This map displays the distributional percentages of “Some Other Race Alone” within the continental US as reported in the 2000 Census data. “Some Other Race Alone” can be defined as any other race alone besides non-Hispanic Whites, Blacks or Asians, many times depicting the spread of the Hispanic/Latino communities throughout the US. Considering this definition, it is interesting to see that the areas with the highest concentrated “Some Other Race Alone” communities are located on the west coast of the United States along the US-Mexico border. Similar to the west coast’s proximity to Asia influencing its high concentration of Asian communities, the southern regions of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas all contain the highest concentrations, 21.57%-39% of the total population, of “Some Other Race Alone” due to their extremely close proximity to Mexico. The distributional percentages of “Some Other Race Alone” somewhat mirror the pattern of black population distribution in the US for similar to the blacks’ pattern, the “Some Other Race Alone” group is highly concentrated in a particular region (West Coast/Southwest) and does not spread equally across the southern portion of both coasts, with “Some Other Race Alone” percentages clustering on the west over east coast.





This map depicts the “Black Alone” US population as reported during the US Census of 2000. It is interesting to note that the highest concentrations of blacks within the US congregate in the southern states and counties. The highest concentrated black counties, each with a black population ranging from 49.75 to 86.4 percent, spread only as far west as Arkansas and Louisiana, and spread as far east as New Jersey. These highly concentrated black regions and counties expand no further south than the Florida-Georgia border and tend to lessen concentration as you most north of Arkansas and Tennessee. This clustering of highly concentrated black communities in the South most likely has direct ties to the historical geography of slavery. When many Africans were brought over to the US, they were brought to work on plantations in the south. Due to the strong family and community ties slavery created among blacks in the south, many of them may never have left the region or only gone a bit NE after slavery was abolished in the late 1800s, therefore continuing the high concentrations of blacks in the southern region of the US for centuries to come.





This map depicts the distributional percentages of the “Asian Alone” US population as reported by the US Census during 2000. Looking at the map, the first apparent characteristic to the viewer is the lack of highly concentrated Asian communities found through not only the US as a whole, but especially within the middle of the country as well. Across the middle of the United States, the highest concentration of Asians within a county ranges only up to 8.87%, a drastic difference from many other racial distributions. Even when considering the Asian distributional spread along the coasts, it is easy to see that the Asian communities are concentrated much more greatly on the west coast than they are on the east coast. On the east coast, the counties with the largest concentration of Asians, with Asians making up roughly 20.4% to 46% of the total population, are found near Washington D.C. and New York City, two of the largest immigrant-friendly metropolises in the region. Similar to the ways in which the black population congregates in the south, the Asian populations probably have their highest concentrations along the west coast of the US due to the regions proximity to Asia. Located closer to Asia, the west coast regions of Southern California and Washington State may attract higher concentrations of Asian populations due to being the closest place for Asian immigrants migrate to from outside the US.


Overall, when looking at the above series of census maps, it is apparent that different racial groups congregate in different regions and counties of the United States. The black population tends to concentrate itself in the southern portion of the United States, while the Asian population prefers the west coast and the Hispanic/Latino populations (or “Some Other Race Alone”) prefer to cluster in the Southwest near the US-Mexican border. All of these different racial congregations have ties to historical and proximal geography, where the specific racial and ethnic communities chose to locate themselves in certain regions of the country based on historical reasons (slavery) or based on proximity to their native country (Asians on the west coast/Latinos in the Southwest). What is also interesting to note is that when comparing all three maps, only counties with high concentrations of Asian and Latino/Hispanic (“Some Other Race Alone”) populations are located next to one another or in overlapping regions, while those with high concentrations of black communities are isolated in the southern regions of the US. This regional isolation may be the reason behind why blacks find it hard to assimilate into mainstream culture and feel as if they are “different” than others in the US, for without the exposure to different cultures, ethnicities and races, such as the multi-cultural/ethnic communities those living in the West and Southwest regions of the US are exposed to, blacks in the South are able to find anything but differences between themselves and those who are not black within their communities. If the south was as culturally diverse and ethnically integrated as the west coast and southwest regions of the US, the feeling of being “outsiders” or “different” may be alleviated from the black communities, for the black community would realize that their struggles and successes are very similar to the struggles and successes of Asian and Hispanic/Latino Immigrants, ultimately facilitating acceptance of and assimilation into the like cultures and creating a more racially integrated and culturally diverse country as a whole.


Impressions of GIS:

I am very pleased with my overall GIS experience this quarter. GIS is a growing field in which many companies are beginning to adopt, and I believe the skills I learned in Geography 7 will be useful to me in any career. I am currently interning at the Santa Monica Community Forest and am continually exposed to ArcGIS for mapping city tree inventory and land use throughout the city. After completing Geography 7, I feel much more confident and comfortable using the equipment and GIS programs in the office knowing I have the skill set to produce a basic ArcMap. Even though GIS could be very frustrating at times due to random program crashes and unclear directions, I am very excited to continue mastering ArcGIS this summer in Geography 168 and thank you for being my stepping stone into the GIS world. Thanks for everything, Jida!

Lab 8

Before beginning my research on the fire spread of the summer of 2009 in Los Angeles County, I used my previous knowledge of the local terrain to generate a hypothesis of how I believed the fire spread pattern would look. Knowing that the areas most prone to fire are located near steep topographic features and highly-flammable land cover, I thought that the fire pattern would remain somewhat contained on steeper topology with sparse vegetation. As the fire spread down the mountains and hills, I then believed the fire pattern would reach its maximum spread near the base of the steep features where the vegetation cover increased and the topology became flat, thus more prone to quickly spread the fire. I also believed that these flatter areas of topology would be located closely to urbanized, populated areas and therefore would pose an increased safety risk during the late summer months as the fires continue to increase in size and spread across larger areas.

In order to test my theories, I first began my research by downloading a map of LA County from the National Map Seamless Server (USGS, 2010). I chose to download the county map from this site because it highlights the topology of regions, thus would allow me to examine the terrain encompassed by the fire spread. After downloading this map, I then retrieved a shapefile of the Los Angeles County fire spread from August to September 2009 from the Los Angeles County Government’s GIS department site (Los Angeles County Enterprise GIS, 2009). Knowing that I not only wanted to map the fire spread in relation to the terrain/topology, but that I also wanted to map fire spread patterns in relation to their location in and around urbanized, populated areas in the county, I then went to UCLA’s MapShare site in order to download shapefiles based on 2000 Census data related to urbanized areas, populated areas, and census tracts in Los Angeles County (ESRI, 2008).

After downloading all of the shapefiles necessary to conduct my research, I then began to upload them into ArcView. I first uploaded the shapefile from the National Map Seamless Server in order to generate a hill shade map of Los Angeles County’s terrain. Creating the hill shade map would tell me which areas have the steepest terrain and which areas have the flattest. Next, I added all of the other census layers to the DEM in order to map the relations of urban/populated areas and the topology of the county. After placing all of the census overlays to the DEM, I then uploaded the fire-spread data over a four-day period. Finally when I completed inserting the overlay layers, I changed the color ramps and fills of each individual layer in order to make them all visible on the map.

After I completed the map, I then looked to analyze the pattern of the fire-spread upon the affected topology. Looking at the first day of fire spread (Fire Spread 1), I noticed that due to the light blue undertones of the magenta polygon, this fire was beginning to spread from the top of a steep topographic feature within the Angeles National Forest. I was also able to know that this was the top of a topographic feature because when looking at the center of the Fire Spread 1 polygon, I noticed that the topographic light blue lines converged into a distinct point, therefore indicating the top of a mountain or hill. This first day of fire-spread pattern reinforced my original hypothesis for according to the map the fire was concentrated in a small area on the steepest part of the terrain. When considering the spread of the fire over the terrain for the next three days, I also came to the conclusion that the data presented in my map reinforced other parts of my hypothesis for a number of reasons. First, when looking at the second day of fire, or Fire Spread 2, it is apparent that the fire was spreading down the mountain, as I originally had thought it would, and was still spreading in a pattern consistent with the first day, thus still continuing to spread in a contained manner toward the North. When looking at the third day of fire spread (Fire Spread 3), however, I noticed a change in the pattern of the fire. Again backing up my original theory, after analyzing the topology of the map I realized that this change was due to a change in the shape of the steep topographic features upon which the fire originally started. Looking at the map I realized around the third day, the fire spread had expanded towards the northeast and in no other direction as it had done in the previous days. This may have occurred because when considering the topology in the map, the topological features affected during day three of the fire spread are still located in steep areas (seen in the light blue undertones of Fire Spread 3), while those areas affected by the fire during day four have darker undertones indicating a flatter terrain. These differences in topology allowed me to conclude that before the fire could spread to the flatter areas in the northeast, it first needed to travel down the steep slopes of the terrain towards the northwest. Looking at the expansive spread pattern of Fire Spread 4, my hypothesis is once again reinforced. The darker undertones located under the orange-colored spread indicate that these areas are mostly flat terrain since the darker pink color on the DEM color-scheme indicates flat topology.

When analyzing the fire spread patterns in relation to locations of urbanized and populated areas, I was surprised to see how few census tracts the fires in summer of 2009 actually affected. Looking at the results on the map, my hypothesis was proven incorrect, for those urbanized/populated areas most affected by the fires were not only harmed during the late summer, but during the early and middle parts of the summer as well. All of the affected communities are located on the northern border of the populated and urbanized zones between the Valley and the Angeles National Forest in Los Angeles County. Considering the spread of the fire, it looked as if during the first day the fire may spread in a way that would support my hypothesis since it only harmed a small section of a one or two census tracts. As the spread expanded, however, it began to affect more and more communities each day, therefore refuting my suggestion that communities would only become affected on the last day of the spread once the fire reached flat terrain.

All of these areas affected by the fires qualified as both populated and urbanized regions. This characteristic allowed me to conclude that they have larger amounts of people per square mile than those areas that are classified as only populated and therefore can be considered high-risk communities “identified within the wildland urban interface (where structures and other human development meet or intermingle with undeveloped wildland)” (FRAP, 2010). In the state of California, these high-risk communities are required to develop Community Wildfire Protection Plans that “must be collaboratively developed (with agreement among local government, local fire departments and the state agency responsible for forest management), identify and prioritize areas for hazardous fuel reduction treatments, and recommend measures that homeowners and communities can take to reduce the ignitability of structures” (FRAP, 2010). During the 2009 Station Fire shown in the above map, one of the largest safety concerns for the affected communities was the risk of debris flows and flash floods occurring after the fire ceased. According to US News and World Report, the Station Fire of 2009 was one of the largest fires in the area’s watershed history and the park rangers and engineers were concerned that larger than normal quantities of debris would be captured by the flood control system and increase the systems stress and likelihood to burst under the pressure (US News and World Report, 2009, p.1). If the floodgates were to burst, the thousands of homes at the foot of the forest’s edge could be washed away and many larger animals that survived the fires could be forced to migrate into the communities on the flatter terrain. All of these events further increase the risk of living in the communities at the foot of the Angeles National Forest and reinforce the need for comprehensive wildfire/debris flow planning to take place in high-risk urbanized communities.


Works Cited:

Enhance Public Benefits from Trees and Forests: Planning for and Reducing Wildfire Risks. (2010). Fire and Resource Assessment Program (FRAP). Retrieved May 22, 2010, from California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (FRAP) website: http://frap.fire.ca.gov/assessment2010/3.3_wildfire_planning.html

ESRI. (2008). Los Angeles County Census Tracts [Data file]. Retrieved from
http://gis.ats.ucla.edu//Mapshare/Default.cfm

ESRI. (2008). Los Angeles County Census Urbanized Areas [Data file]. Retrieved from
http://gis.ats.ucla.edu//Mapshare/Default.cfm

ESRI. (2008). Los Angeles County Populated Place Areas [Data file]. Retrieved from
http://gis.ats.ucla.edu//Mapshare/Default.cfm


Los Angeles County Enterprise GIS. (2009). All Station Fire Perimeters (as of September 2, 07:02) – Complete set [Data file]. Retrieved from http://gis.lacounty.gov/eGIS/?p=1055

Post-Wildfire Worries: Floods, Damaged Ecosystem. (2009, September 8). Retrieved May 22, 2010, from US News and World Report website: http://www.usnews.com/science/articles/2009/09/08/post-wildfire-worries-floods-damaged-ecosystem.html?PageNr=2

USGS. (2010). National Map Seamless Server [Data file]. Retrieved from http://seamless.usgs.gov/

Lab 6

I chose to map the topology of the Hawaiian Islands Lanai, Molokai, and Maui. I believe these Hawaiian Islands are very interesting to look at in terms of topology because they are volcanic and mountainous, thus vary completely from the surrounding sea-level topographic characteristics of the Pacific Ocean. In terms of decimal degree coordinates, this group of islands is located at (.00028, .00028). Looking at latitude and longitude, the Hawaiian Islands of Lanai, Molokai and Maui are located solely in the Northern and Western Hemispheres in UTM zone 4N. Their locations range from 21.18 degrees to 20.76 degrees in the North to -157.06 to -156.5 degrees in the West. These topographic maps use the spatial references of GCS_North_American_1983 as well as the North American Datum of 1983.

Map Projections

Map projections are important for many reasons. One of the main reasons is that map projections are necessary for creating maps. They take images from the 3D geoids of Earth and project them onto a 2D plane, thus making flat maps which are easier to carry, use, and digitize for GIS purposes. It is important that there is not only one type of map projection, but instead a variety of map projections since a different projection will be required depending on the purpose of the map. The maps purpose will also help decide what characteristics need to be preserved and what characteristics can be distorted, thus helping to find the proper projection. For example, for navigational purposes, one would want to use a conformal projection because it preserves direction, and for distance measuring, one would most likely want to use an equi-distant projection due to its equally spaced standard lines. For certain maps, however, it does not matter which projection you use especially if the purpose of the map is for thematic or illustrative purposes. One may also pick a different map projection based on what part of the world they are looking at, for different projections preserve and distort different parts of the globe.

The Mercator projection is a conformal projection that preserves direction and shape but varies in distance and area. In this projection, the N/S run of the map is longer than the E/W portion, thus possibly leading to more distortion in distance. When looking at the Mercator projection above, I believe this may be one of the reasons that the distance between Washington D.C. and Kabul is much larger than the true distance (10,098.61 miles [Mercator] v. 7,000 miles [True Distance]). Another reason that the projected distance on the Mercator map may be so different from the True Distance is that Mercator projections are many times used to examine Polar Regions and the cities under study in this map is located outside this region, thus causing a distortion in the distance. The Mercator projection does preserve distance, however, so this map could be very useful to a sailor or pilot for navigational purposes between the two cities. The other conformal map shown above is the Gall Stereographic projection. This projection is azimuthal, preserves angles and direction, while distorting area, object size and distance. Looking at the examples above, I thought that it was interesting that even though the Gall Stereographic projection distorts distance, the projected distance on the map was still very close to the True Distance (7,175.43 miles [Gall Stereographic] v. 7,000 miles [True Distance]). I believe this may be due to the lack of large distortions found at the poles, causing the continents to be properly spaced from one another and not squished together like in the Mercator Projection.

Equal Area maps preserve the area of the projected map surface. The Bonne projection preserves size, and has evenly spaced parallels that are true to scale along the concentric arcs. This projection also lacks distortion along the central meridians and parallel. I believe the Bonne projection’s distance (6,716.91 miles) is so closely related to the True Distance (7,000 miles) between the two cities due to the projections ability to preserve size. As seen in the conformal projections, the size of objects on the map greatly affects the spacing of the continents on the projections by causing them to converge or diverge. With the preserved size, however, all objects on the map are true to scale, thus allow for a more accurate measurement between the two cities. The Sinusoidal Projection is also an equal area projection. It is actually a special case Bonne projection. The Sinusoidal Projection preserves distances along horizontal lines, and all of its parallels are standard lines. This projection becomes distorted toward the poles and is slightly distorted along the equator. I believe the distance of the Sinusoidal Projection is relatively close to the True Distance between the two cities (8,100 miles [Sinusoidal] v. 7,000 miles [True Distance] for a couple of reasons. One of the main reasons is that both the N/S scale and the E/W scale are equal, therefore making distances more accurate. Also, in a Sinusoidal Projection, the true distance between two points on the same meridian corresponds to different points on the map between two parallels. This creates a larger projected distance between the two points on the map, hence explaining the above results.

Equidistant Projections preserve the distance between points on a projected surface. In the above examples, this is best seen in the Equidistant Conic projection, where due to its ability to preserve distance, out of all the other maps, this map’s projected distance is the most closely related to the True Distance on the ground (6,728.47 miles [Equidistant Conic] v. 7,000 miles [True Distance]). The Plate Carree equidistant projection, however, is a completely different story. Even though it is supposed to be an equidistant projection, the Plate Carree’s projected distance is much larger than the True Distance, coming in at 10,247.44 miles instead of around 7,000 miles (True Distance). I believe this may have occurred for a few reasons. First, the Plate Carree does not preserve shape or size. This may have caused the shapes of the continents to stretch out when projected, thus increasing the distance between the two cities. The Plate Carree’s inability to preserve size and shape are one of the main reasons it cannot be used for navigational purposes. Second, the Plate Carree also does not deal with complex relations between points on the map and their relation to points on the Earth, but rather uses simple relations which may make the distance less accurate.

Lab 5: ArcGIS Tutorial

GIS, or geographic information systems, is an advanced computer mapping technology used by a wide variety of people for a wide variety of reasons. For example, GIS is used by city governments in order to map the locations of residents’ homes, it is used by 911 operators in order to accurately locate the destination of an emergency and it is used by students and scholar’s alike as a tool to enhance their research projects. As the GIS field continues to expand and technologically advance at increasing rates, mapping programs, such as ArcView, do tend to come with both technological benefits and pitfalls.

One of the main benefits of GIS is that it allows the user to accurately locate points on a map. By being exposed to the accurate location of places, users become more geographically aware of their surroundings, especially those within their mapping area. Another benefit of GIS technology is its ability to allow users to create personalized maps. Instead of having to conform to the standards and layout designs of USGS topological maps or other projections, GIS users can generate maps that are specific to their own preferences for scale, colors, fonts, legend designs, etc. With the ability to personalize maps, people may actually desire to use mapping technology more, for the personalizing of preferences will not only make maps more relatable to the user, but personalization may also aide in making cartography more interesting and entertaining to people other than cartographers.

Despite all of the benefits of mapping technology, GIS does still come with a few pitfalls. One of the main pitfalls is created due to the field’s ever expanding technological advancement. With so many new programs and upgrades entering the field on a regular basis, it may be hard for both experts and general users to keep their mapping skills up to date. These upgrades are many times very complicated and take a while to master, therefore making it difficult for many GIS-applicable fields to continually upgrade to the best program, for upgrading would require time a business may not have to spend for employee training on the upgraded programs. Another pitfall of GIS programming is found when considering that many users do not know how to create layers for mapping purposes. This discrepancy many times leads business or organizations using GIS to hire an expert in order generate the desired overlays. If GIS programs made it easier to create your own overlays, ordinary users would be able to generate almost every portion of their map, thus eliminating the need for an expert position.

The ArcView GIS program is both very interesting and very applicable to everyday life. I personally was very excited to be introduced to the program. I intern with the Santa Monica Community Forest Division and am constantly using ArcView in order to generate maps of trees in the city. It was nice to finally be able to learn the ins and outs of the program and I hope to be able to use the information I learned in the tutorial to increase the quality of the maps I create at my internship on a weekly basis.

Lab 3

View Fast Food Restaurant Locations in South Los Angeles in a larger map

Neogeography can be defined as the application of geographic information to the internet for mapping purposes, or allowing non-expert users to generate maps based on accurate geographic information via Web 2.0. Web 2.0 brings mapping capabilities to the general public by allowing them to create mash-ups, or place information from a variety of sources onto a single map. Though the field of neogeography is constantly evolving on a daily basis, it not only comes with added benefits, but also comes with technological pitfalls and consequences from its application.

As mentioned before, since the field of neogeography continues to evolve, this form of technology and accessibility has great potential. By making high-quality, inexpensive and easy-to-use geographic information available to the general public, people from a variety of backgrounds are now presented with the ability to create maps that not only allow them to plot locations, but also allow them to view real-time traffic maps and crime incident locations; with this type of availability, mapping and geographic information are posed as central information data bases to the general public’s every-day-life. Internet-based mapping also allows for personalized videos, photos, and other forms of media to be integrated into mapping applications, thus deepening the connection between public users and geographic locations. Internet-based mapping also helps create location-aware communities and facilitate the coming together of people with similar tastes and interests.

Though the ever-advancing neogeography technology has broadened community access to GIS on indescribable levels, it is not safe to say that the field does not have some technological pitfalls as well. One of the fields pitfalls pertains to the difficulty of fitting natural items, such as rivers and streams, accurately onto internet-based maps. This becomes a difficult task because many natural landforms are obviously too large to fit properly on the screen due to advanced zoom-in technology, and some natural features even have blurred boundaries that make them difficult to map out. Other pitfalls also occur when considering neogeographic map terminology. Mash-ups many times have issues with the use of homonyms, where topographical interpretations of words such as pool, stream, ocean or channel, can have multiple meanings to the internet-based technology. This makes it difficult for the map to distinguish between them. Vague space relations also pose another problem to mash-up technology, for the scale of the term “near”, “far” and “close by” are vague and full of variations depending on the user. Presently, there is no solution to this problem.

Not only does neogeography have both potential for growth and technological pitfalls, but it also has a handful of consequences that comes with its wide-availability to the general public. When mash-ups first became widely available on the internet in 2005, many people were concerned that the now easily accessible, high-quality geographic information would be used by terrorists in order to plan attacks on the United States. Another consequence arises out of the issue of personal privacy. Many people feel as if mash-ups such as Google Earth have placed their families in danger, for by just typing in an address anyone can look up street, satellite and aerial views of a location.

Lab 2

1. Beverly Hills Quadrangle

2. Canoga Park, Van Nuys, Burbank, Topanga, Hollywood, Venice, Inglewood

3. 1966

4. North American Datum of 1927; North American Datum of 1983; National Geodetic Vertical Datum of 1929

5. 1 : 24,000

6. a: D = 1,200 m: D = 5 x 24,000 = 120,000 cm/100 cm
b: D = 1.89 mi: D = 5 x 24,000 = 120,000 in/39.37 in
c: d = 2.64 in: d/24,000 = 63,360/24,000
d: d = 12.5 cm: d/24,000 = 300,000 cm/24,000 cm

7. 20 feet

8. a. Public Affairs Building:
- Latitude:

• 34 Degrees 4' 49" N
• 34.0803 Degrees N

- Longitude:

• -118 Degrees 26' 35" W
• -118.44302 Degrees W

b. Santa Monica Pier:
- Latitude:

• 34 Degrees 00 ' 31" N
  
• 34.0086 Degrees N

- Longitude:

• -118 Degrees 29' 52" W
• -118.4974 Degrees W

c. Upper Franklin Canyon Reservoir:
- Latitude:

• 34 Degrees 7' 10" N
  
• 34.123 Degrees N

- Longitude:

• -118 Degrees 24' 37" W
  
• -118.4027 Degrees W
  

9. a. Greystone Mansion:

• 570 Feet or 173.736 meters
  

b. Woodlawn Cemetery:

• 140 Feet or 42.672 meters
  

c. Crestwood Hills Park:

• 750 Feet or 228.60 meters
  

10. Beverly Hills is located in UTM zone 11.

11. 361500 East, 3763000 North

12. 1,000m x 1,000m = 1,000,000 sq. meters

13.


14. 14 Degrees

15. North to South

16.