Web maps for the rest of us

 The previous post on Community Engagement updated the rebranding of cambridgeshire.ai, with accompanying use of "AI for the rest of us" (work backward from here) this blogpost title came from. One of the mentioned changes were working with Wikimedia, OpenStreetMap and Climate Central - my Esri Developper or Non-Profit stacks are free and frozen, respectively - I had a whole lot of work put on ice, the same time I relinquished my original website www.zolnai.ca. This blog is OK however.

"AI for the rest of us", Part IV

Update: follow on Part V.

 The previous post (here) recapped our purpose to use current lessons-learned in new tech to help our community engagement. Here is another way to use AI, to summarise and to decant - summarise in a structured manner - information from an article my colleague Terry Jackson at Cambridgeshire.ai (under construction) asked me to try using Google Gemini (formerly known as Bard, their AI tool).

Community engagement and social prescribing

 This follows an update on this blog here.

We recently rebranded Cottenham.info to Cambridgeshire.ai: the domain name is acquired but page not done yet finished; we have a prospectus as an evergreen document, meaning ever evolving.

Our community involvement over 5 years in March is one object of this blog starting  here (follow the links) and listed here. We engaged with various community interest  parties at the impact of climate change then the pandemic on social isolation in East Anglia.

Community Interest Company blog recap

As I move away from Cambridge to SW FR in my family home, I will also exit socials and rethink my online engagement, where I lost all my pensions! I have also moved my domain to a new provider, which preserves this blog, Mind the Map and My Year in Kuwait above, but loses the superseded web page and my email now on Yahoo. I do, however, stay engaged with my Community Interest Company Cambridgeshire.ai at right. See following post here.

AI Prompt Engineering Trial 2

 

Community Engagement 1,... 20, 21, 22 & 23

Updates: Medium prof channel reflects this here.

My post here, starting my experiment to convert my CIC (non profit) from Cottenham.info to Cottenham.ai, showed how can we use AI (Wikipedia) for good. My CIC started to address rural isolation in East Anglia in light of climate change and the pandemic (here and here). After a COVID hiatus forced this reassessment, the advent of AI piqued our interest beyond the hype in the press - see my companion Medium series on this topic, following four posts from The future is digital… only it’s not what you think! here - this lead into a curious interaction and my partner finding a new direction.

"So long and thanks for the maps", Part IV

 Over 1½ yrs. ago Part I said that I left socials and geo work... well not quite! I did quit all activism and will soon return to my family home in France left almost 50 yrs. ago.

I left now by entering the 2023 Story Map competition with "a story about conserving Earth’s lands and waters": East Anglia Fenlands: Peatlands Restoration to mitigate Climate Change sums up my work in East Anglia under Cottenham Open - introduced here 4½ years ago as Local community engagement - you can follow my professional portfolio either at top right of my blog home in desktop mode, or my story map direct. 

AI Prompt Engineering Trial 1

Community Engagement 1,... 20, 21 & 22

Update 2: See the next step here in experimenting with AI for good via this CIC

Update 1: See companion Medium article Stop AI scraping your internet data.

The previous post (blog) introduced how our CIC will attempt to find government source data of interest to East Anglia Parishes, in order to assist in creating web pages for all 254 of them. AI is used here to assist the task of seeking information then creating website templates over large numbers of sources to a large number of pages. This is in order to bridge the digital divide of rural citizens and their administrations, which are not plugged into centralised corporate or government ecosystems. We acknowledge the assistance of local Wikimedians (here), who are transforming voluminous IPCC (Wikipedia) reports into text the general public can grasp, retain and take action on.

Cottenham Open CIC rebooted

Community Engagement  1, ... 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 & 21

Update: the next post (here) will show how a blog post on creating maps, is created by generating prompts  using Bing AI in a Udemy course on prompt engineering following STAR (style-task-audience-role).

Re-engaging après-COVID what is in LinkedIn, below & Esri Hub: Part 1 outlined Community Engagement. Part 2 built a story introducing the community. Part 3 tied together community maps and climate mapping. Part 4 introduced a process framework for this community engagement. Part 5 expanded on our aim toward a community engagement.  Part 6 added our own Wikipedia Gazetteer as we build up the local landscape. Part 7 showed a draft Press Release introducing our social enterprise. Part 8 on coastal inundation scenarios adds some parameters in the debate. Part 9 on temperature anomaly scenarios further constrains the debate. Part 10 followed up village engagement process via recent Parish Council update. Part 11 added flood risks to coastal inundation and temperature regime models. Part 12 described Cambridgeshire Parishes affected by sea level rise. And finally here we introduce AI with a local twist.

A brief history of mine

Update: a duo of posts on my Medium professional channel here relates my early computing.

As I go through a 'hard reset' in my life and am exiting social media by&large, this may be a good time to pause and reflect on my IT journey.

Return East Anglia Peatlands to being carbon sinks

Community Engagement  1, ... 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 & 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.

"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... 

Land cover to study East Anglia peatlands evolution

Community Engagement  1, ... 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 & 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.

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

East Anglia Flood Defences Final

Community Engagement  1, ... 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 & 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.]

East Anglia Flood Defences Update

Community Engagement  1, ... 12, 13, 14, 15, 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):

East Anglia sea level rise infrastructure update

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

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. 

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.

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.

Cottenham Open Manifesto

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

[ Update 3: Next installment in this series is here

Update 2: see Fens for the Future and UNESCO Great Fen Biosphere Project

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: