Wind As A Visualization

A wind map of the lower 48 U.S. states. The first map is zoomed in on the northeast right now and the second are screen shots of past days/times.  The lines indicate wind speed, as "delicate traceries." These lovely visualizations look like salt marsh grasses blowing in the breeze.  If it doesn't work for you, try Chrome.

From the site: "An invisible, ancient source of energy surrounds us—energy that powered the first explorations of the world, and that may be a key to the future. 

This map shows you the delicate tracery of wind flowing over the US right now." 

Thanks @dianamaps! She posted about this.

See the full gallery on Posterous

Google "Street" View?

Take a look at these Street View views of the Amazon Basin from the post at Google Lat Long. Pretty slick. I like the view ahead and the view from behind with the wake.

As my friend, Alex, says: Can't wait for underwater Street View.

And from NYT Science Times on Tuesday, James Cameron just might make that a reality.

See the full gallery on Posterous

How's Your Cellular Coverage?

I saw this fun site, OpenSignalMaps, that gives web heat maps of cell coverage for the U.S., U.K, Italy, Germany and Spain.

From the site:

"With your help, we're creating a comprehensive database of cell phone towers, cell phone signal strength readings, and Wi-Fi access points around the world. This data is collected via our Android application and uploaded to our servers, taking care to use as little processing power and battery life as possible.

You can use this website to browse the data we've collected, including heat maps that show exactly how strong signal is in any particular area, as well as all the nearby towers for your carrier. Take a look around, and feel free to contact us if you have any questions or feedback."

If you're zoomed in to, say, Poughkeepsie, the coverage is apparently along major roadways and highways.

But if you zoom out, it looks like the coverage in the northeast of the U.S. is "pretty good." Ha! 

Zoom to Germany and see real coverage!

Thanks, Diana, for the tweet.

What Participatory GIS Looks Like

I've been following the work of Aly DeGraff and her mentor, Kim Baldwin, as they continue building a space-use planning dataset for the Grenadine Islands. Here is a blog post from Aly showing the sausage-making that goes into participatory GIS or PGIS.

3rd Workshop for the Marine Multi-Use Zoning Plan for the Grenadine Islands: February 2012

 This event was the final workshop in the Marine Multi-Use Zoning Plan that brought together stakeholders to review the potential multiuse zoning scenarios. Since the second workshop (August 18-19, Union Island), Kim Baldwin (UWI), John Knowles (TNC), and I spent countless hours creating maps of the various marine multi-use zoning scenarios. Following this, a marine resource users (MRU) sub-committee convened in Mayreau in November to provide feedback on these scenarios and a smaller number of feasible zoning scenarios were selected as the foundation for Workshop 3. These multi-use zoning scenarios were then used as a decision-support tool to assist the group with the drafting of a marine multi-use zoning plan for the Grenadines. 

We held the third workshop in Hillsborough, Carriacou, Grenada and had 38 MRUs, government officials, SusGren interns, and facilitators attend. Here a group from the Grenada side of the Grenadines discuss the marine space-use planning of Carriacou, Petite Martinique, and the cays all the way south to Isle de Rhonde (just north of Grenada mainland):

  I facilitated the central Grenadines group of participants from Canouan, Mayreau, and Union with Katie McLean (SusGren Intern) as my note taker:

The group felt pretty good about the results that the computer program Marxan with Zones had given us but hoped to remove the Tobago Cays Marine Park boundary from the leeward side of Mayreau so that the entire island is not inaccessible to fishermen.

  We had a long debate about how to zone Chatham Bay on Union to accommodate fishing and tourism while minimizing tourism impacts (damage from anchoring yachts) on sea grass which is an essential food for sea turtles. There needs to be better conservation practices in the area, but not necessarily a conservation zone. Unfortunately, the northern part of the bay is the best for fishing, sea grass, and mooring causing a conflict of interest. In the end we decided on an eco-tourism zone which would limit further development on land but continue to allow for recreational uses and local fishing.

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