Station Fire

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The Los Angeles Station Fire, which began on August 26, 2009 and lasted until October 16, 2009 burned approximately 160,577 acres in the Angeles National Forest in the San Gabriel Mountains. This fire is the worst wildfire in the history of Los Angeles County and was labeled as an arson fire. The Station fire burned for over a month and caused many evacuations as well as threatened many buildings and structures in the surrounding communities and National Forest. This brief report summarizes the proximity of the Station fire from August 29, 2009 to September 2, 2009 to: populated areas, such as suburbs and cities, Los Angeles landmarks, such as the Hollywood sign, and parks located in Los Angeles County. These maps are provided to aid in the visualization of how the fire spread during those five days and in which direction they seemed to affect as well as areas that many people tend to visit or live.

Being a native to San Diego County, I have seen my fair share of terrible fires. In 2003, San Diego County was ravaged by the Cedar fire which was labeled California’s worst fire in history. This fire not only wrecked homes, it managed to kill 15 people and jump large freeways, such as the I-5. What made the Cedar fire so severe to people was the proximity it had to populated areas. In 2003 I was made to evacuate my home. It burned down toughly 2,200 homes and caused schools to shut down for a week. The Station fire on the other hand was widely out of most densely populated areas. As you can see , the Station fire resided mostly in the Angeles National Forest. The buildings most affected there were park buildings, and a handful of outlying homes.

Next you will notice that the areas designated landmarks were mainly out of harm’s way because of their correlation to populated areas. Many iconic areas in Los Angeles that were man built were able to avoid direct fire contact because the vicinity in which the fire took place was a National Forest. However, when it comes to parks in Los Angeles County you will notice that they were directly impacted, mainly the national forest in which the fire took place because so many acres were burned. When the Cedar fire burned, it went straight through inland San Diego County which is a very densely packed and highly populated area.

What this tends to mean for people is a loss of property due to any fire damage done to their homes or physical being. However, the forest itself will now have to undergo succession in order to claim back the flora burned. Tom Gillespie, Professor of Geography here at UCLA has discussed over and over again the perils that come with preventing natural fire from occurring in human populated areas. Gillespie has said that the reason California has such intense fires is due to our prevention of natural fires which cause fuel to build up on the ground in forested areas. According to Gillespie, once the fuel which is composed of leaves and detritus materials has accumulated year after year, it allows for any small flame to go from what naturally would be a ground fire to a very difficult to manage crown fire.

The Station Fire initial area of containment was a lot smaller than the September dates on the map. Over the course of only five days (remember the fire lasted over a month) the fire managed to spread northward, luckily away from mostly populated areas. However, on August 31 you will notice a shift in the fire which caused it to make a slight shift westward. As you look at the fire perimeter in relation to populated areas, think about what the fire’s long lasting effects have been such as air and water quality, as well as vegetation succession in the Angeles National Forest.

References:
"Quick Facts," U.S. Census Bureau, May 24, 2010.
http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/06/06037.html

GIS Data, Los Angeles County GIS, May 18, 2010.
http://gis.lacounty.gov
(site went down and I could not acquire the full URL)

Incident Information, California Webpage, May 24, 2010.
http://www.fire.ca.gov/cdf/incidents/Cedar%20Fire_120/incident_info.html

"Cedar Fire and Memorial," Lakeside Historical Society, May 24, 2010.
http://www.lakesidehistory.org/CedarFire/cedar_fire_memorial.htm

Los Angeles Times Blog, Los Angeles Times, May 24, 2010.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/08/la-county-fire-doubles-in-size-more-homes-list-mt-wilson-threatened.html

Lecture 14, May 12, 2010., Geography 111: Forest Ecosystems, Professor Tom Gillespie.

DEM

The lab this week had us creating our own digital elevation models based on a location in the United States. At first I was going to pick a place that had an extremely high elevation, probably somewhere in the Sierra Nevada Mountains since they reside in my home state of California. However I decided to pick a canyon, specifically the Grand Canyon in respect to the childhood experiences I have had there and throughout the southwest. The datum used for these models is the North American Geographic Coordinate System of 1983. The Grand Canyon is located in the north west corner of Arizona, (36°6′0″ N, 112°6′0″ W) and is a massive rift in the Colorado Plateau (NPS, 2007). The lab this week was extremely fun and interesting, especially in regard to the 3D model. Creating each model was simple and enjoyable, unlike some past lab experiences.

Map Projections

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The lab this week based on Geospatial Data Management has been by far, the most enjoyable lab this quarter. While at the beginning the lab was a little bit confusing, one I had the first map finished the next five were very manageable and quite fun. One of the highlights in my opinion in this lab was the ability I had to creatively arrange and organize my map presentation. While the creative side of me was very happy with this lab, it also was extremely informative. When compared to last week’s lab, which was not only extremely stressful but so dense that I barely recall anything, and would in fact have to resort back to the tutorial, this lab allowed me to take away the knowledge and tools needed to create these map projections.

The map projections that were created this week served as a very large eye opener to me. I suppose I have never really given any thought to how inaccurate map projections can be. From the lectures that discussed preservation of one thing over many things, I am visually able to understand what Sheng meant. The first set of projections, which are the conformal map projections, allow for the reader to see that while distance may not be preserved, the angles of the grid are all right angles. From my own personal experience, I feel as if the most common map projections I have seen throughout school are conformal, with a key element being that Antarctica is blown severely out of proportion.

The second set of projections I created were the equal area projections. Consisting of the Mollweide and Bonne projections, these maps give way to an awkward shape of the earth, but in means of keeping the area of places preserved. These two projections are ones that I haven’t seen before, and I only found out about via this lab. The third set of projections used were the Sinusoidal and Plate Carree models, which preserve the distance from one place to another.

In this week’s lab we had to locate Washington D.C. and Kabul, and using different map projections find the distance between the two cities. Things of this nature to not come easily to me to visualize, so when Professor Sheng discussed this in lecture the concept was very hard for me to grasp. However, this lab was excellent in demonstrating to me how different methods of preserving key elements of a map can severely change the distance measured from one point to the next. For this exercise, each type of projection had two models. In two of the projection groups, conformal and equal distance I had large discrepancies in distance between point A (Washington) and point B (Kabul). The first set of models, Mercator and Gall Stereographic gave me distances of roughly 10,000 miles and 7,000 miles. The second set of models, Sinusoidal and Plate Carree had distances of roughly 10,000 miles and 8,000 miles (for exact distance see maps). A few thousand miles, in my opinion is a wide margin of discrepancy for maps preserving the same element. The last two models, Mollweide and Bonne came in with the closest distances at roughly 7,900 miles to 6,700 miles. While this projection still has a 1,000 mile discrepancy, it was the closest of the three projections. I will add that I do not know if these large margins of distance between similar models is normal or error.

Proposed Airport Expansion

This week’s lab was, in my opinion, ridiculous. I understand that this class is an introductory course into GIS, but the frustration, stress and overall feeling that I took away from this lab was over all very negative. I understand that learning programs such as ArcGIS take time and literally just practice and repetition, but when the learning is condensed into short intervals and the software is located at a specific location, such as the computer labs, it creates enormous stress. However, overall the lab was an excellent learning experience. The first thing that I found positive when dealing with the lab was that all fifty eight pages of the PDF were very concise and simple instructions to follow. Not only was the tutorial very nurturing, it had ample pictures to make sure you were absolutely doing everything correct. I know some might scorn that as “babying,” my style of learning really needs clarification on things of this nature.

Now I know I said that the lab over all was a great learning experience, but the individual processes to finishing it were sheer hell. On the day of lab section and after getting through the first 5 pages of the PDF, it was pretty simple albeit extremely time consuming. Seeing as how I only had around two hours I was unable to finish. The next time I tackled it was on the weekend, with no TA and no fellow students in the lab. An hour into further working on it I ran into a snag. An error of my data’s source literally brought my lab to a halt. Unable to troubleshoot with anyone, I had to save my work and wait to discuss it with a TA. I even googled the error to see what fellow Arc users had to say, but was unable to fix it.

When it comes to ArcGIS, the advantages are clear. This program and skill is extremely valuable. In a competitive market, having a skill such as this is very important. However, for someone who does not have the luxury of taking an introductory GIS course, the software can be extremely overwhelming, but not impossible. ArcGIS is simply something that one has to take time to get accustomed with and learn the ins and the outs of it. I feel that if I had to deal with this software every day, then in a month or so I would be proficient to an extent.

In terms of this lab specifically, it seems that it was more hassle and stress for everyone than anything else. Having spent time in the computer labs both during lab time and just during random hours of the day, as well as having met with my TA and been in the lab when Erin was there helping, it seemed very crazy. I know that I was not the only one to have immense difficulties with everything, and from what I observed, Erin was having a rough time running from hand to hand trying to help people usually with similar issues.

Parking in Westwood Utilizing Google Maps

View Residential Westwood Parking in a larger map


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The mashup that I have created using the very free and easy Google Map application, My Maps, consists of documenting the street parking conditions of the very northern most part of Westwood’s residential area. Every day students suffer the over crowded residential neighborhood of Westwood in order to find parking that won’t result in a parking ticket or tow. However, this is harder than one might think, due to the numerous signs that litter every curb around the hill. Many signs have strict stipulations on what days and what hours you can park there and for how long. If you miss a sign or simply miss read one, you can end up with a sixty dollar parking ticket or worse, a tow.

Neogeography, from what I have grasped is something that is extremely useful to average person, however the main two problems I see with it are first the lack of knowledge about certain open source and free applications on the internet like My Maps, and secondly, the intricacies of the program itself. I consider myself pretty internet savvy and use the internet very frequently. I receive 90% of my news and current events from the internet, not to mention all the social networking I do on the internet, from Facebook to forums, I like to think of myself as one that knows my way around pretty well. However, I was not aware of the mashup capabilities that Google Maps allows the average person to play with. I knew about all the other Google applications, but surprisingly not the map-making part.

The second qualm I have with this is the program itself was mildly frustrating, albeit my choice in line use was probably the reason for this. I know that most people probably stuck to plotting point, but that was just not going to suffice for the charting of street parking, therefore I had to use to the line tool along roads. The problem I encountered was that the lines would reset to straight lines rather than the lines that followed the road that I had originally laid down.

When it comes to Neogeography as a whole, the main pitfall one can immediately see is that since it is open sourced, many people can use faulty information, knowingly or otherwise. However, I am very behind the idea of open source programs and think that Google is moving in the right direction when it comes to its map application as well as the many other application it has for users.

Lab 2, Week 2

1. What is the name of the quadrangle?
Beverly Hills Quadrangle

2. What are the names of the adjacent quadrangles? Canooga Park, Van Nuys, Burbank, Topanga, Hollywood, Venice and Inglewood

3. When was the quadrangle first created?
1966

4. What datum was used to create your map?
North American Datum of 1927 and the National Geodetic Vertical Datum of 1929.

5. What is the scale of the map?
The scale 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?
1/24,000 = 5cm/D
D = 5cm x 24,000 D = 120,000cm
converted to 1,200 meters
b) 5 inches on the map is equivalent to how many miles on the ground?
1/24,000 = 5in/D
D = 5in x 24,000
D = 120,000in converted to 1.89 miles
c) one mile on the ground is equivalent to how many inches on the map? 1/24,000 = 36,360in/1 mile
24,000/36,360 = 2.64 inches
d) three kilometers on the ground is equivalent to how many centimeters on the map?
1/24,000 = 3cm x 100,000cm/1km
300,000cm/24,000 = 12.5cm

7. What is the contour interval on your map?
The contour interval on this map is 20 feet

8. What are the approximate geographic coordinates in both degrees/minutes/seconds and decimal degrees of: use a ruler to measure the width of the map, then measure the distance from the target to the far right side. to find minutes! but you also add it to the original time on the far right corner for Public Affair
a) the Public Affairs Building; d/m/s: 34°04’12"N; -118°25’48”W
DD: 34.07°N, -118.43°W;
b) the tip of Santa Monica pier; d/m/s: 34°00'31"N; -118°29'52"W DD: 34.00°N, -118.50°W
c) the Upper Franklin Canyon Reservoir; d/m/s: 34°07'10"N; -118°24'37"W
DD: 34.12°N, -118.41°W

9. What is the approximate elevation in both feet and meters of:
a) Greystone Mansion (in Greystone Park); 560 feet, 170.688 meters
b) Woodlawn Cemetery; 140 feet, 42.672 meters
c) Crestwood Hills Park; 660 feet, 201.17 meters

10. What is the UTM zone of the map?
Zone 11

11. What are the UTM coordinates for the lower left corner of your map?
The UTM coordinates for the lower left corner of the Beverly Hills Quadrangle are 3763000 northing and 362000 easting.

12. How many square meters are contained within each cell (square) of the UTM gridlines?
There is 1,000,000 square meters in each cell of the UTM grid.

13. Obtain elevation measurements, from west to east along the UTM northing 3771000, where the eastings of the UTM grid intersect the northing. Create an elevation profile using these measurements in Excel (hint: create a line chart). Figure out how to label the elevation values to the two measurements on campus. Insert your elevation profile as a graphic in your blog.*The two blue-boxed points are the elevations on the UTM northing 3771000 that include UCLA.

14. What is the magnetic declination of the map?
The Magnetic Declination is 14 degrees.

15. In which direction does water flow in the intermittent stream between the 405 freeway and Stone Canyon Reservoir?
The stream between the 405 freeway and the Stone Canyon Reservoir flows from the direction of north to south.

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

Lab 1, Week 1

This first map shows the internal migration of US residents based on the economic climate. The map was drawn from mint.com, a blog sources itself, and the initial map draws sources from US Census and pewsocialtrends.org. The map illustrates the movement of Americans since the economic shift and increase in unemployment. You can see that there is a large shift from the coasts, specifically the west coast (California) and the northeastern and north midwestern states to the southern portion of the country. This map specifically stuck out in my mind because last quarter in Geography 142: Population Geography, we looked at the general trend of internal net migration and how everywhere except the south was decreasing in population size due to this internal flux.



The above map displays the density of different types of cultural events in Los Angeles organized by their entertainment category. The map comes from a study called “The Geography of Buzz.” The authors, Elizabeth Currid, an assistant professor in the School of Policy, Planning and Development at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, and Sarah Williams, the director of the Spatial Information Design Lab at Columbia University‘s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. The map was gathered from the New York Times "Arts" section. The Los Angeles map as well as the pictured below Manhattan map are broken down into six categories of entertainment: art, fashion, film, music, theater and television. The dots for each micromap are drawn from Getty Images that chronicled one full year of entertainment soirees, ranging from "flashy parties" to "smaller affairs." The researchers combed through the images and mapped them according to geographical area and based on their distinctive categories. The above map is most significant to me because of my location in Los Angeles and my interest in the arts in LA. It is extremely interesting to note that the art and theater categories are the smallest in occurrence while music and film are the largest.


The map above is from the same study as the Los Angeles map, but is a representation of the same entertainment categories for New York. Attributable to the same researchers and the New York Times, the Manhattan map looks at these categories and in relation to Los Angeles show different results. While the Los Angeles map showed low party occurrences in the art and theater categories, the Manhattan map shows a relative strength to every entertainment group. Another interesting thing to note about these two maps is that the photographs used to create the sample had to not only be purchased from their original source, but also were from social events that were only "large" and "important" enough to be photographed in the first place. The other factor of interest I would like to point out is the design of the maps themselves. The study is on entertainment and creative culture and does the aesthetic of the maps cater to these groups?