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Friday 19 November 2021

Satellite data help for local housing issue

 The #30DayMapChallenge Day 23 challenge is "GHSL data", here is the section in the story map that will chronicle the map challenge when it's finished:

Global Human Settlement  for Northstowe controversial development NW of Cambridge UK, monitoring housing probability (GHS-BUILT-S2, 2018) and housing footprint (GHSL-ESM, 2015) against Esri 2020 Land Cover map extract with OpenStreetMap detailed base-map. Various blended overlays 'bake' the layers into a screen pattern allowing to compare and contrast past built areas vs. currently probably built against submissions. 

Tuesday 19 October 2021

More map art

A few years ago I used Charlie Frye's online lesson Explore future climate projections to learn how to use NetCDF and map temperature regimes - it's shown below in Patterson & Savaric's Equal Earth Projection. It became the basis for carbon emissions map just updated in the last blog post.

Wednesday 13 October 2021

Carbon emissions reloaded

[ Updates:  watch the updated bubble map video wrapping this all up at the bottom! ]

Late 2019 I wrote in A tale of two maps

LSE’s Leslie Sklair asked me recently to produce carbon emission snapshots for an upcoming book. I had already mapped CDIAC’s CO2 emissions since 1751, I updated with BP Stat. Review current data, and I created in Esri web mapping platform some dynamic counterparts to Carbon Atlas’ static maps.

 Those 2018 data were recently updated up to 2020, and further fuels listed by CDIAC were added to create this map, using Esri's improved web mapping:

Tuesday 28 September 2021

Return East Anglia Peatlands to being carbon sinks

Community Engagement  1, ... 12, 13, 141516171819 & 20

[ Update 5: Community Interest Company re-engagement is here

Update 4: actual Fenlanders interviewed in this fab blog post

Update 3: peatland restoration by numbers, Indonesian example

Update 2: soil degradation and climate change masterclass, TEDtalk pointers

Update: added Why we should all be obsessed with Peatlands at the end of the story map below ]

No. 20! Isn't it fitting that chronicling East Anglia challenges & opportunities w.r.t. climate emergency - risk of flooding, sea level rise,  vulnerability indices and now pandemic - uncovered the greatest opportunity yet: returning local peatlands from carbon emitters to original carbon sinks could dwarf any individual effort to mitigate CO2 emissions, currently the major driver of climate change.

Tuesday 21 September 2021

Sea Level Rise Maps #reloaded

[ Update 2: at bottom is the comprehensive water web map that followed this...

Update 1: near the end of the story map, see how you can style your own DEM tiles ]

 East Anglia Flood Defences Final showcased in a story map the entire flooding infrastructure framework for the region, both from rising sea levels and risk of flooding, complete w flood defence infrastructure.

Online discussions in the wake of the IPCC 2021 report broadened that scope back to an original posting almost two years ago Sea level rise models show ins&outs of climate change science. Here is that update expanding to England and NW Europe, wrapping in all the lessons learned along the way. 

Monday 13 September 2021

'Emo' vs. 'Goth' map looks

Recently updated this story map Maps like 3D Prints: Emo or goth? A map tour of special effects - adding to existing Ice Mountain hillshade style (augmented with Misting - the Emo part), a Sunrise Hack (in fact more like sunset - the Goth part) - all John Nelson's on Esri Living Atlas Terrain layers.

Monday 30 August 2021

"Start me up" reloaded

[ Update: watch this creepy reprise by Rolling Stones & Boston Dynamics on the 40th anniversary of the Tattoo You album ]

The 25th anniversary of Win95 launch reminded me of the cringy launch party livestreamed where I was then in Calgary. What struck me was in Rolling Stones' lyrics including "you make grown men cry" in the launch party was clipped in later adverts... 

Tuesday 10 August 2021

"With a little help from my friends", Part II

New how-to 

Part I showed how a map of DEFRA open data can help situational awareness for a West Midlands XR event. Having done a sea level rise and risk of flooding map for the Thames River valley near London last year, I redid one now with the lessons learned in the interval. The previous Sea Level Rise map from Open Data was rather onerous: I streamlined the process to simply load free & open data with only GIS styling; the resulting Build your own can be replicated on other GIS with listed data sources.

Wednesday 28 July 2021

Unlocking Open Data from a legacy site

 In the process of looking at land cover per previous post, I found Natural England's Natural Capital Atlas - their story map encouraged me to enter EsriUK's latest competition - their Esri dataset is accompanied by ample documentation under data.gov. To save us reverting to ArcMap, let's use the provided layer files and a file geodatabase in three simple steps to map our own region on ArcGIS Pro.

Friday 16 July 2021

Land cover to study East Anglia peatlands evolution

Community Engagement  1, ... 12, 13, 1415161718 & 19

[ Update 3: next installment integrates this + companion below in peatland assessment
Update 2: see next how to re-use, clip & correct Natural England's Natural Capital Atlas
Update 1: added Living Atlas, ESA & USGS land cover and Natural England peat lands ]

Having concluded a comprehensive synopsis on risk of flooding and sea level rise, an opportunity arose to look at land cover classification with the data below and two peat land experts who will help with this.

Sunday 11 July 2021

What is your 'ikigai'?

 Ikigai (生き甲斐, "a reason for being") is a Japanese concept referring to having a direction or purpose in life, providing a sense of fulfillment and towards which they the person may take actions, giving them satisfaction and a sense of meaning. en.wikipedia.org

Monday 21 June 2021

"With a little help from my friends"

[ Update:  Part II re-uses this and improves the manual for a London area action ]

Part of our mandate at cottenham.info is to raise awareness around climate change issues in East Anglia. A key part is to quantify risks around flooding from land during increasingly variable weather, as well as to predict what sea level rise would look like over time from melting polar ice caps. That combines respectively excellent ground work by DEFRA - see their Future Fens twitter feed - and modelling against topography by Ordnance Survey and DEFRA. And timing of sea level rises is an emotional issue: to balance the reality of the risk with questions around time scales (see comment), will help raise awareness without unduly raising alarm.

Wednesday 2 June 2021

Cambridgeshire COVID Info Portal 1¼ years later

Almost 1½ years from the onset of COVID, here a video of the info portal created using ESRI dashboard, inspired from the Johns Hopkins University pioneering hit - same tech with more data and expertise - our own info portal is a handy  bit.ly/CamCOVIDinfo.

Sunday 30 May 2021

Geo-reference an image

 This update to Challenger Expedition DIY Web Map is called an "inchworm" map, as monthly points appear to worm around the globe, with an inchworm's hump at times. This caught @miniboats eye on the approach to the expedition's 150th anniversary (see also a fascination Natural History Museum post here). 

Monday 24 May 2021

East Anglia Flood Defences Final

Community Engagement  1, ... 12, 13, 14151617 & 18

[ Update: see post #19 on an opportunity to use land cover information to study peat lands

This extends the previous flood defences update into a 3D interactive map. It also explains the DEFRA flood defences data update, in order to map the infrastructure complete with various sea level rise elevations. [Story map full-page here.]

Sunday 16 May 2021

East Anglia Flood Defences Update

Community Engagement  1, ... 12, 13, 1415, 16 & 17

[ Update: the next blogpost extends this into a 3d interactive map wrapping up this 2 years study ]

This closes the trio of updates on sea level rise timelines and infrastructure based on newly available climate change data, since this project started two years ago. 

Environment Agency's DEFRA not only manages a comprehensive Risk of Flooding for River and from Sea via ground observations and mapping, but it also manages all the infrastructure related to flood risks from the same. 

Let's extend our ongoing mapping effort here to include AIMS Spatial Flood Defences (inc. standardised attributes):

Wednesday 5 May 2021

East Anglia sea level rise infrastructure update

Community Engagement  1, ... 12, 13, 1415 & 16

[ Update 3: the next installment includes Environment Agency's flood defence data

Update 2: here is an update via Enviro. Agency's outreach twitter @FutureFens

Update 1: here is a story map augmenting the last two posts with live maps... enjoy! ]

Following on the previous timelines update focusing on Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Combine Authority, this is an East Anglia-wide update based on Environment Agency (EA) Survey,  Office for National Statistics (ONS) Geoportal and Ordnance Survey (OS) Open Zoomstack data. 

Monday 26 April 2021

East Anglia sea level rise timelines update

Community Engagement  1, ... 12, 13, 14 & 15

[ Update 3: the next installment updates the infrastructure aspects of this for East Anglia

Update 2: Cambridge could be completely underwater by 2100, warns Emoov report

Update 1: added slide deck at bottom, to summarize the last two years of work on this ]

After a hiatus focusing on Coronavirus and story maps on East Anglia and other mapping topics, let's revisit that moving target of sea level rise timing. 

Wednesday 21 April 2021

Tree planting survey - Part II

[ In the news: ‘Amazing success’ as community group plants 165 trees by banks of river Cam ]

The previous Tree planting survey 1-2-3 showed what3words used to located and post on a web map rough surveyed locations for tree planting directed by a tree surgeon, to help restore tree rows along the River Cam towpath immediately north of Cambridge UK. The beauty of turning out a web map the same day as the survey, is that shortly after, printing out the same map for tree-planting volunteers to take into the field was feasible almost as quickly. So after a 'high tech' Part I, here's a 'low tech' Part II.

Sunday 28 March 2021

Tree planting survey 1-2-3

[ Update: see next the fieldwork preparations that went on as a follow-up to this project 

Update 2: See also other prior actions & concerns by same group here ]

New Flamingos, my Extinction Rebellion group in Cambridge decided to do a little outreach - not unlike my other group On the Edge that engages with my village around flood preparedness - we work with the community to replant trees along the left bank of the River Cam immediately North of Cambridge UK. This afternoon, a tree surgeon accompanied our survey along the river bank and suggested tree location and density as we walked.

Sunday 7 February 2021

Adventures in AR (augmented reality)

[ Update 2: see Mars in 3D web view here for the latest imagery from NASA / USGS

Update 1: see "Explore Mars with GIS", the app and the story HT @PhilipMielke ]

And now for something completely different... Lockdown gave me plenty of time to be armchair explorer, and my latest story map Mars revisited open with: 

As NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover prepares to land on the Red Planet, let's extend what started on #30DayMapCallenge Day 24 bonus images displaying tantalising pictures of what looked like solifluction and rock glaciers.

Sunday 10 January 2021

Poster catalogue

[ Update 2: Anaglyph 3D pops up Central Cambridge halfway down under Other Areas

Update 1: added four effects to enhance relief maps on mountain areas at the bottom ]

Last month's Story-in-a-map reminded me I created a number of map posters, as a mean to reach out to the community, where prints are better in town hall or small group presentations, as well as wall art.