Fire perimeter

The fire happened in the center of LA County. That area is comparatively north of the large cities, and there is no large population around. The fire seemingly spread at the direction of north and east, the final fire area at 2^nd Sept. is over 600 km^2.  This fire is really serious because it was not controlled as fast as we can and the fire spread really quickly.

Influence of the highway and city area (“Los Angeles County Cities”, “Los Angeles County Highways”)

This map shows the fire influenced by the highway and city area. As I noticed that the fire spread from the south to the north, this phenomenon may cause by the wind when I first thought. However, as I look carefully at the fire area of each time, I found that the wind has no actual direction.  Then I found something about the highway. The highway is an artificial block of the fire at first. The northwest border of the 8.29-02:48 fire area is the same shape of the highway in nearby. It shows that the highway had somehow blocked the fire for a while and slowed it down at this direction. The same condition appeared at the 8.29-14:55 area and 9.07-00:58 area. The next factor influences the spread of the fire is the city area. The 3 citied which were just near the source of ignition slightly were influenced by the fire. This is because those cities are areas of comparatively large populations. There are more constructions which made fewer woods. So, fire was unable to spread there.

Influence of the water(“Los Angeles County Rivers and Streams”)

This map actually shows another factor, water. As LA County has no such big lakes or rivers, fires cannot be controlled safely by those small lakes. At the border of the 8.30-00:25 fire area, there are a bunch of small lakes or wetlands. Although the lakes didn’t actually stop the fire, for, the next 2 day after, the fire spread over the lakes, lakes, to some extend delay the fire. The 8.30-00:25 clearly shows that, fire spread just to the north and east, but it did not appeared between these 2 direction which made it strange. The fire cannot simply be put out by the water or sand because some of the fire is made of arson and fuel can spread very quickly. In the same reason, the water body cannot influence the overall condition but can stop the fire from some direction.

The threat

The North West part of the fire source is forest.  In that area, fire is easy to spread. And because those places have no water body, it is really hard to bring water to put out the fire. If the fire go all through the forest, there must be a great lose. And by the way, the highway is cut through by the fire, which means that some parts were broken by the fire.

In conclusion, the wildfire is spread really fast that only in 4 days can it cover area more than 600 square kilometers. Water bodies, highways and city areas had influenced to some extent. Although they can hardly stop the wildfire, they slow it down and block its spread to limit its direction which, in the same way, help firefighters to control the fire.

Reference

Fire perimeter.Greninger, Mark. “All Station Fire Perimeters (as of September 2, 07:02) Complete set.” Los Angeles County Enterprise GIS. 2 Sept. 2009. Web. 29 Nov. 2011.

Los Angeles County Highways. Mapshare: UCLA's Spatial Data Repository. UCLA GIS.  2 Sept. 2009. Web. 29 Nov. 2011.

Los Angeles County Cities. Mapshare: UCLA's Spatial Data Repository. UCLA GIS. 1 Sept. 2009. Web. 29 Nov. 2011.

Los Angeles County Rivers and Streams. Mapshare: UCLA's Spatial Data Repository. UCLA GIS. 1 Sept. 2009. Web. 29 Nov. 2011.

Los Angeles County. Mapshare: UCLA's Spatial Data Repository. UCLA GIS. 1 Sept. 2009. Web. 29 Nov. 2011.

my own maps

 This picture is showing the percetage in each county in the United States. it is clear that on the there percentage is large ate the east coast and the west coast, especially in California and around New York. This may due to the imigration at last century. In the area of California, some places have about 40% Asian, which shows that the Asian are the domaining race in this area. The graph is really true, as we can see that there is popular Chinatown, Korean town and Little Tokyo in Los Angeles county.

This graph shows the Black People percentage in  each county. We can see that the southeast of the States is the dominated. Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Missisippi, Louisana, all these states used to be the places where there are slaves. In comparison, the northen areas like Minnesoda seem to have just a few amount of Black people.



From this picture, I don't know what does it actually show. But we can see from the other side, which shows that, native Americans and White people are the majority in the northeast area. People in those area are conservative and traditional.

This one shows that, in the States, people are centrated in the coast. On the west coast, California and Washington seem to be nice place where people would like tol live. On the east coast, people would rather live in New York, Massahusetts and Florida. It is easy to understand the distribute because cosmopolitan cities are all at the coast. Most of the people all like to live in such big cities in which it is convinient to work and live. Comparitively, we can see that, almost no people live in the center. I believe that the center part is the area for the native.

Actually, what we can infer ffrom the map matches the reality well. We can see that, as the States is a multi-racial country, different racial people lived in this land. The map accurately shows the distribution as Asians mostly live in California and Black people live in southeast area. The maps does not only show the peference of each race, but also shows some natural disciplines, such as the economy of the cities at the coast are easily developed for the convienience of the trade by ship.

Finally, as the end of the quarter to learn GIS, I really feel useful of this software. First of all, the map it shows is acurate, beautiful, clear, and amazing. This tool is much more intellegent that other drawing tools. Second, this tool is helpful when the users want to analyze something or describe something. Third, the form that it changes the data to a vivid graph make it convient to present and use. Last, this tool is not solo, because it can actually connect with other softwares like excel or word, in order to transform data to different formation. I really like it.

Week 7 assignment: Map of Yellow Stone National Park

This week, we can choose our own map from the Internet. At first, I thought that I can choose a place which I was familiar with. So I decided to look at the area of Massachusetts. However, as a place where I used to live and a place near the sea, Boston area seems has no fantastic landscape but ocean. Then I decided to change to a place where there are mountains and rivers. As far as I went to search at the northwest of the States, I found that Yellow Stone National Park is a great place with interesting landscape. Naturally, there are mountains and rivers, which mean that it should project a really good 3D map. There is a basin at the west, a few mountains at the north, and a shallow valley all crossing the map from the west to the east. The special landscape is presented well by the color of the map, as the color changes frequently. The changes show that there is almost no plain area. I really want to go there for adventure and exploring the nature.

Map Projection

This week, the assignment I did is creating different map projection. This assignment is much easier than the one last week, and I just finished it less than 2 hours. All in all, I would like to consider this assignment as a further step on ArcGIS. From the assignment, I learned a new function about the software—new projection design.

At first, I had a problem on the cities choosing part. I cannot quickly select the cities and dragged them out of the contribution table. I tried to select the cities at the table at first and clicked the right button. I wanted to find a way to export these two single elements in the table, but failed at last. TA helped us by teaching us that we can use the ‘selection’ and make the two elements a new layer.

Then the other problem I faced is about the projection choosing. I don’t know which one is equal distance projection or which is conformal projection. I had been stuck for a while. I had searched online and asked classmates about it. 

Finally I can recognize them correctly. It was really simple to create the map and insert scale bars, arrows. At last I changed the colors and the symbols of cities in order to make it clear to recognize.

By these three weeks getting touch with the ArcGIS, I found it interesting and would like to excavate more about it. Take and simple example, by the assignment this week, I saw what the really world is like. As we always saw the regular map which is the so-called world map, we can hardly imagine that Antarctic is such big place, and that the total land in the earth is in just a small proportion. GIS has increased our knowledge and I really enjoy it.

GIS Review

GIS is really an interesting program for me. I was really impressed by its ability. Although all I have done was just following the instruction, I can feel that GIS has very strong functions.

First of all, I would like to mention the analysis function. The most important function for a GIS program is analysis. ArcGIS can automatically form the pictures from the database. This transformation system is the core because it makes data more practical. Actually, what used to see on a map are different lines, points and colorful shape, but ArcGIS made the work perfect by analyzing the information and data and then presenting them by graphs. It is really amazing.

Second, I would like to talk about my own experience. I used to learn such software such as AutoCAD. It is not really difficult, because when you start step by step, it seem easy to accomplish some work. Just as when I did this project, I did it fast and I was really happy when I finished every single small projects. However, ArcGIS is far more complicated than I thought. After I finished the project, I have viewed the whole settings and functions of the software, and I found that we can do more on that. This time, I just did some basic works such as drawing and adding details like legends and arrows. I seldom used the geoprocessing part. In this part, I found some interesting tools which are used to measure, draw or mark. I hope to learn more about the software.

At last, I think this experience is really good for me. At first time I do this, I failure to save it correctly. So, even though I had finished almost every part, I had to restart because I find it hard to restore. At first, I was annoyed and tried to do as quickly as I can. But the problem is that, because there were really a lot of important details I need to take care of, I made mistakes often. Then, I calmed down and viewed the instruction carefully. This time, I tried to understand every single step, but not just follow the instruction. This time I did smoothly and soon finished. I was proficient at the second time and more important, I understand. It took me at least 6 hours totally, though, I still appreciate it and is satisfied with my work.

my map

<iframe width="425" height="350" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" src="http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?vpsrc=6&amp;ctz=420&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;msa=0&amp;msid=205128835383227456109.0004aef7c242379eb0d2c&amp;t=m&amp;ll=42.384065,-71.091818&amp;spn=0.06703,0.067048&amp;output=embed"></iframe><br /><small>View <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?vpsrc=6&amp;ctz=420&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;msa=0&amp;msid=205128835383227456109.0004aef7c242379eb0d2c&amp;t=m&amp;ll=42.384065,-71.091818&amp;spn=0.06703,0.067048&amp;source=embed" style="color:#0000FF;text-align:left">Eat Chineses food at Boston</a> in a larger map</small>

beverly hill GIS assignment

1. What is the name of the quadrangle?

Beverly Hill, CA Quadrangle.

2. What are the names of the adjacent quadrangles?

Canoga Park, Van Nuys, Burbank, Topanga, Hollywood, Venice, Inglewood.

3. When was the quadrangle first created?

1966

4. What datum was used to create your map?

North American Datum of 1927(NAD27). Projection and 1000-meter grid: Universal Transverse Mercator, zone 11 10000-foot ticks: California Coordinate System of 1927(zone 7).

North American Datum of 1983(NAD83) is shown by dashed corner ticks.

5. What is the scale of the map?

1:24000

6. At the above scale, answer the following:

a) 5 centimeters on the map is equivalent to how many meters on the ground?

5cm*24000=120000cm=1200m

b) 5 inches on the map is equivalent to how many miles on the ground?

5inches*24000=120000inches=1.89mile

c) one mile on the ground is equivalent to how many inches on the map?

1 mile/24000= 63360 inches/24000=2.64 inches

d) three kilometers on the ground is equivalent to how many centimeters on the map?

3 km/24000= 300000cm/24000=12.5cm

7. What is the contour interval on your map?

20feet

8. What are the approximate geographic coordinates in both degrees/minutes/seconds and decimal degrees of:

a) the Public Affairs Building;

34degrees 4 minutes 36 seconds North, 118 degrees 26 minutes 21 seconds West.

b) the tip of Santa Monica pier;

34degrees 0 minutes 30 seconds North, 118 degrees 29 minutes 50 seconds West.

c) the Upper Franklin Canyon Reservoir;

34 degrees 7 minutes, 15 seconds North, 118 degrees 23 minutes 10 seconds West.

9. What is the approximate elevation in both feet and meters of:

a) Greystone Mansion (in Greystone Park); 520 feet

b) Woodlawn Cemetery; 140 feet

c) Crestwood Hills Park; 650 feet

10. What is the UTM zone of the map?

Zone11

11. What are the UTM coordinates for the lower left corner of your map?

3763000 north, 361000 east.

12. How many square meters are contained within each cell (square) of the UTM gridlines?

1000000 m2

13. Obtain elevation measurements, from west to east along the UTM northing 3771000, where the eastings of the UTM grid intersect the northing. Create an elevation profile using these measurements in Excel (hint: create a line chart). Figure out how to label the elevation values to the two measurements on campus. Insert your elevation profile as a graphic in your blog.

14. What is the magnetic declination of the map?

14degree east

15. In which direction does water flow in the intermittent stream between the 405 freeway and Stone Canyon Reservoir?

South

16. Crop out (i.e., cut and paste) UCLA from the map and include it as a graphic on your blog.