Caitlin Dempsey

Caitlin Dempsey is a geographer, writer, and founder and editor of Geography Realm. She holds bachelor's and master's degrees in Geography from UCLA and a Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) from San José State University.

For more than two decades, she has written about geography, maps, geographic information systems (GIS), remote sensing, satellite imagery, and environmental science. Her work focuses on making geography accessible to a broad audience through articles, tutorials, and educational resources.

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Campaign GPS antenna on Kīlauea's south flank at Pu‘ukapukapu inside Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park.

Fun with GPS

Caitlin Dempsey

A multitude of games and alternatives have emerged to capitalize on the affordability of handheld GPS units.

GIS data was collected to make a custom map for collecting information about Milwaukee's homeless population in the field.

Using GIS to Identify Milwaukee’s Homeless Population

Caitlin Dempsey

GIS Cloud has developed a mobile GIS and mapping app that allows for the collection of information about homeless populations in the City of Milwaukee in Wisconsin.

Global Ecological Land Units Map

Caitlin Dempsey

Esri and the United States Geological Survey (USGS) have developed the highest spatial resolution ecological land units (ELUs) map of the world commissioned by the intergovernmental Group on Earth Observations (GEO).

GISconnector for Excel – Synchronize Data, Selections, and Filters between ArcGIS and Excel

Caitlin Dempsey

A new tool is available called GISconnector for Excel which enables bidirectional data transfer between ArcGIS and Excel.  The tool, GISconnector, also ...

Smoothing a line using the Generalize tool in ArcGIS. Image: Esri.

Generalization in GIS

Caitlin Dempsey

Generalization is the method used in GIS to reduce detail in data. Learn about how to generalize GIS data using QGIS, ArcGIS, and other software tools.

Digital attack map.

Mapping Digital Attacks Around the World

Caitlin Dempsey

The site Digital Attack Maps shows the leading Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks happening at the moment.

Some highlights of the improvements being offered with MapInfo Pro 64 bit

Latest Release of MapInfo Focuses on an Easier to Use Mapping Experience

Caitlin Dempsey

Pitney Bowes, the maker of MapInfo, has released an updated version of the GIS software that is aimed towards lowering ...

Boming Wang draw his map of the world on a chalkboard.

Mastering Geography

Caitlin Dempsey

Here are some people who have amazing memories when it comes to geography.

Atlantic view of fishing activity on Global Fishing Watch.

Using Geospatial Technologies to Map Illegal Fishing

Caitlin Dempsey

Worldwide overfishing is having a devastating effect on marine ecosystems.  A 2014 report from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization ...

Continents and Population Density

Caitlin Dempsey

The worksheet below is aimed towards helping elementary school students uses graphs to learn about the different continents and the ...

Mapping the California Drought with Open Data

Caitlin Dempsey

The Center for Integrated Data Analytics (CIDA) of the United States Geological Survey has created an open source visual description of California's ongoing drought using free and publicly available GIS data sources

Traffic along heile selasi Avenue next to Railway satation in Nairobi. Photo: Demosh

Finding Low Tech Solutions for Nairobi’s Commuters

Caitlin Dempsey

How do you help commuters navigate traffic when only 19% of the population owns a smartphone? IBM's Nairobi Labs has released a solution for commuters that uses low resolution traffic cameras to predict traffic patterns that are relayed via SMS.

Relative Direction Versus Compass Direction

Caitlin Dempsey

Learn about the difference between relative directions and compass directions.

QGIS versus ArcGIS

Caitlin Dempsey

When considering which GIS desktop software to adopt, two of the most popular choices are Esri’s ArcGIS and Quantum GIS, ...

Megacity

Caitlin Dempsey

A megacity in geography is an urban area that contains more than 10 million residents.

iSPEX map compiled from all iSPEX measurements performed in the Netherlands on July 8, 2013, between 14:00 and 21:00. Each blue dot represents one of the total of 6007 measurements that were submitted that day. At each location on the map, the 50 nearest iSPEX measurements were averaged and converted to Aerosol Optical Thickness, a measure for the total amount of atmospheric particles. This map can be compared to the AOT data from the MODIS Aqua satellite, which flew over the Netherlands at 16:12 local time. The relatively high AOT values were caused by smoke clouds from forest fires in North America, that were blown over the Netherlands at an altitude of 2-4 km. In the course of the day, the northerly winds brought clearer air to the northern provinces.

Using Citizens to Map Atmospheric Particulates

Caitlin Dempsey

By leveraging data from over 8,000 smartphone users, Dutch researchers successfully mapped atmospheric particulate levels.

Mapping Almost 250 Years of Buildings in Manhattan

Caitlin Dempsey

Morphocode‘s Urban Layers allows users to drill down and view the history of Manhattan’s buildings by mapping out over 45,000 ...

3D tree scan.

Smart Tree Logging with Remote Sensing

Caitlin Dempsey

Treemetrics is using satellite imagery, UAV, and LiDAR to help forestry managers to map out forests in order to better assess the quality and value of their forests and to cut down on waste.

StateFace, open source font collection of the U.S. States.

StateFace

Caitlin Dempsey

Here’s a font collection cartographers and those in GIS might want to download for future use.  StateFace is a sets ...

Hong Kong from LANDCARPET.

LANDCARPET: Turning Satellite Imagery into Carpets

Caitlin Dempsey

This Austrian architect who now lives in Beijing, China has turned his love of the view from above into carpeting made from 100% New Zealand wool.

Searchable Database of Coordinate Systems

Caitlin Dempsey

If you need a consolidated place to search for coordinate systems, EPSG.io is a place to start.  

Map showing taxi flows and potential taxi sharing benefits between two locations in Manhattan.

Optimizing Taxi Rides with HubCab

Caitlin Dempsey

A project from MIT called HubCab analyzing 170 million taxi rides has found that sharing rides would reduce trips by 40%.

Ebola outbreak distribution map for West Africa. Source: CDC, October 10, 2014.

How the Ebola Outbreak has Highlighted Ignorance of Africa’s Geography

Caitlin Dempsey

Despite the Ebola outbreak currently only affecting three countries that together make up less than 2% of the total area of Africa, the perception among some is that the entire continent of Africa is currently at risk.

A satellite image showing Lake Titicaca, which straddles the border of Peru and Bolivia with the Andes Mountains to the top right. Source: NASA

Lake Extremes

Caitlin Dempsey

What are the world's largest freshwater lake, the world’s largest saltwater lake, the world’s deepest freshwater lake, the highest navigable lake, and the saltiest lake?

OWGIS was used to display important data for immigrants that cross Mexico searching for better opportunities. This project was built at the Americas Datafest Hackathon.

OWGIS – Open Source GIS Web Application

Caitlin Dempsey

Standing for Open WebGIS, the developers of OWGIS describe it as an “OpenSource Java Servlets web application that creates WebGIS sites ...

This global land-cover map was created using data from the Envisat mission for the 2010 epoch (2008–12). This is the most recent data product from the Climate Change Initiative (CCI) Land Cover team led by the Université catholique de Louvain, showing 22 different types of global land cover classes, plus 14 regional land cover classes. Source: ESA/CCI Land Cover/Université catholique de Louvain.

Land Cover GIS Data from the European Space Agency

Caitlin Dempsey

The European Space Agency has released land cover maps covering the 2000, 2005, and 2010 epochs.  Developed by ESA’s Climate Change Initiative ...