population density coverage. GIS program has very strong editing capability. It is able to help you create new streets and name these streets on your already existed map. Lastly, it has features like Excel to help you create charts and do statistics for you with its calculator and graph functions.

   With all the great functions and features GIS has to offer, it has some downsides to its nature. GIS program is very complex comparing to Neogeography programs such as Google Map. I am a beginner with GIS program, and I would not able to finish this project without using the tutorial guide. The user interface is friendly, but with some professional terms and many buttons, the program is still very confusing when I start using it. Various functions come with complex multiple steps to achieve it, such as create a population density coverage. This program is very limited to professionals who are seeking for creating formal maps and scientific data. Beginners are not able to pick up this program very easily, and this program is certainly not for everyone who wants to create a personal map on his own leisure time.

    Although GIS program is very limited to certain group of people and requires professional education and high skills to run it as its full potential, it has some great functions and features to help professional geographers to create very good maps. I have only begin to use this program, therefore there are many more functions that I have not known yet. I think GIS program has great depth and potential to help professional geographers to complete any mapping tasks that are given to them

Digital Mapping of Reyner Banham's Documentary "Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles"

View Beyner Banham loves Los Angeles in a larger map

    Neogeography is the modern mapping tool which is very user friendly to beginners who try to make some maps for themself. This tool has great potentials in modern world to extend its functions and services to help geographers or anyone who is interested in making maps. There are some great advantages and potentials in one of the Neogeography application, Google Maps. First, the user interface for the application is simple and straight forward. The user friendly interface welcomes anyone who is trying to use it. Various funationalities are also one of Google Maps's advantage. Although the interface is simple, Google Maps got all the tools which u need to make your map complete and interesting to read. The basic points, lines and polygon shapes are there to help u to make your map clear and easy to understand. different symbols for the points make the map iteresting to read and easy to understand. Google map also allow users to edit or add text, pictures or videos to describe the points or the polygons that are on the map. Finally, you can share your own map, which can be made for any purpose, online and show it to public.
    However, there are some disavantages and pitfalls of using Google Maps to create maps. This map making is totally depending on the basic terrain map which is provided by Google. You will not able to edit ur legend, adding new streets or places which are not yet updated by Google. The basic terrain map ignores elevation making and UTM projections. This overly simplified map is not suitable for more formal map makings. Overall, I think the Google Maps got more potentials and upsides than the disavantages that it have. This tool is great for beginners or amatures to start learning how to make maps. The social tools, that Google Maps have, allow people to share their own map, and will promote enthusiasm in map making in our society. Mapping making is no longer only for the professional geographers.

The Beverley Hills Map Study

1)      What is the name of the quadrangle?

It is the Beverly Hills quadrangle.

2)      What are the names of the adjacent quadrangles?

There are Canoga Park, Van Nuys, Burbank, Topanga, Hollywood, Venice, and Inglewood.

3)      When the quadrangle was first created?

This quadrangle is first created in 1966.

4)      What datum is used to create your map?

There are North America Datum of 1927, North America Datum of 1983, and National Geodetic Vertical Datum of 1929.

5)      What is the Scale of the map?

The unit less scale is 1:24000, which in units of cm, 1(cm):24000(cm), 1cm on the map is 240 meters on earth. And 1(inch):24000(inches), 1 inch on the map is 2000 feet on earth, also is 0.38 miles on the ground.

6)      A. 5 cm on the map is 1200 meters on the ground.

                B. 5 inches on the map is 1.89 miles on the ground.
         

                C. one mile on the ground is 2.64 inches on the map.   

                D. three kilometers (3000meters=300000cm) is 12.5 cm on the map.

7)      What is the contour interval on your map?

          The contour interval is 20 on the map.

8)      A. 118 degree 26 minutes 15 seconds, 118.4375 degree east longitude,  34 degree 4 minutes 50 seconds, 34.0806 degree latitude. 

                B. 118 degree 30 minutes 5 seconds, 118.5013 degree east longitude, 34 degree 0 minutes 30 seconds, 34.0083 degree north latitude .

                C. 118 degree 24 minutes 0 seconds, 118.4000 degree east longitude, 34 degree 7 minutes 00 seconds, 34.1167 degree north latitude.

9)      What is the approximation  elevation in both feet and meters of:

A.      About 560 feet, 170.688 meters

B.      About 160 feet,  50 meters

C.      About 600 feet,  183 meters

10)   What is the UTM zone of the map 

                It is zone 11

11)     What is the UTM coordinates for the lower left corner

                      3763 North, 3762East

1   12) How Many square meters are contained within each square of UTM gridline.

About 1000000 meters square

1  13)    Obtain Elevation measurements, from west to east

Elevation for every 500 meters (feet)	UTM east coordinates
500	362000
600	363000
600	364000
500	365000
480	Beginning of UCLA East Campus
480	366000
460	367000
440	End of UCLA at east campus
420	368000
350	369000
300	370000
250	371000
190	372000

    14)  The declination is 14 degree east.

    15)The water flows from North to South
1  16)