Geography 291: Geospatial Analysis with Desktop GIS

Hello! My name is Lily Bechina. I’m a sophomore environmental studies major. I play on the volleyball team here. I’m from Chicago. I don’t know exactly what I want to do yet but definitely something in the environmental studies field.

 

Reading through the short introduction, I found it interesting how geographers would dispute the value of GIS. I just didn’t quite understand how it could be bad. Of course, as I read on, I began to understand how using GIS takes away from other research methods that possibly require more and/or different skill sets.

The story about where GIS comes from (1962 McHarg) really helped me put into perspective what the basis of spatial analysis is and what purposes it serves. Visualizing a physical map on top of map on top of map helped me comprehend the fundamentals of GIS. Something else that helped my understanding was the calculator comparison. GIS is only useful to users if you understand how and why it works. 

Reading about how GIS is based on two digits that are combined and composed to represent different things, I was reminded of work I did in high school engineering with interpreting and creating binary systems. I hope that this previous knowledge will help me in this course.

Something I hadn’t considered is how GIS is only useful in collaboration with humans. Unlike much modern technology, GIS only works if there are humans to use it. This is a comforting fact as the rest of modern technology is becoming more and more AI generated. This idea was further confirmed with the water well example. Dr. Snow saw an inconsistency in his data and was able to find what caused that inconsistency through some research. He found that his data was sound and the inconsistency was due to outside circumstances. This is not something that a software would be able to figure out (at least I don’t think it is). 

I looked up “GIS Applications Chicago Public Schools”. I was interested in finding any information on public schools in Chicago. Instead, I found an interactive map where I could add many different features. The one that stood out to me was “Recycling Drop-off Site.” Being a big city, you would assume we have many of these. But, I can’t even think of one recycling drop-off site. So I clicked this filter and found that there are 6 drop-off sites within a 3 mile radius from my house. This is not a bad number but it was just interesting to see.

*green dots are recycling drop-off sites

https://gisapps.chicago.gov/mapchicago/ 

The next thing I looked up was GIS application death rates in the United States. It sounds grousome but I was interested to see where the highest death rates were. I found a map with the ranking for the causes of death. As I zoomed in, the map became more detailed, which is something I learned about in the reading.

https://www.arcgis.com/apps/mapviewer/index.html?webmap=e323996be3a845b1880f3cdd9381d369

• My name is Carsyn Hagans, and I am a sophomore majoring in biology and environmental science. I’m from Archbold, OH- which is a tiny village up in northwest Ohio (nearly in Michigan and Indiana). I love to travel, hike, read, drink coffee, and work out!

• Over the summer, I did a research internship where they introduced me to some basic GIS concepts and ideas. We used ArcGIS to make a few maps, but I was given a very brief background on the creation of GIS as a field and its many uses today. I know GIS is becoming an increasingly more important and widely used tool in many careers, especially in environmental science. This first chapter gave me a a really good idea of how GIS came to be and how there are many different definitions of “GIS”. I had not really realized how many ways there are to utilize GIS, but the chapter brought up examples like soil chemistry, most successful stores, business routes, and crop blights all being represented through maps. When my family asks me what my GIS classes are, I usually just tell them that I’ll be making maps on computers, but this reading talks about how there’s more to it than that. GIS allows people to incorporate patterns and other trends into maps that give people a visual representation of the data. I truly think this is an important way to show data, and as the reading explains, people’s brains are much more equipped to interpret visual data. I am slightly confused about the “true” definition of GIS, as the reading introduces several different ways that professionals have defined it in the past. However, I think that because the reading does go back and forth between these varying definitions, it does portray the complexity of GIS and potentially even represent how people who are unfamiliar with GIS may become confused by it. That being said, I think this first chapter did a great job at introducing how multifaceted GIS is and giving us ideas on how businesses and organizations incorporate it into our everyday lives. I am excited to continue to learn about the ways in which we can utilize GIS to display important information.
• One interesting application for GIS I found on ChatGPT is crime mapping. It explained that law enforcement agencies can utilize GIS to map areas of high crime and then they are able to allocate more resources to these areas that would aid in crime prevention. This map is from ESRI/ArcGIS. It shows areas of high and low crime in the greater Chicago area. I think it’s interesting how they incorporated a confidence interval into the legend. (https://desktop.arcgis.com/en/analytics/case-studies/broken-bottles-3-pro-workflow.htm)
• Another interesting application of GIS I found on Google is mapping animals’ migration patterns or geographical boundaries. I think an application like this would be very useful in the kind of career I want to pursue. Research scientists can take advantage of GIS to understand patterns found in the natural world. This map from ESRI shows the abundance of the American Kestrel during different times of the year, such as breeding or non-breading seasons. I like how much information this single map provides, as well as how it explains what it is showing. (https://www.esri.com/arcgis-blog/products/arcgis-pro/mapping/how-to-make-this-migration-map-and-why/)

• I am Christopher Nagel (just Chris is fine.) I am in my final semester of senior year and plan to graduate with an ENVS Major/Zoology Minor. Ohio native, from the capital of depression otherwise known as ‘Cleveland’.  I have three animals at home, a Russian Tortoise named ‘Shell’, a Saharan Uromastyx ‘Zil’, and a Jersey Wooly ‘Oreo’. In addition to animals, I also find aviation and some maritime history interesting. My biggest hobby is fishing in which I am very avid in.
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• Truth be told, I have very little, if any, knowledge of computer software. The only software I have used previously have been RStudio in a few BIO classes and CAD all the way back in Middle School, both with a great deal of difficulty. As to why I decided to join the GIS class, it was due more to the insistence from academic supervisors to take the class and that it would be a good skill set to have in my career than it was my own will and decision to take the class. I have a very loose idea of what GIS is, so I hope to learn more over the course of the class. That being said, the reading does explain it a bit, albeit a bit confusingly. There is no single meaning to GIS given that the applications for it are very extensive and diverse, but boiling it down it seems to be the analysis of spatial patterns using a layered geographical layout. It also appears that GIS has been in use since or before the 1960s, which is interesting as now GIS seems synonymous with computers and programming, but computers didn’t really become a thing until the 1970s, and more so personal computers in the late 70s and early 1980s. Given that, I’m not quite sure how it would’ve been used before then. Using the 1854 London Cholera Outbreak as an example of GIS is something I never would have considered. The famous discovery of the connection between the locations of contaminated water pumps and recorded cases did lead to an overall revolution in terms of sanitation and plumbing, so to see it be in use for so long is interesting. The various modern uses for GIS that Schuurman lists out, ranging from delivery logistics to taxes and the entire power grid, down to each circuit.
• One application I found for GIS is estimating and mapping the spawning ground, habitat, and migration of Striped Bass on the Atlantic Coast, particularly in Chesapeake Bay. These models are made annually using a variety of data such as the size and quantity of prey, water oxygen levels, bioacoustics, and foraging models. https://www.gsmfc.org/publications/GSMFC%20Number%20043.pdf
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• Another application is for use in the aviation industry. Uses range from mapping flight plans, tracking aircraft, and controlling airspace. https://www.esri.com/content/dam/esrisites/sitecore-archive/Files/Pdfs/library/brochures/pdfs/aeronautical-info-management.pdf

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  Los Angeles International Airport Airspace

• Hello! My name is Jade Bryan and I am a freshman hoping to double major in Environmental Science and Anthropology. I am from Waco, Texas, but I have lived in Ohio for the past two years. I have experience in wildlife rehabilitation, but I am interested in learning more about botany and ecology. As for personal hobbies, I spend a lot of time on arts and crafts, as well as playing video games such as Minecraft, Hollowknight, Skyrim, etc. I hope to be able to learn and improve a lot over the course of this class! Also, the ‘r’ key on my laptop is broken, so I have to manually paste each one. Please forgive me if I miss any!

 

• As someone unfamiliar with GIS, this chapter helped me understand a lot of the basic concepts of the software, as well as the history behind its creation and eventual widespread use. At first, I had thought GIS to just be fancy mapmaking, but now I am aware that its main purpose lies in analysis, which is more than any standard map can bring by itself. In addition, one of its main selling points is its versatility, as it can be used for anything from tracking animal populations to helping businesses understand their main demographics. However, because of this intense versatility, GIS has historically lacked much identity of its own. It is not just a specific software, but a specific approach; an approach that can be used by a variety of people in a variety of ways. Because of this, it has been hard to define over the past several decades. Even at its conception, it was marketed as a simple map making software, which is wholly undermining its value. This caused most of the mapmakers at the time to stray away from computerized GIS, and it has now only recently become fully appreciated. Personally, I found the figure of the cholera outbreaks to be very interesting. Because of our modern medical knowledge, it can be easy to forget that sewage wasn’t always known to be a key factor in many sicknesses. It’s extremely interesting to know that GIS was what helped people understand the correlation between pump location and disease outbreaks. Because of this, it’s very easy to see how this system could be absolutely game changing for the analysis of different fields. Personally, I would be very interested in using GIS in urban planning in order to introduce more fauna into the layout of cities and towns. I believe Delaware has actually done something similar, though I am unsure of the details of their use.

 

• Speaking of urban planning, the city of Los Angeles has a public GIS map called the “Zone Information and Map Access System” (ZIMAS) in order to show city-zoning and land use information. This helps them with analysis and projections for a plethora of things, including housing and employment rate.
  https://planning.lacity.gov/blog/why-gis-technology-important-urban-planning
  

 

• As someone from Texas, I know how important white-tailed deer are to my native state. Because of this, I thought it would be interesting to see if there have been any GIS maps created for the purpose of tracking them. There has been! While much simpler, this map at https://tpwd.texas.gov/arcgis/rest/services/Wildlife/TPWD_WL_WTDMU/MapServer shows the breakdown of different ecological zones based on soil, vegetation, land use, and deer population. While a much simpler map, it provides an interesting perspective on the diversity of Texas. Here is the map surrounding my home town of Waco, Texas.
  

 – Hello! My name is Pacey Schtucka and I am a freshman at OWU. I am majoring in environmental science with a minor in geography. I am from Wadsworth, OH. Since a young age I have always loved being outdoors. My love for being outside turned into a passion for the environment as I grew older. Now, I want to learn more about the ins and outs of it all

• As I am starting this course, I have a very limited knowledge of what GIS actually is. The reading helped me to get a better grasp of what purpose GIS serves and who it serves. With that being said, I think that it is really awesome how it has so many different means to different groups. This reading showed me that from the beginning of its time, GIS has been extremely diverse and never has had one solid definition. I also found it interesting that now GIS is a computer program, but its origins come before computers were universally usable. One thing I am confused about is how this reading talked about GIS being different from mapping stating that, “it’s differentiated from “mapping” because it generates more information or knowledge than can be gleaned from maps or data alone,” but then goes on to say that some see it as an “extension of mapping” (Schuurman). The reading goes a lot of back and forth stating different viewpoints on GIS so perhaps my confusion may just be coming from interpreting the viewpoints wrong. Furthermore, I was unaware of how incorporated GIS is into everyday life. GIS is something that I first heard about my first semester at OWU. My peers told me how learning GIS would be a useful skill and I took their word for it. This reading by Schuurman is opening my eyes to a whole new perspective in the sense of GIS. Schuurman describes in the reading how almost everything can be brought back to GIS. She gives the example of food; every step from growing the food to how it gets to your plate can be brought back to GIS. It was really interesting to read about Schuurman breaking down every which way GIS is involved in a process that I did not even consider it to be involved in before reading.

 

• One application I find interesting is GIS to study glaciers. Using ChatGPT, I found that GIS is able to map out glaciers and then the mapping is used to show the change and help look into the melting rate. From this I googled GIS glacial change and I found the World Glacier Monitoring Serivce on. WGMS teams with ESRI ArcGIS and allows people to view the glaciers over time.  https://www.antarcticglaciers.org/students-3/resources-for-teachers/exploring-present-day-glaciers-in-a-gis/ 
• Also using Chat GPT I found the GIS is used for disease mapping. GIS is able to be used to map different regions for disease spreading and to see what areas are affected. This made me interested in the use of GIS for COVID-19 mapping. I found this map from ArcGIS at https://www.arcgis.com/apps/dashboards/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6 . This map was last updated on 3/10/23 but until then they used GIS to map the number of COVID-19 cases around the world. 

• I am Annabel Benes, a senior here at OWU, studying Environmental Studies and Business. I was born and raised in Denver, Colorado, I love to ski, hike and go on walks with my family and my dog Boscoe!
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• I took this course because I didn’t really use what GIS was and wanted to know more about what GIS is and how people use it around the world. This article was a very good background to the idea of what GIS is and what it can be used for around the world. It was interesting to see the benefits and consequences of GIS especially when it comes to different generational approaches for technology and learning. I didn’t know that GIS has been around since 1960, which seems like it was very before other high end technology. Figure 1, was similar to me because in the fall semester I took soil morphology where we saw a map where we wore specific glasses to have a 3D vision. The maps from Soil Morphology were layered but you could only see the various layers with the specific glasses on which was really cool to see. The layers of figure 1, seemed very similar to the idea of this map in that class. I could visually see all the layers in a different form but still could understand the layout of the picture and what it represented. From this article it seems like GIS is just a big bundle and online version of data points and information from around the world. I found it interesting that you can combine different variables to get the data that you are trying to examine. Like with figure 1.4, seeing the correlation between pumps and cholera cases. I enjoyed reading about this introduction to GIS and I am excited to gain more information and understanding of GIS. I do have questions after reading this: How often is GIS information updated, for instance the layout of the ground, buildings and more? I also would like to know what tools can be used to create this data and if there are faster tools that are being created? 

• One source that I found was wolf tracking and the role of surveillance in the recovery of an endangered species, from ArcGIS. This was really interesting to read about and see the maps for tracking. The article specifically focused on Gray Wolves and their recovery and survival throughout the years after being put on the endangered species list. This article focused on Washington area and attached is the map that they collected from the tracking:
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• From another article it stated that in Washington State, “ Washington is home to about 33 packs. Nineteen of these packs have successfully bred. The Department of Fish and Wildlife has enforced laws to manage conflict with people over livestock predation by wolves. Because of these efforts, there are about 200 wolves in Washington.” https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/wolf-population-by-state 
• Another application that I found interesting was using GIS to study rivers. I think it’s really interesting to see where rivers were and where they are now and what changed their path. This was a short article that illustrated the basics of the study. https://serc.carleton.edu/eyesinthesky2/week6/study_rivers_gis.html 
• From this initial search I went deeper into finding maps of rivers in Ohio. From ArcGIS I was able to see rivers, canals and more in Ohio which was really interesting. Attached below is a snippet of the map that I looked at:  
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Coleman- Week 6

I also ran into issues with posting and copying images. I found it easier to write it on another document.

Coleman- Week 5