I've created this blog to share what I know about technologies and techniques you can use to analyze and manage geodata. Geodata, as I'm using the term, refers to data that is linked in some way to a geographic or spatial context. That association can be in the form of geographic coordinates (latitude and longitude) or it can be descriptive; an address or a place name.
Not very long ago, getting useful information out of geodata required specialized skills and probably expensive software as well. But, like many things "digital", those limitations and restrictions are falling away. We have GPS in our cars and phones and a wide variety of geographic data is freely available via the Internet. And so it is the software you can use to work with that data. The open source GIS landscape is rich with options and the free and open products now rival, and in some cases exceed, the capabilities of proprietary systems. The capacity to acquire geographic data and analyze that data to find useful information is there for anyone who wants to take advantage of it. There is, of course, a catch. You still need skills and knowledge and It takes real work to make our data give up its' secrets. My intent is to help you overcome the skills gap so you can get to the question(s) you really want to answer.
My perspective on this comes from having taught online college courses on spatial data analysis and the use of GIS. There's nothing like teaching a subject to reveal the kinds of roadblocks that come up again and again. I want to share some of what I've learned about the typical roadblocks, and how you can get around them. I expect these topics will be useful to:
- Data Journalists
- Citizen/Community Science groups and participants
- Advocacy and Watch Groups
- Educators and Students at all levels
- Tracking the spread of invasive plants in the region where I live
- Defining Congressional Districts that encourage competitive elections
- Analysis of logs from 19th century sailing vessels to capture historic climate data
- Monitoring the health of a keystone species to spot changes in an ecosystem
- Creating an online "trip mapper" for planning trips that connect different forms of public transportation
- Mapping "Best Routes for Bicycles" in a city
- Validating government water quality reports
- Mapping and analyzing the spread of a disease that is killing bats
- Mapping the connections among Native American peoples using linguistic patterns
I hope you will find this to be useful and interesting. Please let me know what you think.
