Reflection | GIS Portfolio

472 – Interactive Map Deconstruction – The Financial Inclusion Map

Posted by Matthew Wagstaff in Analysis, Reflection

The Financial Inclusion Map: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/ng-interactive/2015/nov/19/who-saves-the-least-money-financial-exclusion-around-the-world-interactive-borrowing-savings-finance This map was created by an interactive studio/company based in the UK called Kiln (https://www.kiln.digital/) to be published on the website of The Guardian newspaper. The studio has made many interesting and varied data visualisations that can be viewed on their website such as the carbon map (http://www.carbonmap.org/) and the digital divide (http://scidev.live.kiln.digital/digitaldivide/). The author of the map and the data source are listed clearly at the bottom of the map with links to these pages. The data to create the map was sourced from…read more

Nov.01

472 – Interactive Visualisations – Vancouver Crime Data 2005

Posted by Matthew Wagstaff in Analysis, Reflection, Technical

For this assignment we were tasked with creating an interactive map that can be posted online to visualise Vancouver Crime data. Cleaning and filtering the raw crime data for the map was conducted using the open source R coding language and RStudio software, and the actual maps were produced using the add-on package ‘leaflet’ (https://rstudio.github.io/leaflet/). To tackle this assignment I followed Ben Fry’s data visualisation pipeline and I will use this framework to explain how my R code converts the original data set into an interactive map. To avoid repeating…read more

Oct.14

472 – Syrian Refugee Infographic

Posted by Matthew Wagstaff in Analysis, Reflection

The Syrian conflict and associated refugee crisis has been ongoing since 2011 with many countries receiving applications from displaced persons for refugee status. While many Western countries have made pledges to assist these displaced Syrians, have their actions lived up to these words? As part of an assignment for GEOB 472 we were tasked with producing an infographic that could accompany an article on the status of Syrian refugee claims in various countries, in a publication such as The Globe and Mail. The objective of this infographic was to help Canadian…read more

Professional Development Reflection on GEOB 270

Posted by Matthew Wagstaff in Reflection

GEOB 270 Accomplishment Statements: Gained practical working knowledge of ArcGIS software and worked with a variety of classes of datasets in multiple contexts for geographic analysis. Examined and appropriately repaired geospatial data sets to prepare for further analysis. Created composite images from remote sensing data to examine the effects of the Mt. St. Helens eruption by comparing the surrounding area pre and post-eruption. Used spatial and tabular datasets to create a map to determine and communicate the areas of the City of Vancouver and important facilities that may be at…read more

Dec.06

Accomplishment Statements : Labs 4 & 5

Posted by Matthew Wagstaff in Reflection

Lab 4 – Housing Affordability Analysis We learnt many valuable skills while analysing and comparing housing affordability in Vancouver and Montreal. Learning the difference between different quantitative data classification methods is an invaluable skill. This allows us to more critically evaluate maps and identify how they could have been presented with bias to highlight certain features. Also learning how to normalize data is another great skill which allows for much more meaningful comparisons between different locations etc. Accomplishment Statement: Normalized housing cost data by median household income to create a…read more

Dec.06

Dec.05

Geospatial Analysis of the Alberni-Clayoquot Agricultural Land Reserve

Posted by Matthew Wagstaff in Analysis, Reflection

Our analysis of the Agricultural Land Reserves (ALR) in the Alberni-Clayoquot Census District can be found at the following link: GEOB270-Alberni-Clayoquot-Final-Report This project was performed to look critically at the current situation of British Columbia’s ALRs. As the name implies, ALRs are land that has been set aside mainly to be used for agricultural purposes by the provincial government. As a class we worked in groups to assess the ALRs of individual census districts to examine how the land is actually being used in these areas and also the suitability of…read more

GEOB 270 Accomplishment Statements So Far

Posted by Matthew Wagstaff in Reflection

Gained practical working knowledge of ArcGIS software and worked with a variety of classes of datasets in multiple contexts for geographic analysis. Examined and appropriately repaired geospatial data sets to prepare for further analysis. Created composite images from remote sensing data to examine the effects of the Mt. St. Helens eruption by comparing the surrounding area pre and post-eruption. Used spatial and tabular datasets to create a map to determine and communicate the areas of the City of Vancouver and important facilities that may be at risk from a tsunami.

Oct.18