The USGS says sea-level rise and sinking could claim up to 4,677 square miles of land along the coast if the state doesn’t implement major restoration plans.
Source: projects.propublica.org
This is a gorgeous interactive map which pulls together some high high quality source materials on a wide range of issues to look at this environmental issues of this region in a holistic manner.
Tags: mapping, coastal, environment, erosion, landscape.
“Henry Monterroso is a foreigner in his own country. Raised in California from the age of 5, he was deported to Mexico in 2011 and found himself in a land he barely knew. But the 34-year-old now supervises five employees amid rows of small cubicles who spend eight hours a day dialing numbers across the United States. He is among thousands of deported Mexicans who are finding refuge in call centers in Tijuana and other border cities. In perfect English — some hardly speak Spanish — they converse with American consumers who buy gadgets, have questions about warrantees or complain about overdue deliveries.”
Source: bigstory.ap.org
I have family on both sides of the line; sometimes the border can feel like and artificial an inconsequential separation, at other times it feels like to biggest reality in the region. This article provides just one intriguing example of how the border both unites and divides economies, peoples, and places.
INTERNATIONAL borders are often tricky to chart on maps. Tangible topographic features can be pinned down by satellite imagery but the boundaries between many states…
Source: www.economist.com
I’ve shared some links in the past that some mapping dilemmas with current events in Ukraine. Google Maps shows international borders differently and National Geographic maps show Crimea as a part of Russia. In this podcast we learn that this isn’t the only international border dispute that is displayed differently in Google Maps. Google uses over 30 distinct versions of international borders because there is an underlying geopolitical dimension to cartography. However, this article from the Economist is more explicitly geographic in its analysis of the situation and how the discipline(s) of geography/cartography shape the political situation; maps are NOT just a reflection of reality on the ground. To paraphrase the cartographer Andy Shears, there is a lot of teaching applications and discussion material in these articles.
Questions to Ponder: Why have different cartography for different audiences? Why does this small cartographic decision matter? How can maps be used to lie/stretch the truth? How to governments derive political legitimacy from maps? Why is Google the cartographic gatekeeper?
“In many cities, it’s become popular to hate ‘gentrifiers,’ rich people who move in and drive up housing prices — pushing everyone else out. But what’s going on in these rapidly-changing urban spaces is a lot more complicated than that.”
Source: io9.com
Gentrification can be a very touchy subject. What appears to be economic revitalization of a down-trodden neighborhood to one, can appear to be systematic removal of minorities to another. This op-ed isn’t a whole-hearted embrace of gentrification, but it might be seen as a critique of the gentrification critics.
Tags: neighborhood, gentrification, urban, place, culture, economic.
“While people often say that borders aren’t visible from space, the line between Kazakhstan and China could not be more clear in this satellite image. Acquired by the Landsat 8 satellite on September 9, 2013, the image shows northwestern China around the city of Qoqek and far eastern Kazakhstan near Lake Balqash.
The border between the two countries is defined by land-use policies. In China, land use is intense. Only 11.62 percent of China’s land is arable. Pressed by a need to produce food for 1.3 billion people, China farms just about any land that can be sustained for agriculture. Fields are dark green in contrast to the surrounding arid landscape, a sign that the agriculture is irrigated. As of 2006, about 65 percent of China’s fresh water was used for agriculture, irrigating 629,000 square kilometers (243,000 square miles) of farmland, an area slightly smaller than the state of Texas.
The story is quite different in Kazakhstan. Here, large industrial-sized farms dominate, an artifact of Soviet-era agriculture. While agriculture is an important sector in the Kazakh economy, eastern Kazakhstan is a minor growing area. Only 0.03 percent of Kazakhstan’s land is devoted to permanent agriculture, with 20,660 square kilometers being irrigated. The land along the Chinese border is minimally used, though rectangular shapes show that farming does occur in the region. Much of the agriculture in this region is rain-fed, so the fields are tan much like the surrounding natural landscape.”
Tags: remote sensing, land use, environment, geospatial, environment modify, food, agriculture, agricultural land change.
Source: earthobservatory.nasa.gov
“The episode begins with Stephen Dubner talking to parking guru Donald Shoup, a professor of urban planning at UCLA and author of the landmark book The High Cost of Free Parking. In a famous Times op-ed, Shoup argued that as much as one-third of urban congestion is caused by people cruising for curb parking. But, as Shoup tells Dubner, there ain’t no such thing as a free parking spot.”
Source: freakonomics.com
Everyone searching for a parking space has at one time felt that there are not enough spaces where and when you need them…did you know that their are at least 3 surface lot parking spaces for every car in the United States (not including garages, driveways, etc)? With 250 million passenger vehicles for 316 million people, that means there are 800 million surface lot parking spaces (that account for only 60-70% of our parking needs). Parking then is a much bigger issue that we want to believe; this is one of the reasons why IKEA is starting to rethinking their construction model that historically has been designed around huge parking lots.
Tags: urban, urban ecology, transportation, planning.
Webcams, Twitter, and data visualizations show you what’s going on with Bárðarbunga and Mount Tavurvur.
Source: www.citylab.com
“Here’s a collection of timelapses I shot during the past year. Amazing landscapes from California, Arizona, Bahamas, Florida, Japan, Taiwan to Italy.”
Source: vimeo.com
Part of a teaching geography is showing the wonders of the Earth in as way that will hopefully spark some awe, curiosity, and desire to see more of the planet. I think this video is a nice primer for that.
Tags: landscape, time lapse, video.
“It’s perfectly human to grapple with questions, like ‘Where do we come from?’ and ‘How do I live a life of meaning?’ These existential questions are central to the five major world religions — and that’s not all that connects these faiths. John Bellaimey explains the intertwined histories and cultures of Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam.”
Source: www.youtube.com
This TED ED Lesson outlines the basics of five major world religions which in turn have profoundly reshaped the cultural geographies we see today. While the narration in the video might be a bit dry, the visuals immerse the viewer into the cultural context from which these religions emerged.
Tags: religion, culture, TED, Christianity, Islam, unit 3 culture.
GEOGRAPHY EDUCATION 