Computers, Society, and Nature

(written by Intro to GIS student, D. A.)

One of the many uses of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is in electoral politics. In most countries, political representation is in part geographically-based (where you live is how you vote). One could statically map this data, but GIS can be used to analyse and display political data in more user-friendly and dynamic ways. An example of this application of GIS can be seen in the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s coverage of the 2007 federal election in Australia. The website features a very useful, interactive map, and makes extensive use of GIS.

ABC’s geospatial visualization is based on the Google Maps platform, and it contains various layers of political data. The layers contain data on the seat make up when the election was called, key seats, seats changing hands, as well as the final predicted results. The various electoral constituencies on the map are hotlinked to pages of information that give an overview of the demographics, and voting history. During the election, it had live results of the constituency as the votes were counted. The various constituencies on the site are colour coded based on the party that controls them. A viewer can flip though the data and in seconds see how the election is playing out, where various parties are gaining, and how those gains are geographically distributed. Because all this data is superimposed on Google Maps, a visitor can even search for a specific address to see the constituency that contains it. This map provides a highly accessible, one-stop location for information about the election.

Here in Canada, the CBC has also used interactive maps to display election results, but none are nearly as user-friendly or as comprehensive as the ABC example. The most recent election, which was held in early November, was for provincial ridings in Saskatchewan. The interactive map displayed only the incoming data for that election. Considerable additional data is available online, but it wasn’t brought together. Provincial riding profiles were displayed on separate pages, as were the results for the previous election. The format was far more constraining, and provided far less information than in Ausralia. It would be great if CBC could take full advantage of the new technologies that could improve the display of election information.

(written by Intro to GIS student, T. M.)

Geographic Information Science is often used for constructive purposes, such as creating maps for emergency situations (consider our third assignment in the course) or spatial analysis that ensures the protection of certain environmentally sensitive areas (see our assignment #5). Indeed, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is often used for purposes that promote the well-being of people, such as mapping a city’s transportation routes to make commuting more convenient and efficient. But what is often neglected is when GIS is used in ways that are seen almost universally as detrimental to citizens. This can be seen to be the case when the sophisticated tools used in the field of GIS are used to gerrymander electoral districts.

Gerrymandering has existed for as long as there have been electoral districts to draw. The term was coined in 1811 when Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry approved a voting district in the shape of a salamander. Despite its storied past, Gerrymandering has recently become more precise in the U.S. to give a distinct long-term tactical advantage to one political party over another. Using census data and electronic maps, GIS can aid in the disenfranchisement of certain voter categories, such as women, ethnic minorities and other demographics that are statistically less likely to vote for a party. Multiple techniques, such as ‘cracking’, ‘packing’ and ‘stacking’ votes can be used to dilute the strength of one party’s vote to reap gains for another.

Instead of being used in harmful way, GIS could be utilized to make the drawing of electoral maps fairer than they could have ever been without it (as GIS was used in the 2000 census). It is important to note that any tool in the hands of a person with malicious intent can be used in a negative fashion. For example, GIS can be used by the laudable for mapping out aid delivery routes in Africa or by the vicious for planning terrorist bombings. This brings about some noticeable implications: How can we encourage responsible use of GIS? Or, do we need some sort of restriction to induce the responsible use of GIS? I’m not sure that such a restriction would be possible, or even desirable. But what is certain is that one needs to reflect upon the negative nature of GIS, a story that is so often missed while we pile praises upon praises on this technology that has, for the most part, made our jobs as well-intentioned geographers easier.

Other Reading:
GIS Code of Ethics

Bushmanders and Bullwinkles: How Politicians Manipulate Electronic Maps and Census Data to Win Elections by Mark Monmonier (JStor Access Required)

Controversies in Political Redistricting GIS, Geography and Society by Munroe Eagles

(h/t M. L.)

After delivering countless presents and tidings of joy to the people of the world, Santa Claus is finally taking his operations into the twenty-first century. Data was painstakingly collected by magical GPS technicians, statisticians and advertising companies, and all the Christmas elves have been trained to use state-of-the-art GIS software to improve the efficiency of Santa’s Christmas Eve global journey.

The elves created numerous layers of data, both raster and vector, that will provide Santa and his reindeer with vital information. A vector layer of lines joining cities around the world allows the elves to do shortest path analysis to ensure the trip is completed well before sunrise. Another vector layer consists of points representing every house in the world; symbology is used to differentiate houses with chimneys from those that will require a little more Christmas magic to infiltrate. Also within this layer is data on the location of naughty and nice children, which permitted Santa’s apprentices to make selections and create a new layer consisting only of the houses where nice children live. Raster layers were also created, namely one representing population densities within cities worldwide. The reindeer must know the location of suitable landing areas, and by creating buffer zones around these areas, Santa knows how many houses he can visit without using his sleigh. Finally, another raster layer representing the distribution of Christmas cheer will serve as an indicator of his success in bringing happiness to the people of the world.

Although this information will speed up the Christmas Eve rush, the ridiculous amount of received gift lists was also taken into account. Santa paired up with Google to determine the interests and wants of each person in the world, young and old. The elves simply scrape relevant search subjects and relate it to the attribute table containing house points. Hence, there is no longer a need to check each list twice, which will greatly increase productivity in the workshop.

Evidently, governments are scrambling to get ahold of Santa’s new geodatabase. However, the GIS technology at the elves’ disposal is far too advanced for non-magically assisted computers. Besides, jolly old Saint Nick is keeping his data as elusive as his formula for Christmas spirit.

For a “real world” implementation geospatial technologies for Santa, NORAD created a system to track Santa Claus along his Christmas Eve journey. They use satellites, radars, fighter jets and Santa Cams to collect data for visualization on the Google Earth platform.

Forty seven radars positioned along the northern border of North America closely detect Santa’s sleigh taking off from the workshop. Then, geo-synchronous satellites, that is satellites that remain in the same spot over Earth, detect heat generated from Rudolph’s nose as the sleigh travels all over the world. Throughout the night of Christmas Eve, information on Santa’s whereabouts is loaded onto Google Earth and updated frequently. Numerous cameras used only on Christmas Eve photograph Santa and his reindeer. As the sleigh approaches North America, Norad fighter jets take off from Newfoundland to escort it in safely.

Another clever system for tracking Santa is SantaGPS, but unlike NORAD Tracks Santa, users must pay for the full version. According to feedback entries, the interface is quite easy to use and is easily understandable by children. The system has features like World Map Tracking View, Satellite Tracking View and other novelties like Santa Sounds and Christmas music.

Unfortunately, I have been unable to find blogs by other people who viewed GIS as an asset for Santa himself.

(written by Intro to GIS student, J. L.)

With the growing popularity of Google Maps and other digital earth platforms, it seems that there are an increasing number of interactive applications available to Internet users. Many are targeted at consumers and/or travelers and others are geared towards activists and those seeking to better understand the world around them. One example is the Crisis in Darfur project, a partnership between The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and Google Earth. Another example is an interactive map of child poverty across Canada.

To understand exactly what sorts of information one is getting from these sources, one may want to question the way in which it is displayed. Consider the example of the child poverty map. This interactive map allows you to click on the province and “see how your province compares” with others. The information is derived from Statistics Canada’s 2005 figures and provides the total number of children living in poverty, as well as percentages, such as “children under 18 below low-income cutoff.” Unfortunately, the way in which this information is depicted can be rather misleading.

First, the map does not provide any information on sample sizes and for Alberta, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador (half of the provinces), “Statistics Canada warns of small sample sizes.” Second, although interactive buttons are displayed for the territories, when one clicks on the point, there is no information about child poverty available. Further, aggregated information is given for all of Canada, but when one clicks to see the information he/she discovers that the “[s]urvey does not cover residents of the territories and people living in institutions, on Indian reserves or in military barracks. Thus, considering the often extreme inequities experienced on Aboriginal reserves throughout the country, the statistics are most likely grossly underestimating the levels of child poverty in Canada. A student of GIS may also wonder about the oversimplification of the data. The differences in concentrations of poverty between rural and urban areas and within urban areas themselves are non-existent on this map. Thus, one can not critically assess “how his or her province compares.”

In conclusion, although interactive maps allow the user to become engaged in the learning process and hopefully become better informed about the world around them, as with any information that one acquires on the Internet, one must be critical of the content and delivery to assess the accuracy and presentation of the data.

(written by Intro to GIS student, H. C.)

Data access and sharing is an issue that I admit is very close to my heart. It’s hard to believe it hadn’t really crossed my mind until last summer, when I spent weeks upon weeks in the field in chest waders and 40°C Southern Ontario weather collecting redundant data. I say this data was redundant because most of it had already been collected by a partner organization to the Canadian governmental organization that employed me (the agency will remain nameless). And why, you ask? Because they had spent employee wages and Canadian tax payer dollars collecting it, but couldn’t decide how to price it out to sell to us. And even though the end result was equally beneficial to both partners, giving the data to us free of charge was completely out of the question.

On a government level, this seems to be a fairly common problem. The Commission on Geosciences, Environment and Resources (CGER) recommends that national policies be implemented to reduce pointless data collection. I think the Canadian government, as well as associated organizations on the provincial level, could benefit greatly from something like it. The United States, for its part, is considering something similar for Florida, and in the USGS Third Annual Caribbean GIS conference the advantages were discussed in detail.

Presumably, some of this redundant gathering is the result of uncoordinated guidelines of data collection. Taking an example from my own experience, the data being collected was physical measurements and locations of culvert barriers to fish mobility, and the other organization had not normalized barrier numbers, photo references, or GPS accuracy. For certain sites, then, it would have made sense for my partner and I to recollect the information we needed. However, for the cases where we actually ran into members of that organization checking their temperature monitors the same day we drove to out-of-the-way sites, we did indeed feel rather ridiculous waiting our turn to crawl down to the culvert and take ten minutes worth of measurements. It’s clear that data sharing would reduce the total cost and effort associated with any data collection initiative, but in the current situation it seems like data is more jealously guarded than shared, even between partners working towards a common goal.

(written by Intro to GIS student, B. Y.)

As a history major I was interested in finding practical applications of geographic information systems (GIS) in any field of history. Although we discuss possible applications of DEMs (digital elevation models) for Art History in class–it was about the Parthenon–I actually found a lot of interesting information and possibilities in archeology. In digging a bit further, it’s interesting that this topic is being widely debated and discussed. I even found a few monographs on the subject.

Within archaeology, the topic is known as GeoArcheology (which is actually more geological study of Archeology, but it involves spatial data management). ESRI actually has a page in its industry section for archeology. ESRI indicates five different possible applications for GIS in archeology: modeling, museums and public education, data management, research, and surveying and excavation. What is interesting about GIS’s application in many industries, but especially for me, is how interdisciplinary it can be. However, in a well established, and in many ways a very old field people may be resistant to the use of technology (think of my parents and computers and the Internet). When researching archeology and GIS you see that many people have acknowledged the boundless possibilities of this kind of union.

I’ve found out what some archeologists have had to say on the topic. According to Wikipedia (not always the best source), many archeologists were early adopters of GIS, many as early as ten years ago [earlier than that–Sieber]. Professor Mark Aldenderfer agrees that the field of archeology has been using GIS and even remote sensing for some time now, but these days the prospects are becoming more exciting due to innovations in the technology. What is most interesting in the article, which was a Q&A with Prof. Aldenderfer (the director of the office of information technology for the department of anthropology at the University of California- Santa Barbara) was the difficulties encountered by archaeologists with GIS. There are two basic kinds of problems: (1) data quality and accuracy, and (2) lack of training, support and infrastructure. Although GIS is becoming more popular in the field, Prof. Aldenderfer points out that there are still very few archaeologists who are GIS experts.

There are however, still many incredible things being done in association with archeology. A few examples illustrate this. One of the most interesting was about the mapping of mausoleums in China from the Tang Dynasty. These mausoleums cover up to 15 kilometers2, but there is not much left of them today except some unrecognizable mounds and a few very large statutes over an area of 5000 km2. Another interesting example is a way GIS supplemented data that was collected by W.E.B. Dubois in the 1890s. He went door to door collecting data for a book he wrote called The Philadelphia Negro. Nearly 100 years later it was reprinted, and the topic was reopened. A GIS analysis of the data was included and unveiled new questions and a potentially deeper analysis of a neighborhood that basically no longer exists (or at least as it was in 1896). These two examples are only a modicum of the information and the actual work going on in the field with GIS and archeology.