Here are the tag clouds from this year's GIS class: the why, how and what of our upcoming semester's projects. Word clouds from Wordle.

The Why: what are the key problems class members want to focus on...

The How: possible methods we will use...

The What: some of the datasets that might be used...

 

Fall semester is here! Summer was a great adventure, with a terrific Intro to GIS workshop at the Forest Camp (see Sam's photo below), and a just fantastic workshop down at Google where we learned about some really cool new Google tools with former Kellylabber Karin Tuxen and the rest of the Google crew.

Teaching GIS at the terrific Zivnuska HallThis summer we said goodbye to a few Kellylabbers - Sarah Lewis graduated (update here), and Jessica O'Connell is moving back to the southeast for research. New lab members include undergraduate student Tiffany Yu and graduate student Lauren Haumann, who are working on the OurSpace project. New postdocs and visitors include Alice Kelly, ESPM PhD (from S&E division), who will be working on her NSF postdoc project "Sustainability and Safety in the Pacific West's National Parks," and Paulina Wong, who comes from Hong Kong on a Fulbright Scholarship and whose background is in the use of three-dimensional (3D) spatial analytical tools to simulate visualize urban environments, she'll be working on the OurSpace project.

Also, check out the individual project pages at the right for news about what we are working on: SNAMP, VTM, Keck, Wetlands, OakMapper, OurSpace, and Oak encroachment, among other things.  Welcome back to Berkeley!

SF archipelago, c. 2072

Some fun before the semester starts! Like something out of a great scifi novel: from Burrito Justice (and via Mark O.) "March 20th, 2072 (AP), Northern California Association of City States: With the surprising acceleration of sea level rise due to the melting of both the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets over the past decade, the San Francisco canal system was officially abandoned this week. Additional ferry service has been announced between the new major islands of the San Franciscan Archipelago while the boring machines make progress under the Van Ness Passage and Richmond Pass for new transit tunnels." This rad poster is available for sale!

American fire as of 8-25-13.Fire Status from Incident Report: The south, west and north perimeters of the fire remain in patrol status. This is due to completion of fire lines and minimal to no hot spots being detected inside the fire line in these areas. Crews have spent the past several days conducting burning operations adjacent to the Mosquito Ridge Road, along the eastern perimeter. These burning operations have consisted of fire fighters lighting low intensity (“cool”) fire with the intent of reducing ground fuels between the fire perimeter and the main fire. This tactic has been highly successful as it reduces the potential of the main fire escaping containment lines, and reduces the potential for spot fires to escape containment lines. Crews will continue these burning operations through the night. When burning operations are completed, these same crews will follow the burning operations by detecting and extinguishing any remaining hot spots.

American fire as of 8-25-13 from ESRI online. With increased containment of the fire, additional fire crews have begun work repairing areas affected by fire fighting activities. This has included chipping material piled next to roads during fire line construction as well as identifying needs to construct water control devices along fire lines throughout the fire area.

Forest visitors are asked to adhere to area and road closures. These closures are in place to protect visitors and fire fighters. The roads and areas that have been closed are unsafe due to fire-weakened, burned trees that pose a risk of falling, as well as frequently heavy smoke making visibility extremely poor. These areas and roads will be re-opened as soon as possible.

Some resources:

• Incident Report: http://www.inciweb.org/incident/3624/
• SimTable Report: http://apps.simtable.com/fireProgression/outputTemp/CA-TNF-HU11_%20american.html
• ESRI Online report: http://www.arcgis.com/explorer/?open=11487c248b3a407cb6fd446ce8ef73d8

We will keep you posted.

For more on the SNAMP project see: http://snamp.cnr.berkeley.edu/

This was originally posted on http://kellylab.berkeley.edu/.