My web presence

Sunday 27 December 2020

Coronavirus update - Part XII

[ Update: ONS deaths still rise slightly, NHSx cases resurgence continues topping 6.5M ]

Since our previous update, a third national lockdown resulted from the numbers that just keep increasing, as well as a second strain of the virus appearing but not split out in NHSx stats. That is patent in the comparative graphs below, updated as per above:

Friday 18 December 2020

Digital Nomads and Digital Divide

 Here is the Parliament   f i n a l l y    addressing the challenges posed by the pandemic, with a fairly comprehensive review of the facts they gathered.

Sunday 13 December 2020

Story-in-a-map

[ Update: see Update #7 in this story map on how to address topo inversion (#6 is this) ]


 While I have written a few story maps, the #30DayMapChallenge last month has taught me to tell a story in a single map. The amazingly detailed DEFRA digital terrain model has already been used here (go to Update 1) in the Cambridge area of East Anglia. So here is a synoptic view of South Cambridgeshire, with its story in the box. 

Thursday 19 November 2020

Coronavirus update - Part XI

[ Update 1: Still no sign of the second wave abating and deaths on the increase again
  Update 2 : next installment shows how the second wave numbers just keep growing ]

Further to our last blogpost, the second lockdown resulted from / is reflected in both sharp increases in cases passing 1.5M, and marked ones in deaths passing 70,000 and on the increase again

Thursday 29 October 2020

Flood preparedness in East Anglia as a Story map

[ Update: here is a final version for finer-grained subdivision of the same data ]

This is the third in a series of Story Maps after Sea Level Rise models in Cambridge, East Anglia and on Local Flooding in Cottenham immediately north. Full page here.

Monday 19 October 2020

Another Story Map on local flooding this time

[ Update: the next blog post expands on building situational awareness for flood response in East Anglia ]

Following my second-last post on a story map about flooding and sea level rise in Cambridge, here is another one about surface effects of flooding in my home village just north of there. Enjoy!

Friday 16 October 2020

Cornavirus update - Part X

[ Update: MSOA data only rolling weekly on NHSx site here or via the PHE API here
Update 2: next installment shows further marked increases in the second lockdown ]

 ... A lot has happened since the last update: not only may we have a second wave as seen in the bottom left-hand panel below, but also NHSx posted new Ward-level data in a format ready-to-use for coxcomb maps.

Saturday 26 September 2020

Sea Level Rise (cont.)... and a Story Map!

[ Update 3: see a follow-on story map next. on local flooding effects just north of there...
Update2: thanks to Esri(UK) and Esri folk who helped my return to 3D web mapping! 
Update 1: check Sea Level Rise model affecting Central Cambridge area on YouTube ]

Let's wrap up Sea level rise web map, poster and pirate map: having started with a simple map of Cambridge University Colleges indicating how deeply they would be submerged in a sea level rise scenario, let's map the buildings in 3D and show how far raised sea levels would submerge them! But first let's start with a flood risk map and finish with a combination to help with situational awareness. 

Monday 7 September 2020

Sea level rise web map, poster and pirate map

[ Update 3: action in Update 1 resulted in Trinity Hall declaring divestment... hurray!
Update 2: the next post rounds this up with a Story Map that includes flood risk
Update 1: here is a video of the action mentioned below, re: colleges divest from oil ]

An Extinction Rebellion Cambridge action, demanding colleges divest from oil investment, led to a simple yet arresting idea: map the level below 12 m. sea level rise each college would be under, if climate change we left unabated, as a means to help convince them of the consequences of climate inaction.

 

Thursday 3 September 2020

Coronavirus update - Part IX

[ Update 2: part X expands on the evolving spread of cased and access to ward-level data
Update1: Cases keep growing, not a second wave but a concern nonetheless as reported ]

After changes in NHSx reporting posted previously, we continue with NHSx case and ONS death data for England, and to  update our CamCOVIDinfo:

Sunday 30 August 2020

Google Earth to reconstruct a viewpoint

 And now for something completely different (apologies to Monty Python). I posted mid-2008 a view of Lake Como as a viewpoint in Google Earth, as per caption below. Three years later a post from Ogle Earth discerned historically significant locations via Google Earth. So I decided to try the same for a family quandary.

Wednesday 19 August 2020

Coronavirus update - Part VIII

 Last update showed progress in Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the UK especially in higher geographic resolution: Ward down from County but not yet Postcode levels. In this ever-evolving scene however:

  • NHSx no longer posts death data in its legacy stream (scroll all the way to the bottom), 
  • and cases are no longer posted daily (check "Last updated" date at the very bottom)
Fortunately Office of National Statistics (ONS) death data had already been tapped as in Part III. So our dashboard below CamCOVIDinfo is still on offer... do keep coming back for weekly updates!

Thursday 13 August 2020

Blog hits and trends

[ Update: 4 mo. later saw a continuation of the trend with pretty good average stats! ]

On its 11th anniversary, let's look at blog statistics and and draw some lessons from this compilation:

  • time scale in months with employment tenure below
  • number of posts by month (orange bars, scale right)
  • top 20 individual posts (red bars, scale right)
  • blog reads per month (blue line, scale left)
  • trends (dashed) with aggregators (yellow), none (blue) and tweets (green)

Tuesday 11 August 2020

Coronavirus update - Part VII

 Since the last update, NHSx has significantly upgraded Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the UK:

  • In addition to Cases and Death, Testing and Healthcare are on offer in various subdivisions. 
  • On the downside, we still don't have Release / Recovery data, which appeared briefly mid-March under PHE tenure, then no more under NHSx. 
  • On the upside we get Middle layer Super Output Area (MSOA) or Ward-level equivalent, a vast improvement over Upper Tier Local Authority (UTLA) or County-level equivalent data. 

Monday 20 July 2020

Cottenham Open Manifesto

Community Engagement 1, ... 12, 13 & 14


[ Update 3: Next installment in this series is here
Update 1: Item #5 has already started  at ARU Peterborough, see bottom clip ]

The previous post tallied three series - community engagement, and geo-info and pandemic maps & stats - since starting cottenham.info almost 18 mo. ago. Not only will Anthropocene East Anglia give a geo-historical framework for it all, it also highlights the opportunities and challenges in the future, which we proposes to address. Let's detail our proposed road map issued from all this as well as discussions with local councils, ecologists, and neighbouring village revival planners:

Saturday 11 July 2020

Cottenham Open Status Quo

Community Engagement 123456789101112 & 13

[ Update: this spreadsheet is updated at year end here ]

Terry Jackson and I started cottenham.info almost 18 mo. ago, so perhaps it's time to look at what we've prepared so far, in order to frame the Manifesto in our next post.

Friday 10 July 2020

Coronavirus update - Part VI

[Update: on 28 July both cases and deaths appear to be flattening at last, stay tuned!
Update: NHSx cases pass the ¼M mark with uptick and without "flattening the curve"  ]

The previous post and its updates showed the progress of NHSx and ONS daily and cumulative numbers of COVID19 cases and deaths, ending with some internal consistencies in NHSx reporting. Those appear to have been remedied now.

Friday 12 June 2020

Coronavirus update - Part V

Update 4: another week another uptick, more on health data trials&tribulations next
Update 3: the uptick smoothed... but "flatten the curve" certainly hasn't happened yet!
Update 2: and right on cue: UK coronavirus cases no longer falling, ONS figures show
Update 1: an uptick in ONS deaths reported a week behind matches last week's uptick in NHSx cases... flattening the curve? Not!  ]

Previously we reported on extending COVID-19 datasets down to Ward (MSOA) from County (UTLA) level. To recap, NHSx post cases and deaths from hospitals in a single dashboard, whereas ONS post death data across many systems with geo-socio-economics. And while we report on the highest geographic granularity publicly available, at the country level weekly reports are the common denominator across agencies. ONS posts data weekly 2-4 weeks behind depending on scale as discussed before, whereas NHSx posts daily 1-2 days behind also discussed before. Having calculated weekly data from NHSx to match ONS time stamps. they're graphed here (click images to enlarge).

Saturday 6 June 2020

Coronavirus update - Part IV

[Update: see next a wrap-up of COVID-19 cases & deaths data across NHSx & ONS]

The last update added ONS' COVID-related death data, which augment the cases and deaths posted by NHSx at the Local Authority level akin to Counties. The post ended with: Data will be added as found and/or made available: the goal is Parish-level data to mash up with our climate change maps. We already added in the second last update a map from Cambridgeshire Live, and we now see in Cambridgeshire Independent ONS "death data by ward and by villages".

Tuesday 26 May 2020

Digital terrain models help create a picture - Part II

[ Update: see new arcgis.com interface for another view of this here & under Update 5 here ]

The previous post showed how digital terrain, surface (add buildings & vegetation) and elevation (detail topography) models highlight geomorphology (land features) and infrastructure (roads, canals etc.). That was in the Cambridgeshire area of the southern Fenlands of East Anglia, as a complement to sea level rise models from coastal inundation, as well as flood risk maps from rivers and from sea.

Saturday 23 May 2020

Digital terrain models help create a picture

[ Update: next post discusses same in the East Anglia coastal area of the Fenlands ]

The previous blog showed how to effectively portray coastal inundation, as it progresses inland from the encroachment of sea level rise. These were base on 30 m. resolution Digital Elevation Models (DEM) from OS OpenData as explained previously here.

Thursday 7 May 2020

Low tech / high tech map updates, Part II

[ Update: the next blog details and updates this via a story map and new data ]

Part I showed how high contrast map symbology of Sea Level Rise can be transferred to a paper map to take around events. When asked if I could scan and reprint that paper map, I thought: why print a hand-transfer, why not print the digital original? Better still: why not try and enhance that digital map to really give an impression of sea level rise gradually invading the land?

Friday 1 May 2020

Coronavirus daily update - Part III

Update: see further updates at higher granularity geography in a later post
Also ONS numbers updated weekly maintain the difference with NHSx below]

Following on Part II adding local data for East of England, let's add weekly deaths (two weeks out of date) from ONS here and here, including counts outside of daily hospital deaths (two days out of date) from NHSx. Here is a graph of the raw data collected from both sources, since end-January onset of the pandemic in the UK.

Wednesday 29 April 2020

Coronavirus time-enabled maps - Part II

Following on the initial post, this is a presentation live-streamed on YouTube below - thanks Daniel P. Hoffman for organising How to do Map Stuff yesterday! - liner notes are below that, ten-slide intro and step-by-step after that. Note that while data are open and the process can be done on any platform, the coxcomb symbology (slide 21) is ArcGIS Pro, tho someone may redo it elsewhere?

Sunday 26 April 2020

Coronavirus daily update - Part II

Update: see a follow-up post on how ONS data augment the NHSx death statistics ]

Daily updates brought you COVID-19 data for England in a dashboard that posted according to your desktop or mobile device (tablet coming soon). These statistics from NHSx show, however, only hospital data. It's been noted in the press that cases and especially deaths outside hospitals are not captured. ONS captures death data but not in a single dashboard like NHSx and two weeks behind.

Tuesday 21 April 2020

Listen to the Scientists - Part II

[ Update: a later post shows another outreach tool, a poster depicting sea level rise scenarios ]

Part I showed web maps of London and East Anglia under 0.5, 2 and 6 m. sea level rise by mid-, end- and next century in moderate, far-tail and extreme IPCC emissions scenarios, respectively. The next post updated a simple approach to the public using paper maps, which are both visually arresting and factually correct. Videos are also an effective way to convey complex scenarios by animating those maps, and setting them in regional and local contexts. They help illustrate the climate emergency.

Wednesday 8 April 2020

Coronavirus time-enabled maps

[Update: thrilled to present at How to do Map Stuff: a Live Community Sharing Event
Update: The Times' Sam Joiner just cleared  England COVID map for London crowding using ridge map animation

Local dashboards updated daily from Public Heath England data are bolstered by other open data: As coronavirus affects most notably the eldest and youngest, Office for National Statistics age distribution is a welcome addition to case distribution maps. A static web map showed cases and age distribution side-by-side - a story map has the full back story on its derivation - Kenneth Field's "coxcombs"  post static time-series that helped identify here vulnerable groups of elder and younger populations, and to overlay them atop progressive case numbers over a set time period.

Tuesday 24 March 2020

Coronavirus daily update

Issues with the mnemonic link below? Try one of these! Mobiletablet or desktop
Final update: single URL for desktop, tablet and mobile: bit.ly/CamCOVIDinfo
15 Apr. 2020NHSX provides now COVID-19 daily updates from their new site
Update 5: further maps adding date of  confirmation and provenance in next post
Update 4: tweak two dashboards to work better on desktop and on mobile (see final)
Update 3: added population by age group for comparison, see bottom of right panel
Update 2: streamlined with one map incorporating all data + complete instructions
Update 1: mobile version added, added Persons Recovered (removed by PHE later)
Correction: user feedback showed importance of symbology to convey information

Monday 16 March 2020

Coronavirus backgrounder

[Update: more dashboards local to Cambridgeshire shown in next blogpost]

This pandemic affects us all. You might be reading this from home. And while social distancing may become the norm, social isolation needn't be: Use social media, ye olde telephone, reach out! Here are some local resources gleaned from group meetings, the twitterverse and simple curiosity.

Wednesday 12 February 2020

Low tech / high tech map updates

[ Update: see a follow-on post on how a poster helps get the sea level rise message in context ]

At last summer Street for Life (S4L) and Cottenham Beach Party events by Extinction Rebellion (XR) Cambridge, a simple sea level rise map was a hit with children and adults alike: I simply stuck on cardboard backing an Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 Explorer map of Cambridge on side, and villages immediately north on the other. The +5 and +15 m. sea level rises (SLR) from the 2006 firetreemap  were hand-drawn, but eyeballing it made it pretty inaccurate... and +15 and +5 m. were picked because they overlapped Cambridge and villages north, rather than anything scientific!

Thursday 6 February 2020

Listen to the scientists

[Update 2: in Part II, XR Cambridge Rebel Scientists produced a video tying it all together
Update: East Anglia Fenlands + London Thames Valley inundation models now on YouTube!]

This is what happened at the first Extinction Rebellion Cambridge working group of concerned  scientists, on the topic of sea level rise (SLR) among many others discussed then. As posted earlier here, the scientific consensus lies at 0.5 and 2 m. SLR by mid- and end-century in moderate emissions and far-tail scenarios, respectively. That meeting reiterated, however, the importance of an extreme scenario, ~ 6 m. SLR from the melting of various ice sheets: 7 m. is in fact the default SLR setting for the original sea level rise map, flood.firetree.net.

Wednesday 5 February 2020

Climate Emergency maps as easy as 1-2-3

Almost 2½ years ago I blogged then presented Emergency response maps as easy as 1-2-3 - in fact that helped spur on my current venture described in previous posts - and now apply the same to do inundation maps from sea level rise as well as river run-off.

Saturday 18 January 2020

Areas affected by sea level rise scenarios

Local Community Engagement 1234567891011, & 12


[ Update: There follows a tally here of what we've collected so far. ]

So far we've looked at sea level rise, timing, temperature regime and risk of flooding from land and from sea. These scenarios were developed using open data from Ordnance Survey and Climate Central for elevation models, UK Met Office for temperature and DEFRA for flooding. This was also put in a time and IPCC scenario context from scientific publications.

The second most important thing  for East Anglia Fenlands residents after the timing of such scenarios, is the actual areas affected by them. Having collected all the underpinning information, it was a matter of overlaying climate data with settlement data: infrastructure was posted in Part 2  from OS Open Zoomstack, and settlements were posted in Part 6 as a local Wikimedia gazetteer.