Urban & Environmental Modeler’s Datakit
May 22nd, 2008
The Urban & Environmental Footprint 2050 Project at the Institute of Urban and Regional Development (IURD) at UC, Berkeley have constructed a GIS toolkit consisting of a series of ESRI shapefiles and grids describing, “many of the physical, administrative, transportation, demographic, economic, land use and land cover, and environmental characteristics of the 48 contiguous United States.” The data were pulled together by the Penn Institute for Urban Research and and the IURD. Layers include boundary files, census block files and attributes, transportation networks, major employment center information, measures of job accessibility, boundaries of federal lands, elevation and slope data, location of water bodies, and location of wetlands. The data are free and can be used for any purpose with attribution. A great new, free resource!
Myanmar cyclone
May 6th, 2008
National Dialogue on Access to Environmental Information
April 15th, 2008
The EPA has launched the “National Dialogue on Access to Environmental Information.” They are interested in obtaining your views on how to improve access to environmental information. Your input will help EPA develop a strategy to provide better access and delivery to environmental information. They would like to know the following:
* What you’re looking for
* How you use the information you find
* The words you use when you search for environmental information
* How you like to get your information (formats, styles, etc., as well as email vs. text vs. maps, etc.)
* Who you are (categories, not necessarily your name)
You can comment privately, or post on the public forum. Check out what other people are saying too.
The commenting period is open until the end of June.
What do you think about scientist-bloggers?
April 2nd, 2008
Read this point-counterpoint on science blogging in the latest issue of Nature Geoscience*, and let us know what you think.
*available to Stanford readers via Branner Library.
For your viewing pleasure: Our Changing Planet
February 14th, 2008
Our Changing Planet is a public television series focusing on planet Earth. All episodes are written and produced by the Upper Midwest Aerospace Consortium (UMAP). The series features 90-second episodes “whose purpose is to enhance public understanding of the global environment and the changes it is undergoing.”
See the episode menu for details. Topics include atmospheric changes, earth effects, ecosystem impacts, human impact, land use, water and sea level.
via EOS, Vol. 98, No. 4, p. 30.
Google Experimental Search
January 30th, 2008
Take a look at Google Experimental Search. They’re offering five experimental features to enhance your searching: alternate views for search results, keyword suggestions, keyboard shortcuts, left-hand search navigation, and right-hand contextual search navigation.
I tried two. First, the keyword suggestions:
For a librarian, this wasn’t a very interesting option.
Next I tried alternative views. This was nice:
Once again I searched for “gold rush,” and although it’s hard to see in the example above, with the timeline view, you have a visualization of the 19th century and its related gold rush activity. I think this will be a nice aid for the students in our California Gold Rush class.
What do you think?
two links for a tuesday.
October 16th, 2007
A couple of things that have passed my way lately that you all might enjoy, in no particular order:
- The USGS goals for the coming decade [Science via geonet]. A nice synopsis if you’re curious about the future directions of research at the USGS.
- From the Electronic Green Journal, an article by Fred Stoss with suggestions for further reading/viewing to understand the science behind An Inconvenient Truth.
Extensive land cover imagery archive
October 13th, 2007
The University of Michigan’s Global Land Cover Facility has spent years building up an impressive collection of remotely sensed satellite data including ASTER, MODIS, and Landsat. The collection now tops out at over 15 terabytes of imagery, all of which can be downloaded for free. A list of data and derivative products is also included. Check here first for historical worldwide satellite coverage.
Imaggeo
October 11th, 2007
Cloud Stratification, Baikal Lake Shore; PARIS Jean-Daniel, LSCE/IPSL
The image above comes from Imaggeo, the online open access geosciences image repository of the European Geosciences Union. The archive is searchable by topic, geographic region, and keywords. If you’d like to share geo-related imagery with others, go ahead and submit some photos to this repository. The images are distributed by EGU under a Creative Commons license–they can be used by other scientists and the press, but you retain full rights to your images. To learn more, visit Imaggeo, or Creative Commons.
Lyell Collection is up.
October 10th, 2007
Stanford readers, we now have access to the Lyell Collection from the Geological Society of London. Check it out and let us know what you think.
From the site:
The Lyell Collection , created to mark the Geological Society of London’s 200th anniversary in 2007, represents one of the largest integrated collections of online Earth science literature available. Bringing together Journal of the Geological Society, Quarterly Journal of Engineering Geology and Hydrogeology, Special Publications and key book series on a single electronic platform,the Lyell Collection is a unique resource for researcher and student alike.