Articles

Aerial view of the Shawnee Reservoir in Oklahoma.

Geography of Oklahoma

Marques Hayes

Oklahoma has a diverse geography.

flowchart that summarizes the whole learning guide to become a Web GIS developer

Open-Source Web-GIS Development Roadmap

Geo Contributor

This article will provide a step-by-step learning guide to support your Web-GIS development journey, based on the authors' years of experience and extensive research.

Side by side satellite images showing the water level in Lake Oroville between June 2019 (left) and June 2021 (right).

California’s Drought is Driving Reservoirs to Near Historic Lows in 2021

Caitlin Dempsey

The second year of California's drought is driving down water levels in the state's reservoirs in 2021.

McKinley Lake near Cordova, Alaska

Geography of U.S. Lakes

Elizabeth Borneman

Within its borders, the United States is home to a vast wealth of lakes.

Building under construction.

GIS and Building Safety

Mark Altaweel

Both during the construction phase, and after, building safety can be better modeled and understood using GIS.

Building structure captured beneath tree canopy. Image: VeriDaaS, used with permission.

Next-generation Lidar: Seeing the Forest Through the Trees

Geo Contributor

Next-generation Geiger-mode lidar’s high density and multi-angle looks offer a better chance of seeing through tree foliage to map what's underneath.

Figure 10: Illustration of Urban Heat Line on LST in ArcGIS Pro.

How to Use ArcGIS Pro to Map Urban Heat Islands

Jeff Oppong

This ArcGIS Pro tutorial demonstrates how to assess urban heat in a region.

A USGS elevation benchmark in Bryce Canyon National Park. Photo: Alex Demas, USGS, public domain.

Survey Markers and Benchmarks

Mark Altaweel

Benchmarks are a type of survey markers whose elevations have been surveyed as accurately as possible based on the technology at the time.

Book cover for James Campbell's Talking at the Gates: A Life of James Baldwin

Review | Talking at the Gates: A Life of James Baldwin

G.T. Dempsey

Talking at the Gates by James Campbell is a biography of James Baldwin, one of the most influential American writers of the twentieth century.

Screenshot showing the Esri 2020 Land Cover.

2020 Global Land Use Data

Caitlin Dempsey

A GIS dataset of land cover for the entire world was recently released.

Ocotillo (left) and saguaro (right) are two plants found in the Sonoran Desert. Photo: National Park Service/Alice Wondrak Biel, Saguaro National Park, Public domain.

The Sonoran Desert is Losing Plants Due to Climate Change

Caitlin Dempsey

Between 1984 and 2017, a team of researchers utilized Landsat imagery to examine changes in vegetation in the Colorado Desert in Southern California.

A map of the world with the ocean in blue and the land masses shaded to replicated vegetation for the area. The world is covered in white graticule lines.

Robinson Map Projection

Caitlin Dempsey

The Robinson map projection is a compromise project that minimizes distortion across the map.

Screenshot from a YouTube tutorial on spatial bookmarking.

6 Open Source Powered Projects to Enrich Your GIS Programming Skills

Geo Contributor

This article presents six projects with suggested tools, prerequisites and learning resources that would help you to improve your geospatial programming skills.

This photo from the International Space Station shows the location of Salton Sea between Imperial and Coachella Valleys. Image; NASA, June 12, 2002

California’s Largest Lake

Caitlin Dempsey

Floodwater from a broken irrigation canal gate in 1905 created California's largest lake.

An example of map vandalism where this area of farmland was given a network of non-existent roadwork by a user. Example from OpenStreetMap, CC BY-SA 2.0

Efforts to Combat Map Vandalism in OpenStreetMap Data

Mark Altaweel

Map vandalism is the deliberate wrong change or update to map data, such as adding an incorrect name for a street or place.

Cropped Equal Earth map showing the location of the state of Alaska. Source: Equal Earth Political Map, public domain.

Alaska’s Coastline is Longer Than All the Other 49 States Combined

Caitlin Dempsey

Here are some geography facts about Alaska's coastlines.

Map showing the world's ocean gyres. Source: NOAA.

How Ocean Currents Move Pollution Around the World

Katarina Samurović

How does pollution from plastic, trash, and oil spills move around Earth's oceans?

GDAL logo.

GDAL: Geospatial Data Abstraction Library

Mark Altaweel

The Geospatial Data Abstraction Library (GDAL) is a set of software tools used by GIS platforms such as ArcGIS, QGIS, and GRASS GIS.

Night sky view of the Milky Way rising above the snow-capped peaks of Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado.

Geography Facts About the Rocky Mountains

Caitlin Dempsey

The Rocky Mountains form the longest mountain range in North America. Here are some geography facts about this mountain range.

Earth observation data cube and its dimensional axes. Figure: Kopp, S., Becker, P., Doshi, A., Wright, D. J., Zhang, K., & Xu, H. (2019). Achieving the full vision of earth observation data cubes. Data, 4(3), 94. CC BY 4.0.

Datacubes in GIS

Mark Altaweel

Increasingly, Earth observation (EO) data are stored as datacubes, helping to assist the analytical process.

Geography of Happiness

Mark Altaweel

Geography can have a major influence on happiness.

Infographic from MapScaping summering a recent podcast about super-resolution imaging.

Super-resolution Imaging

Mark Altaweel

Super-resolution is a technique derived from computer vision approaches that tries to increase the quality of an image by employing algorithms and upsampling to improve image sampling.

The magnetosphere, or magnetic field encircling Earth, is seen in this image.

True North, Magnetic North, and Grid North

Caitlin Dempsey

There are a few definitions of north.

The magnetosphere, or magnetic field encircling Earth, is seen in this image.

The Adams Event – Did Polar Drift Cause Climate Change 42,000 Years Ago?

Katarina Samurović

Some 42,000 years ago, Earth went through several centuries of dramatic climate change and environmental chaos.

Screenshot from the Humanitarian OpenStreeMap Team web site.

Mapping Our World, Saving Lives with Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team

Geo Contributor

The “Mapping our World: Saving Lives” episode of the AfricaGeoConvo Podcast, examines the world of mapping and volunteering, with Geoffrey Kateregga.

Map showing the predicted trajectory of post-tropical storm Ana. Source: NOAA

Storms of the 2021 Hurricane Season

Caitlin Dempsey

While the official 2021 hurricane season officially lasts from June 1 to November 30, 2021, the first storm of the season has already happened.