Online Soil Survey: CA, AZ, NV

Posted on by Posted in WebMapping

A couple of months ago I mentioned the role out of the NRCS’s Web Soil Survey. Today we bring you a localized soil survey page for CA, AZ, an NV out of UC Davis’s California Soil Resource Lab. While portions of the interface are very similar to the NRCS’s product, their site does offer some additional tools missing in the WSS.

If I understand correctly, they also used MapServer for the backend as opposed to ArcIMS for the map product, which while it doesn’t offer some of the features of ArcIMS/Server out of the box, it is stable and openSource so there is always room to grow.

Online Soil Survey: CA, AZ, NV | California Soil Resource Lab

Thanks to Dylan for pointing this out.

avsp GIS Day Podcast

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SE03 will not be from the ASA-CSSA-SSSA conference since I didn’t get any usable audio (what I have is good content, just not good quality).

Instead we will be hosting our first avsp GIS Day podcast for release on the 15th or early on the 16th. We hope to cover a bit of an overview of what GIS is and have a couple of short interviews with geospatial technology professionals. We plan to keep it to our regular 30-35 min format to make it a viable tool for the classroom.

Geography and GIS in Land Use/Land Cover research

Posted on by Posted in GIS_Software, Physical Geography, Remote Sensing

Dr. Richard Aspinall discusses the role of Geography and GIS in an interdisciplinary approach to studying Land Use and Land Cover Change in an editorial in this week’s Directions Magazine. He argues that GIS and Geography are and will continue to be central to the study of land use and human interactions with the environment. He also discusses a new international program that will focus on these issues called the Global Land Project

European Space Agengy’s Forest Mapping project

Posted on by Posted in Physical Geography, Remote Sensing 2 Comments

The European Space Agency (ESA) has developed a mapping service called Kyoto-Inventory which utilizes satelllite imagery to assist in annual reporting on afforestation, refforestation, and deforestation as part of the Kyoto Protocol, which is an initiative to reduce greenhouse gases. Kyoto-Inventory was a 3-year demonstration project, and will now continue as part of a larger project called GSE-Forest monitoring. The mapping service uses satellite imagery from ERS, Landsat and SPOT to generate forest maps and monitor land cover change.

You can read about the Kyoto-Inventory forest mapping project on the ESA website

Podcast Bunker

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We were accepted by Podcast Bunker to be included in their directory. Podcast Bunker, unlike most of the other directories, chooses podcasts based on the quality of the podcast. This makes me, as the sound person on the podcast, ecstatic of course.

What this means to you, our existing listeners, is that you now know about Podcast Bunker, so head over and take a look at some of the great podcasts they have listed.

Maplecroft maps

Posted on by Posted in Human Geography, WebMapping 1 Comment

Over on the Digital Divide Network, they mentioned an online interactive map illustrating the digital divide. I went to the website, Maplecroft maps, and found a nice interactive mapping tool that has thematic maps for a number of environmental, social, economic, and political topics, including military expenditures, perceptions of corruption, climate change, and poverty. The interface is pretty straightforward, and users access information about each country via a mouseover. It’s a interesting project, and they plan to add more thematic maps in the future.
Maplecroft itself is a Canadian British consulting firm that helps companies address social, environmental, and ethical issues.

ASA-CSSA-SSSA Day 3

Posted on by Posted in Events, General

This morning I sat in on THE session for geographers, it was on geospatial technologies and landscapes. A farily good session from my perspective. Today’s posters are fairly good as well…even included a few archaeological uses of soil (all from BYU). This afternoon was a little more quiet as I meandered through sessions, though nothing exciting. I had hoped to bump into a colleague that I like to harrass when I see her (she decided not to come to WVU when she was offered a position) but only her posters could be found, no sign of her. I fly out far too early in the morning and of course lose 2 hours going back east…weep for me :-)