Geography 7, LAB 8

Los Angeles Station Fire 2009 

The Los Angeles County Station Fire of 2009

The Los Angeles National Forest is one of the most hazardous chaparral shrub-lands and it is located in one of the driest areas, making the area the most fire prone zone in Southern California. Both Maps above show the Los Angeles Station Fire that broke out in 2009. In the maps you will see the perimeter and the surrounding area that was affected by the fire. In the first Map I included additional fires that have broke out from 2007 until the 2009 station fire episode and the different fire locations that have occurred in the dry areas around the Lo Angeles Forest. I added additional fires show how prone this area in Los Angeles is, to wildfires to occur and their importance in relation to the City of Los Angeles, in order to take better preventative measures or better access to public services for those residing in at risk zones.

On August 26, 2009 a Fire broke out in the Los Angeles Mountains, Burning over 230 square miles of land in the Los Angeles National Forest, affecting the surrounding wildlife and communities around the perimeter of the forest at risk from the intense flames. The fire was said to have started by an arsonist, “near the pullout on the Los Angeles Crest Highway.”

The landscape, steep slopes and the weather along with other factors made the fire spread rapidly. During the fire there was a great amount of firefighters send out to contain the fire according to a station report of the fire it was mentioned how the efforts of containment were pretty difficult and they could have been improved, it wasn't until October 16, 2009 that the fire was completely contained.

The management of the fire was very difficult because of the tophography of the land there was very limited access towards roads that fighter fighters could use to manage the fire better.

The Station Fire was one of the largest wildland fires in the Los Angeles, the fire moved south, west, as well as east some of the residential communities that were threatened the foothill communities in Los Angeles like La Canada, Flintridge and La Cresenta as well as Big Tujunga Canyon. Some of the residential areas in those communities were evacuated from the area. The fire was spreading to different areas.

The expansion and length of the fire allowed for a lot of heat and smoke to rise in the atmosphere and this developed bad breathing air for community members, affecting their health specially affecting the health of community members.

Fires in Los Angeles have a long history of firefighter fatalities, this bring to light the importance of route access to the closest emergency medical services or just medical services. It is essential to have clear management of all the roads and all the places that serve as safe places for wounded fighter fighters and community members who are being evacuated. This is why I added the roads around the station fire in the map.

It is important to guide and give access to health services because there might be a lot of community members who might need shelter services, but more than anything services to check up on their physical well-being. As mentioned earlier there was a lot of fire smoke which went up into the atmosphere all that smoke ends up in areas near the fire as well neighboring cities, and that air full of smoke tends to affect peoples lungs and their overall health.

In the second map shown above we can see all the hospitals, clinics, or medical services around the affected zones by the fires, and many of these emergency rooms are actually pretty far from the hills, therefore, this is were the roads and highways come into account in allowing the general population to have access to these medical services.

Bibliography

United States Department of Agriculture (2009). Fire and Aviation Management: Station Fire Initial Attack Review. USDA

Retrieved from: http://www.fs.fed.us/fire/station_fire_report.pdf

Forest Service's Response Offers Potential Lessons for Future Wildland Fire Management. (2011) GAO Report to Congressional Requesters

Retrieved from : http://www.gao.gov/assets/590/587075.pdf

The 2009 Station Fire in the Angeles National Forest. California Chaparral Institute.(2009).

Retrieved from: http://www.californiachaparral.com/2009fireinlacounty.html

Fire station Perimeter shapefile

http://egis3.lacounty.gov/eGIS/category/gis-data/fire/

This is where I got the Shapefile of the Los Angeles Census Boundaries

http://www2.census.gov/cgi-bin/shapefiles2009/state-iles?state=06’

This is where I got the Shape file of the freeways
http://egis3.lacounty.gov/dataportal/2011/01/20/freeways-single-line-for-labels/

This is where I got the Shapefile of Los Angeles Boundaries

http://egis3.lacounty.gov/dataportal/2013/01/09/l-a-county-boundary/

Hospital and Imergency Rooms Shapefile 
http://egis3.lacounty.gov/dataportal/2012/05/23/hospital-emergency-room-locations-and-entry-points/

U.S. Census Geography 7 Lab 8

            The three maps above show the population by county for  Asians, African Americans and Other ethnic groups. The gradient color ramp ranges in color from light colors to dark colors, this data shows where the counties with the most people are compares to the ones with the least people. The darkest counties have the most people, while the lightest counties have the least

The First Map shows the Asian Population by County and what I found really interesting about this map and was shocked was that high concentrations were not shown in this map, and I was a little puzzled, because the United States does have a high number of Asian Americans. Perhaps the number per county seems less because it is compared to the Latinos/as who in recent decades have become the large majority. 

The second map shows the African American population by county. In this map  We can see that there is a high concentration of African Americans in the Southern States of North American.  Throughout, history this was where majority of African Americans lived in the east part of North America more so than the West. Nevertheless, progressively you can see a migration of African Americans to places like California  and Nevada. 

The third map shows other population by county, The 'Other' seems to have a population that concentrates to the West of the United States. Since African Americans and Asians are already accounted for in the previous two maps, I can make the assumption that this trend is influenced by Latinos/as who heavily make part of the 'Other population' especially in the West side of North American, since it is the largest minority groups, and still growing. 

Maps such as this one in GIS can help society identify where to cater to particular populations, where schools are needed, how schools are doing, the policies that are being enacted or need to be enacted, the different facilities that are needed in specific counties so that the population in specific counties are largely helped. Data such as this can be used for numerous things including research by Universities. 



Week 7: Spatial Analysis: Lab6

Information about the Location about the above Maps: 

GCS_North_American_1983

WKID: 4269 Authority: EPSG

Extended Information: 

Top: 39.8291666661

Left:-105.788888889

Right: -104.969444445

Bottom: 39.3838888883

Angular Unit:Degree (0.0174532925199433)

6 Map Projections in ArcGIS Week 6 Lab5 Assignment

For the Bonnie Map, the Distance Between Washington D.C. and Kabul 

was about 6,774.958205 miles

For the Goode's Homolisine Map, the Distance Between Washington D.C. and Kabul

 was about 9,974.699803 miles

The Kinds of Map Projections that are seen above consist of three different kinds:Conformal, Equidistant, and Equal Area projections. There are Positive and Negative things about each kind of projection. There is no projection that will be able to preserve every element that the real world. Therefore, there are different projections that serve for different things.

One of the first Map projections that was shown above is a Conformal Projection. Above, you see a Mercator and a Conformal Conic projection. A Mercator projection has straight verticle meridians and this is good because it allows direct bearing measurements. One other good thing is that at any point on the map the scale is the same in all directions and they tend to preserve shapes in small areas. Moreover, conformal maps preserve the angle details as you convert from three dimensional to two dimensional. Relative angles are correct at each point of the map in a conformal projection on a conformal Projection, directions are locally true, but are distorted with distance, so in a way a conformal projection can preserve direction from a single point, it is really hard to preserve direction on any kind of projection. Conformal maps are best at measuring angles, looking for accurate local directions, or when you try to represent contour lines. The best uses for this kind of projection are for navigational reasons and also for meteorological reasons.

Equidistant projections are those that maintain a more accurate distance in a map from the center of the projection or also along given lines in the projection. I found it interesting that it is used for seismic mapping because that kind of mapping would be useful and interesting here in California due to our prevalent plate tectonic movement along the ring of fire and the higher possibilities of different size earthquakes.The projections used above were an Azimuthal and Sinuosidal, What I noticed in these two different projections was that when i was measuring the distance in miles in Arcgis, the distance for both were really closely similar. Which proves that within two points the distance between those two points is more accurate. In the first two projections the conformal conic and the mercator both gave different distances between the two same points and were not even close but thousand of miles of a difference.

An Equal-Area projection preserves the area and the areas anywhere mapped on a plane, maps show accurate sizes. This kind of map can show true direction from the center point of the map. The two projections above are Bonnel and Goode Homolosine. The scale on an equal-area projection is constant along the central meridian. The scale on the east and west is also constant throughout the map. For this kind of map the true distance within two points are measured on the meridian and are measured at two points in two parallel lines that intersect the meridian. Maps that preserve area such as these two projections, show the area of something on a map proportional to that something on the real world. This kind of map can be useful when looking for the density of population in different areas as well as how much land is being used by different factors in an area, or figuring out different things about an area, there are a lot of different categories one can map about. The cool thing is that along the central meridian there is no distortion. One negative things is that an equal-area projection could never be conformal.

In order to look for a good projection that you might need you need to know what you are looking for especially looking for a good projection that minimizes distortion in the location that you are interested in. The different projections try to help keep a balance distortion of the shape of a map as well as the area of a map, to try and get us to use the different projections for specific uses. There is no single map that will have both Equal-Area and be conformal ect.. therefore, we use these projections to best figure out things about the world while working with a two dimensional map. Although, there are distortions to every kind of projection they are all extremely important and useful.

4 Introducing ArcMap

               GIS can have much potential in the real world;it can store and organize information. GIS can assist in planning as well as in implementing.  It is a tool to present ideas of the spatial world.  When I was working with the GIS software I saw that the software uses actual physical structures of distribution in the system. GIS can create a map with a vast amount of attributes, it can connect different map lines together, where we can duplicate or model items from the table of content. Such as streets, land boundaries, add the different amount and kinds of schools in a particular area where our focus is, GIS has the ability to manage facilities.

                This can be a great system for different companies to use to manage their company. It can also be used to manage statistical data and many different components in the world; whether it is quantitative data or qualitative data that needs to be mapped. The use of GIS can allow for the different program operators of GIS to have their data be more coordinated as well as more efficient, especially because in this modern world most information is already out in the world, using this spatially integrated utility just allows for the data to be more organized into one system. GIS allows you to design different kinds of maps that will target a specific study, in one of my previous projects with google maps I was looking into the different health clinics there was in the area of Westwood, GIS other than just show me what kind of clinics there are would more carefully target the health clinics in the system as well as the specific populations in need of those health services that are offered in the city of west-wood. A lot of the clinics in the Westwood area proved to be mental health facilities GIS would allow the tracking and monitoring of the incidence of mental health cases inventorying available health resources.

               Moreover, the data that is being managed can also be correlated to one another; perhaps looking at what kind of schools there are in a particular neighborhood (being the area) and looking at the socio-economic status of that area as well as the ethnic backgrounds of the population of the area and we can furthermore connect it to employment patterns and the property rates for that area. Aside all that we can also use the data overtime in order to analyze and visualize different patterns and trends in the area. All this allows GIS to have a great value as software because we can use the level of detail to project maps of particular areas for a wide variety of uses. It is a great program because it implements a great level of detail to be precise when working with the data.

                Nevertheless, software can also have its pitfalls. GIS is a software with a complicated process. Users of GIS need to know why, when, where and how to input information into the system. It literally took me a and hour and a few minutes for each assignment 1,2,3 and for the 4^th and 5^th assignment it took me a little longer to do. This is because GIS requires a great level of detail and if one creates an error or skips a procedure the map will not be created correctly or errors will follow and we cannot continue until the errors are fixed. This means that it takes a great deal of time and of attention to work with the software. Another thing is that just like creating errors in the system, the results that we create on the map might not be as reliable in real life as we make it in the map. Whatever, is added to the system is also data that is collected and not all the data that exist in the real world, for example collecting only data from particular cities in southern California but not in northern California would not allow one to input data for all of California because data will be missing. 

Lab 3: Neogeography

Lab 3: Neogeography 

Most Commonly Clinics in Westwood 

https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=203500356155735687516.0004d4a0bff41e455043b&msa=0&ll=34.060001,-118.444827&spn=0.009724,0.012853

The purpose of this map is to analyze the types of Health Facilities that surround the city of Westwood. This map was created to look at the clinics in the area. As I was researching for the different kinds of clinics, the vast majority of the clinics in the area were mental health facilities, Mental Health practitioners or independant  Psychiatrist/ Physcologist. The main hospital building for care were part of the UCLA medical Center. Nevertheless, none of these places had enough primary care facilities where people in the community could just go in an get a check up. This is due to the demographics of the area being a  population of predominantly white middle class folks who have health insurance or their own private doctors. There were a lot of private health businesses, which shows that Healthcare in this community revolves more in the realm of economics than the primary health of the population living in the area.  UCLA also comes into the picture and all its students regardless of class background have the same UCLA insurance and therefore are in no need of a primary health clinic like the ones you see all over low income neighborhoods around Los Angeles. Neogeography is essential because you can see different categories of things people find important that they want to include in their map, and you are seeing that through their lens. This map as an example is to show individuals that mental health facilities and care are a money making machine in this upper class neighborhood, and to give thought as to how different health care facilities are spread throughout the Los Angeles County. 

Assignment #2 Geo7

1.     What is the name of the quadrangle?:    Bevery Hills

2.     What are the names of the adjacent quadrangles?  Canoga Park, Van Nuys , Burbank, Topanga, Hollywood, 


3.     When was the quadrangle first created?  In 1995 

4.      What datum was used to create your map?   NAD27 & Veerticle datum 1929

5.            What is the scale of the map?   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?
          1250 meters

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

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

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

          3,00000 cm

7.      What is the contour interval on your map? 
                        20 ft

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

a)       the Public Affairs Building;
            Latitude:      34 degrees, 4 Minutes, 15 seconds   = 34.070833
            Longitude: 118 degrees, 26 Minutes, 20 seconds = 18.438889

b)     the tip of Santa Monica pier;
           Latitude:      34 degrees, 0 minutes , 20 seconds  = 34.005556
           Longitude: 118 degrees,  30 minutes, 0 seconds = 18.5

c)     the Upper Franklin Canyon Reservoir;
           Latitude:       34 degrees, 6 minutes, 0 seconds = 34.123611
           Longitude:   118 degrees, 24 seconds, 4 seconds = 118.416667

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

a)     Greystone Mansion (in Greystone Park);
       600 ft 

b)     Woodlawn Cemetery;
       140ft

            c)     Crestwood Hills Park; 

10.     What is the UTM zone of the map? 

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

                    latitude  3763   & longitude  362

12.     How many square meters are contained within each cell (square) of the UTM gridlines? 
                  1000 Square Meters

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.
                                                   

14.     What is the magnetic declination of the map? 
                     14 Degrees, 249 Miles 

    

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

                  South 

                                

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