Powers earned 🐉

• Create (and own) data
• both on the computer and in the field.
• Solid foundation on which to create unique maps.

Extra credit

• 14% of class submitted.
• Pretty low for low hanging fruit.
• Maybe there's a reason. Let's inspect.
• Make your best guesses before class next Thursday.

Maps in the wild

• Find a public map and critique it.
• Begin to think about effective map design.
• Link to instructions.

GIS

• Geographic Information Systems
• The capture, storage, manipulation, analysis, and presentation of spatial data
• using a computer.

History

• Pre-1960s maps were drawn on clear plastic sheets.
• Havard's SYMAP (1963) was the first GIS. 🔗
• ESRI ARC/INFO (Now ArcGIS Pro) was released in 1981.
• QGIS was released in 2002.

1990s GIS debates

• Assumption that GIS and underlying technology are unbiased and neutral.
• GIS was now big business.
• Feminist Critiques of GIS 🔗
• Emergence of Critical Mapping (more later)

Define y

• Regions are socially constructed.
• Sometimes we agree on them, sometimes we don't.

What makes a region?

Appalachia?

Mountains?

Coal?

Forests?

Ecology?

Recreation?

Cultural?

Migration

• People move and take their culture with them.
• Diaspora: the dispersion of any people from their original homeland.
• Map of foreign born by county, 1850-2020 🔗
• Following video explores Eastern Kentucky.

Official?

A definition?

• Wikipedia 🔗
• Appalachian Regional Commission defines 423 counties as Appalachia 🔗
• How does your county compare? 🔗

A definition must be made

• or the page (or screen) will make it for you.
• You must define the area you are mapping.
• Tip💯: find a polygon that represents your area of interest.

Lab 2 analysis

• Let's visualize the data we collected
• and see what questions we can answer.
• Downloads: travels and campus

Symbolize

• the travel layer to see 'how much'
• Layer Styling > Layer Rendering > Feature > Addition
• Travel layer glows brighter in areas with more.

How much

• did we travel
• inside campus?

Steps

• 1. Clip travel lines to campus extent.
• 2. Add geometry attributes to new travel lines.
• 3. Do statistics on the newest travel lines.
• Demonstration video follows.

Which area has the most?

• Zoom and pan to find the area.

Steps

• 1. Draw a new polygon for desired extent.
• 2. Clip travel lines to new polygon.
• 3. Add geometry attributes to new travel lines.
• 4. Do statistics on the newest travel lines.
• Demonstration video follows.

🔨Geoprocessing

• Manipulate spatial data
• using a chain of tools.
• Output of one tool is input to the next.

Essential workflows

• Vector buffer & clip
• Raster merge & hillshade
• Toward remote sensing
• Bonus: attribute join

Clip tool

• Remove features outside of a polygon.
• Answers 'how much' questions.
• Makes it easier to work with large data.

Two versions

• Vector Layers
  • Menu > Vector > Geoprocessing Tools > Clip...
• Raster Layers
  • Menu > Raster > Extraction > Clip Raster by Mask Layer...

Vector clip

• Find polygon to define extent: campus
• Clip your locations to the campus extent.

Buffer tool

• Create a polygon within a distance of another vector layer.
• Input: point, line, or polygon
• Output: polygon

Buffer tool

• Vector Layers
  • Menu > Vector > Geoprocessing Tools > Buffer...
• Buffer campus roads to 50 feet.

🔍 Geoprocessing Gotchas

• Creates a lot of output layers. Name them appropriately.
• Some tools require the same projection.

Project a layer

• Right-click a layer > Export > Save Features As...
• Pick one of our five coordinate reference systems depending on your area.

Digital Elevation Model

• DEM shows elevation of the ground.
• One of the most used raster datasets.
• Often comes in tiny tiles that need to be merged.

Merge tool

• Creates a single DEM from many tiles.
• Input: DEMs
• Output: DEM
• Menu > Raster > Miscellaneous > Merge...

Hillshade tool

• Creates a shaded relief from a DEM.
• Input: DEM
• Output: image
• Menu > Raster > Analysis > Hillshade...

Remote sensing

• Imagery from satellites and aircraft.
• Captures light that humans can't see.
• View 2022 aerial photo (large file 400 MB) to find healthy vegetation.

Healthy vegetation

• Extract pixels with high near-infrared reflectance.
• Shown as bright red in image.
• Used to predict plant health, crop yield, and wildfire risk.

Attributes without geometry

• Most Census data is available as tables without geometry.
• Relate these tables to geometry
• using an attribute join.
• Download: states, counties, and census data.

Combine workflows

• to ask more complex questions.
• Identify areas with a lot of streets with high rates of poverty AND low rates of healthy vegetation.
• Are urban areas with trees wealthier than areas without?
• That's the promise of GIS.

Critical mapping

• When you frame your question:
  • Examine assumptions
  • Expose counter-narratives
  • Question or resist power

Gentrification

• "The process whereby the character of a poor urban area is changed by wealthier people moving in, improving-housing, and attracting new businesses, typically displacing current inhabitants in the process."
• Epicenter of Lexington gentrification

Critical mapping examples

• Mapshop Community Atlas
• Mapping Inequality
• Anti-Eviction Mapping Project
• Urban Displacement Project

Requirements

• Documentation
• Use two layers to ask a question.
• Let's do it live in class!

GIS

• What is GIS?
• What kind of question can a GIS answer?

Geoprocessing

• What is it?
• What is required to do it?

Tools

• What can a clip tool do?
• What can a buffer tool do?
• What can a hillshade tool do?