Using GIS for Teaching and Research

Chris W. BaynardUNF Dept of World Languages

UF Dept of GeographyFriday, October 12, 2007

What is GIS?• Geographic Information Systems.• A hardware and software combination to collect,

store, organize, analyze and produce map outputs of spatial data.

• Spatial data: locational data– any data that has a reference to a particular location on the earths’surface. Most data does have a locationalcomponent.

• GIS: combines maps with information tables.• GIS= information visualizations.

Attributes

• GIS data consists of:– Points, Lines, Polygons (located in a

particular area)– Attribute information:

• Height, width, length, UN membership, race, religion, age, density, flood zone, house prices, etc.

Geospatial Technologies

• GPS- Global Positioning System:– Radionavigation system providing location

(latitude, longitude, altitude) and time data. Can be incorporated into a GIS.

• Remote Sensing:– Satellite image analysis can be done using

image analysis software and imported into a GIS. Some analysis techniques can be accomplished using GIS software.

Broad uses of GIS• Business: tax maps, transportation corridors, locational analysis, shipping routes, land development.• Real Estate: home loan default rates, location of housing slump.• Architecture/construction: design, location, planning.• Government:

– Transportation: infrastructure design, maintenance– Military: planning and monitoring missions, strategic planning, logistics– Medical: tracking diseases (malaria, West-Nile virus), monitoring transmission flows, distance-to-

hospitals.• Biology: distribution of caribou in oil concession areas of Alberta, Canada, endangered species

distribution and habitat delimitation.• Ecology: Impacts of roads and infrastructure on surrounding ecosystems.• History: historical mapping of ancient trade routes, battlefields.• Archaeology: precise location of sites, settlements, artifacts.• Anthropology: human environment interactions (human ecology)• Geography: wide applications in physical and human fields

– Land-use Land-cover change: understanding human-environment interactions and the drivers that best explain observed landscape changes.

– Hazards: monitoring environmental risks and developing contingency plans.• Geology: location and distribution of oil and gas reservoirs, fault zones, minerals, river basins, flood

zones.• Language: where language is spoken, geolinguistics, isogloss, incorporating socioeconomic data

patterns as a cultural component of language learning.• Politics: redistricting, voting behavior, environmental politics, border studies.• Criminal Justice: location and frequency of crimes, drug arrests, distance to police stations.

Research Questions• How can I use spatial (locational) data to better

understand relationships and interactions between my object of study?– Sometimes patterns in our data are not evident until we map

them.

• What part of my research involves human-environmental interactions as they vary across space and time?

• How can my students incorporate spatial data and GIS in their research projects?– They interact with data visually, which enhances their interest.– They see patterns and relationships for themselves– on the fly.– Leads to question formulation and further exploration. Some

students will take off with GIS; others will need more practice/exposure.

2006 Gubernatorial General Election Data - Florida

BLUE RED

Charlie Crist

Jim Davis

Republican Democratic

52.18% pop vote

45.11% pop vote

•Does this mean that only 8/67 FL counties have a majority of Democratic Party voters?

•Some patterns may be misleading, but in any case, they guide to additional research questions.

Source: uselectionatlas.orghttp://www.uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/data.php?year=2006&fips=12&f=0&off=5&elect=0&datatype=county&def=1

Historic Maps: Map of Terra Firma 1736

Source: David Rumsey Map Collection

•How were colonial political boundaries established?

•Based on watersheds, indigenous groups, location of minerals?

•What were environmental and social consequences of such boundaries?

•What are these effects today, in areas such as Africa and the Middle East?

Looking at two perhaps unrelated variables side-by-side…

•Visualizing your data may reveal relationships that are not immediately apparent (though maybe they’re not related).

•In areas where variables do overlap, are there reasons to believe a relationship exists?

Related, unrelated?

•If we have data or a reason to believe that poor people tend to live in trailers, would it be surprising to find that medical waste facilities tend to be located where poor people live?

•Do these facilities expose a particular social class to industrial risks?

Foreign Language students can access, organize and analyze socioeconomic, historical, environmental or other data in the target-language for their research projects.

A group of French students decide to target French Guiana and use GIS to learn more about this Territory by accessing and analyzing demographic data from France’s National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies:

http://www.recensement.insee.fr/RP99/rp99/wr_refpage.affiche?p_id_nivgeo=R&p_id_loca=03&p_id_princ=R_DRP&p_theme=ALL&p_typeprod=ALL&p_langue=EN

My Research: How does heavy-oil production in eastern Venezuela affect land-use and land-cover and what politicoeconomic variables best explain observed variations among the different operations?

©CW Baynard 2007

Example 1: Change detection in the Petrozuata heavy oil concession in Venezuela between 1990 and 2000 using Landsat satellite images.

The areas in white show locations of vegetation cover loss between the two dates. Here petroscape expansion is evident, since natural vegetation was cleared to set up oil operations. Are other drivers causing land-use change?

Petrozuata was operated by ConocoPhillips (50.1%) and PDVSA (49.9%-Venezuela’s state oil company) until mid-2007.

©CW Baynard 2007

Example 2: Here, the 1990-2000 change-detection map is overlain with vector (red line) data of the 2005 petroscape. This vector data was digitized using a GIS and CBERS (China-Brazil Earth Resource Satellite) imagery.

By 2005 it is evident that much of the land cover loss is attributable to the expansion of oil operations.

©CW Baynard 2007

©CW Baynard 2007

Example 3: Using GIS, the 2005 petroscape pattern is used to create a 600m buffer zone that results in an edge-effect zone map. This map displays the extent of significant ecological effects that stretch out from petroscape features. With few core areas of intact vegetation remaining, this pattern of oil production results in high levels of habitat fragmentation.