NACIS 2024

Mapping Vitality in Earth Systems
Maggie Camillos, Clancy Wilmott & Alexis Wood, University of California, Berkeley
Understanding the earth as alive is essential to developing the relationship of respect and reciprocity with our environment, which is necessary for long-term human evolution and to deepen our scientific understanding of interconnectivity amongst earth systems. Essential to developing this understanding is both reframing our understanding of vitality itself and developing visualization techniques to communicate this concept when applied to earth systems. Thus, the realm of earth systems science cartography is an important frontier in the development of a living understanding of the earth. In this presentation, I will offer an emergent conceptualization of vitality that incorporates earth systems, and critique traditional earth systems cartography in pursuit of an emergent cartographic technique in line with this definition.

Washington State Through Terrain and Time
Daniel Coe, Washington Geological Survey
From the canyons and coulees of the high desert—to the ice-capped volcanoes of the Cascade Range—to the wild coastline at the edge of the Pacific, Washington State harbors a treasure trove of topographic gems. At the Washington Geological Survey, we tell the story of these landforms through interpretive maps and imagery. In this presentation, we will go on a cartographic tour of the state using high-resolution elevation data as our guide.

Mountains of Evidence: Using Forensic Landscape Photography and GIS to Prosecute Illegal Hunting in the Remote Mountain Landscapes of Canada’s Yukon Territory
Gerry Perrier, Yukon Department of Environment
Big game hunting is an annual activity for many Yukon residents who hunt primarily for subsistence. Non-residents hunt with a licensed professional outfitter, focused more on trophies. Yukon's vast wilderness requires careful wildlife management to sustain hunter harvests due to a growing human population. Regulations dictate eligible species, timing and location of hunting activities. Geographic location plays a crucial role in managing wildlife and regulating hunting. Although most hunters follow the rules, some do not. This presentation presents three illegal hunting cases, illustrating how investigators use field photography, topographic modeling, and cartographic design to prove geographic location in court.

Spatio-Temporal Analysis of Power Generation from Interconnected Solar Arrays in San Juan County, Washington
Matt Sommer, Penn State University
Distributed rooftop solar arrays that are interconnected into the electrical distribution grid, have variable output in space and time which may not match well with demand. Small utilities may not have good methods to analyze when and where generation is happening. Using the interactive visualization capabilities of a Shiny web application based on historical smart meter data, can offer a way to analyze and understand when and where solar panels are providing power to the grid. This application uses the Shiny web framework to implement spatial and temporal filtering on distributed generation data. The data is visualized in the dashboard to show where, when, and how much power is generated, providing a glimpse into the spatial and temporal variability of distributed energy resources.

Taking UCSF’s Health Atlas National
Eric Brelsford & Kelsey Taylor, Stamen Design
Stamen Design recently worked with UC San Francisco to update and expand their Health Atlas. The Health Atlas is an interactive map that gives users ways to compare demographic and socioeconomic data with data about health care and health outcomes, from the state level down to the census tract. The Atlas was originally created to display data about California, but it now covers all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. Come hear about how we handled the challenges around displaying granular data at the national level, created supplementary visualizations that help users understand and explore the data, and crafted the cartography that ties it all together, incorporating user feedback along the way.

A Field of Honor Forever: Mapping Flight 93 National Memorial
Alex Fries, U.S. National Park Service
Established in 2002 and first opened in 2015, Flight 93 National Memorial in Somerset County, Pennsylvania honors the passengers and crew of United Airlines Flight 93, one of the four aircraft seized by terrorists during the September 11 attacks and, due to the courageous actions of its passengers and crew, the only plane which did not reach its intended target.  The combination of the memorial’s mission to retell the story of a tragedy that still occupies living memory, and the rather iterative nature of its construction has made this one of the more challenging NPS units to map in recent years. This talk will thus be a brief overview of my role in developing a set of maps for the park’s ongoing project to overhaul some of its interpretive media, including a refreshed Unigrid brochure and a new wayside exhibit. In particular, I will discuss the sort of balancing act that needed to be managed between conveying the story of Flight 93 with both the power and sensitivity it deserves; and the reality of making practical considerations that ensure the maps will remain useful for orientation and storytelling to the widest audience possible—among them being a design decision for the new park map that largely breaks from NPS tradition and may in fact be the first park brochure map to implement the technique in question.