New Ordnance Survey Data Layers

 New data is really important to those who make maps.

Ordnance Survey data layers are being added periodically, which allows people to investigate the landscape in more detail.

Field Boundary Data

The new Field Boundary data covers both rural and moorland areas across Great Britain and identifies the nature of field boundary features, for vegetated and manmade features such as hedgerows and stonewalls, captured through an automated process. Other characteristics are also included in the dataset such as the height and width of vegetated field boundary features.

OS Land Cover

OS is also enhancing the land cover information in the OS NGD, by linking to habitat classification schemes and providing percentage coverage information for natural land cover features. This will provide a consistent baseline of the natural environment that supports customers with habitat monitoring. The land cover enhancements cover natural land cover features across Great Britain.

Vernacular Names Tool

The Ordnancc Survey has been collecting vernacular place names. 

It has produced an additional set of information on its mapping database which includes 9000 names which local people use to describe places which may have a more official name. This is to help locate people whose problem may occur in a location which they know by a vernacular name...

The Guardian has an article on the work.

The data layer produced is called the VNT or Vernacular Names Tool. This article explains more.

The database, hosted in the OS National Geographic Database, is a replacement for FINTAN, a mapping tool created more than ten years ago in response to a request from HM Coastguard. It was created in partnership with OS and was designed to allow users to upload any local name, alternative name or nickname for a coastal feature alongside the accurate location or existing geographic name in the mapping database. These include cliffs, caves, sandbanks, coastal car parks and buildings to name a few. This ensured that HM Coastguard responders could get to emergencies – however their location was described – with much greater confidence and speed.

On a visit to the OS HQ, the Princess Royal added her own alternative name to the database.

The Coal Authority Maps

The Coal Authority has a GIS site where you can identify the locations of previous activity to mine for coal.

This was a big part of my life growing up in South Yorkshire. My grandfather and other family members were coal miners and we knew there were coal seams running under our village and surrounding areas - I remember a house collapsing from subsidence once. Now you can find these signs of the past on this map from the Coal Authority.

The miners' strike was something else I remember well. Several friends spent a lot of time marching and fund raising. Our minibus was occasionally stopped when carrying out undergraduate fieldwork as the police thought we might be flying pickets.

The village where I lived was only a few miles from the Maltby Colliery, and there was a lot of ill feeling between those who stayed out and those who went back. Orgreave was only about four miles from home too and the TV coverage of the time was all over the local news in the evening. This was a desperate time for many. There has been a number of recent TV dramas and documentaries as it is now coming up to 40 years on from the strike - amazingly.

All aboard the Windrush Line

A lot of coverage of this story this week, not all of it positive. 

Londoners have become very familiar with the names of the underground lines, including the new Elizabeth Line (originally Cross Rail) and the Jubilee line (with their Royal choice of names). Now Sadiq Khan has outlined new names for the overground lines to aid discussions about particular routes - Londoners and visitors will quickly adapt to their new names, but there have been some predictable moans about the nature of the names... from the usual suspects.

In Year 7, we study the story of the Windrush generation, through the use of the book 'Windrush Child' from the late Benjamin Zephaniah.

This BBC News page explains what the names of each of the lines means.

Image source: Transport for London

The Windrush Line will run through several areas associated with the Windrush migrants (in London at least).

Hunger Map from the World Food Programme

 

 I've featured this before, but it's worth another look.

🌎 Geography teachers here is a brilliant map https://t.co/VL1sbJ3Ytb by @WFP it shows food consumption, conflicts and natural hazards live that you can use in your classrooms.

— Charlie Jordan (@MINIJ0RDY) September 12, 2023

A range of data which is dramatically presented and makes a vivid impression.

Mapping the Great Kanto Earthquake

 

Over the years, I've had a great many links suggested by Keir Clarke's Google Maps Mania (now Maps Mania).

Yesterday saw the centenary of the Great Kanto Earthquake which led to fires which devastated the wooden buildings of Tokyo at the time. The Nikkei newspaper created a map which can be read in English (or Japanese).

Japanese newspaper Nikkei has marked the 100th anniversary of the Great Kantō earthquake with a mapped reconstruction of the resulting fires which destroyed nearly half of Tokyo.https://t.co/S4LkiKLFXb pic.twitter.com/DsYmH2lqLo

— gmapsmania mapstodon.space/@mapsmania (@gmapsmania) September 2, 2023

 

Wildfire Map using ESRI Data

A new map, using data from ESRI's Living Atlas. Zoom into an area to see what Wildfires are active.

Thanks to Addy Pope for the tipoff.

Very informative Wildfire Aware dashboard from the @LivingAtlas team that brings home the scale of this seasons fires - https://t.co/a6cJVG5hES #wildfire pic.twitter.com/t2ZCaPVjAa

— Addy Pope (@GIS4HE) August 18, 2023

The 22 data layers used in this application can be found in ArcGIS Living Atlas:

Environmental Protection Agency – Ecoregions and Air Quality Current and Tomorrow
National Aeronautics and Space Administration – MODIS and VIIRS
National Weather Service – Temperature Forecast, Wind Speed, Weather Watches and Warnings
US Department of Agriculture – Drought Monitor
US Census – Census 2020 Redistricting Blocks and American Community Survey
USDA Forest Service – Wildfire Burned Areas, Wildfire Hazard Potential, Forest Type Groups, and Forest Carbon Pools
US Fish and Wildlife Service – Critical Habitat
US Geological Survey – National Land Cover Database and Protected Areas Database
Integrated Reporting of Wildland-Fire Information (IRWIN) – Wildfire Points
National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) – Wildfire Perimeters
Nature Serve – Imperiled Species
Esri – 2023 Demographics and World Ecological Landforms

Wartime imagery released

 

Historic England has opened up an archive of aerial photography from the Second World War. 

There are quite a lot of images of Norfolk as there were a lot of airfields operating at the time, with personnel from a range of countries. There were several airfields within five miles of where I live now, and there is a particular curve in the road near Beeston where I can imagine that the landscape is absolutely unchanged since the 1940s and would be recognisable by anyone from back then. It also reminds me of the temporal connections made in Powell and Pressburger's 'A Canterbury Tale'.

A collection of Second World War aerial photography has been made accessible to the public for the first time. 📷

The photographs were taken by the United States Army Air Forces Photographic Reconnaissance units in England in 1943 and 1944.

See more. ➡️ https://t.co/ziBhpkjQFa pic.twitter.com/VEX8KeompG

— Historic England (@HistoricEngland) August 16, 2023

There is also a link to a whole generation of GA Presidents of the 1940s-1960s, who worked in aerial reconnaisance and image interpretation during the Second World War.

Check out the relevant posts on this link, with thanks to Brendan Conway for additional research. This is an area that deserves a little more attention I think.

Neighbourhood Colors

 

Another tipoff from the excellent Google Maps Mania.

How is land used in your neighborhood?

Neighborhood Colors works out the percentage of local land zoned for residential, business and recreational use. It even allows you to print out a postcard visualization of the results.https://t.co/wyWuXhRuin pic.twitter.com/K6feGbcG6i

— gmapsmania mapstodon.space/@mapsmania (@gmapsmania) August 14, 2023

It works for Berlin only... and creates a postcard with proportional shaded areas showing land use in your chosen neighbourhood.

GI Pedagogy

I previously posted about my regret at the ending of the UK's involvement with the ERASMUS+ programme following our withdrawal from the EU. Whenever I've met and worked with European friends and colleagues since then, they have expressed their sadness and bafflement at that decision. We can only hope that it might be reversed at some point.

The GI Pedagogy project was my 'final' involvement and last week we got the final assessment back from the British Council with a VERY GOOD assessment, which had improved on the original project bid - which is always good to see, and which commented on the quality of the outputs and support for teachers.

If you are thinking of increasing your use of GIS in the classroom please check out our website for the resources that we created as part of the project. The innovative aspect of our work is the use of Rosenshine's Principles to help inform the teaching with GIS.

These include:

- Our lesson template.

- Research reports on best practice when teaching with GIS. I contributed to all of these, but was particularly involved in the creation of the TOOLKIT. I'm very pleased with how that turned out.

- Check out our MOOC - free access, and full of useful videos and other resources

- A StoryMap of outcomes from people who have used our model.

Hoodmaps.com

 

A cross posting from my Fieldnotes from Iceland blog. Check out the almost 500 posts on Iceland here...

This map site provides visual summaries of the neighbourhood demographics of a number of cities around the world. It's not meant to be entirely serious, but is worth taking a look at.

Here's the result for Sheffield.

Mapmaker - launched in Beta

 MapMaker was launched at the ESRI User Conference earlier in the week.

As part of a great new collaboration with with National Geographic Society we are launching a new, free, mapping solution for schools, MapMaker 3.0 (beta). 2D, 3D, curated content, innovative tools, designed for schools. Give is a try at https://t.co/6IStrdoCcR #geographyteacher pic.twitter.com/Rz1vp8cfDF

— Jason Sawle (@GIS4Schools) July 9, 2023

Back in 2010-12 I travelled the country leading GIS sessions with Jason Sawle, using an ESRI product called Digital Worlds.  We visited cities up and down the country at the time. Jason is now Global Schools Manager at ESRI, and was involved in the launch of MapMaker.

The new National Geographic MapMaker has some unique features for teaching. Use the weather simulation tool in 3D to aide understanding and reduce cognitive load for flooding case studies. Try it for yourself at https://t.co/92wRmaZknk#EsriUC2023 #geographyteacher pic.twitter.com/7G0d4zyf5J

— Jason Sawle (@GIS4Schools) July 11, 2023

Try the tool here:

This might be the tool that you find the most useful from the various ESRI options.

Streets GL

You can follow planes in real-time and in 3D at any airport in the world on this interactive map.https://t.co/AqLcbE2xS1 pic.twitter.com/hsxY4ERqCk

— gmapsmania mapstodon.space/@mapsmania (@gmapsmania) May 17, 2023

Thanks to Keir and colleagues for the tipoff to this useful resource.

Evening falls over King's Ely.

 

Pathways to Ancient Britain - R4 and Virtual Tour

Radio 4's 'Costing the Earth' series broadcast a programme on the 18th of April called 'Losing our History'. It featured the Norfolk Coast and the village of Happisburgh. 

There are over 400 episodes available.

A recent issue of the programme explored the impact of erosion on historical remains.

For more on this, visit the Pathways to Ancient Britain (PAB) virtual tour of the area around Happisburgh. There are some particularly important archaeological sites on the coast.

This is developed using Google Earth.

GIS - a new Tutor2U blog series

 GIS is a growth area, but one which many teachers are still unsure about.

I worked with Brendan Conway on the GI Pedagogy project, which has now concluded. Our resources are available on the hub.

Brendan has also teamed up with Tutor2U to produce a series of posts about GIS.

The first two are now up. A link to the first is here:

First in a series of blogposts about teaching with GIS, from our in-house expert @mildthing99 who is an advocate of making GIS 'part of furniture' in your classroom #everydayGIS https://t.co/wp2oSkmt7z

— tutor2u Geography (@tutor2uGeog) April 25, 2023

& the second is here:

Good afternoon!
We have added the latest in a series of blogs about GIS to the website today - written by @mildthing99 (who has an incredible amount of knowledge with GIS!)... @tutor2uGeog @tutor2u #geographyteacher https://t.co/3nDvs74ofA

— woollyvix (@woollyvix) May 11, 2023