WhitePine

Waynesboro Watershed Hike

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 11:57:24 -0500

This version of the map uses the Google Earth plug-in. If you don't have the plug-in installed it will show up as a 2D map.

Old Farms in the Watershed

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:02:39 -0500

This map shows features I found while looking for traces of old farms in the Waynesboro Watershed.

View Nov16.kml in a larger map

Easy Hike around the Bricker Clearing Trail

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 15:23:56 -0500

This hike took about an hour and a half. It's great on a sunny afternoon as the hill has a westerly aspect.

View Bricker Clearing Trail Hike in a larger map

Map Coordinates Presentation

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 15:20:03 -0500

This presentation has notes on map coordinate systems.

To view an html version of this presentation click here. (It is best to view it in MS Internet Explorer.

Change of Seasons Aids Aerial Photo Interpretation

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 19:12:06 -0500

In remote sensing images taken during the summer in the visible spectrum it's hard to distinguish between hardwood and softwood trees and even harder to identify individual species. During leaf-out in the spring it is much easier to determine species composition as the different hardwood species get their leaves at different time and have different colors. Softwoods stand out even more!

The same thing happens in the fall as trees lose their leaves. You don't even need an airplane to see the difference. Just drive by a steep slope when the sunlight is right. It's just like an oblique aerial photo.

Here, looking across Penn National, the pine stand in Meeting of the Pines stands out strongly against the surrounding hillside. This has been the peak week for foliage in southern PA. This picture was taken in the afternoon of 10/22.

The Amazing Néré Tree

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 11:26:55 -0500

One of my favorite trees in Africa is the Néré (Parkia biglobosa). This species is so useful that it has been preserved and cultivated around the villages and throughout the landscapes of west African countries. Below is a superb specimen outside the Environmental Education Center in Kinkon, Guinea in the Fouta Jalon Highlands, where I was visiting in December, 2006.

Another name is the African locust bean tree. The néré is a legume, and can therefore fix nitrogen. A more important use is to ferment the seeds to make a cooking condiment called soumbala, that is prized in local cooking around the region.

This pictures shows the flower pods, which are bright red when mature.

This photo found on Flickr shows soumbala being processed and presented in the market.

Family at the market
Originally uploaded by v3ronique.

The caption says: "Little girl stays very close to her mother while she is making 'soumbala' or "Maggi" at the market. They are made of fermented seeds rolled into a ball and fried. "

This USDA Germplasm Resources Information Network article has botanical information.
This article, in pdf format, has general information about nere and its nursery requirements.

Deforestation Presentation

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 12:12:23 -0500

This afternoon I will be speaking to the Intro to Forestry class on international forestry in what has become an annual event. I will concentrate on problems of deforestation and desertification in the Sahel region of western Africa. Here is a map of places I have worked over the years:

View My African Places. in a larger map

Summarizing up some of the main reasons for deforestation:

Overgrazing is caused by the farmers' strategy of letting livestock roam freely as a sort of bank on the hoof.
Poor agricultural practices that result in soil erosion and loss.
The emphasis on cash crops, like cotton and peanuts, that require expensive fertilizer input.
Periodic droughts. These are a normal part of the environment, but with larger populations there is less flexibility in dealing with the problems.

All of these issues can be overcome with the right strategies and technologies that we will discuss during the presentation.

There has been a lot of upheaval lately in Guinea, the last country I visited. Last year the president died after a long illness. Within a few hours his corrupt regime was replaced by a group of young army officers. They promised to end corruption and restore democracy. The leader of the group, Captain Camara, promised he wouldn't run for president. Now he has changed his mind. Recently his soldiers slaughtered and raped protesters at the national stadium. Here are articles from the New York Times and the BBC. Guinea should be a prosperous and happy country with all the resources at its disposal. I hope this situation can be resolved soon.

Here are pictures from my visit to Guinea at the end of 2006. I volunteered at an environmental education technical school near Pita. It was great to work in French again!

Finally, I was at the Soc. of American Foresters Convention last week. The Peace Corps said that they had many more openings in forestry and natural resources than they do volunteers. This is an excellent way to jumpstart your career. I highly recommend it.

Bear Trackers Use GPS in Bid to Preserve Animals

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 11:26:45 -0500

This article on CNN describes how black bears in South Florida are being fitted with GPS collars to track their migration habits. The bears are facing an increasingly restricted environment which leads them to be isolated so that many of them are experiencing a loss of genetic diversity.

The researchers use doughnuts to entice the bears to traps. (They didn't say which flavor.) The bears are then anaesthetized and fitted with tags and a collar. Hair samples are also taken for genetic testing.

The results of the work should show how much land needs to be conserved so that the bears have room to migrate and maintain healthy breeding populations.

The article doesn't make clear that the GPS data has to be transmitted somehow from the collar so that it can be analyzed. In the captions of the photo galleries it says a text messaging system is used to relay the data. That's an important link since a plain GPS receiver doesn't transmit data.

Photo from the Flickr Digital Commons. American Black Bear. Lincoln Park Zoo mammal. 1900.

Aerial Photos on the Ground

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 09:16:52 -0500

View Aerial Photos Reconnaissance 2009 in a larger map In yesterday's lab we visited several sites to compare today's ground cover with that of the aerial photos. Given that the photos were taken in 1977, there have been significant changes in the vegetation since then. Each of the map markers has photos of the sites today. Some details of the stops follow:

Waynesboro Dam Using the dam and reservoir it is easy to orient the photo. The clearcut to the northeast stands out.
Buffer Strip / Harvest Border The pole-sized stand that has grown from the clearcut is clearly visible today. The straight logging trail is still visible today. The buffer strip has continued growing. Today gaps have developed in the stand as trees have died.
Pipeline Climbing east from Old Forge Rd on the pipeline the harvest block on the west side of the road is clearly still visible today.
Golf Course The golf course and the adjacent Ralph Brock Seed Orchard combine to make unique landmarks. The golf course has been maintained in the same condition for many years.
Mont Alto State Park The pavilion in the Mont Alto State Park stands out on the ground, but is harder to see from an aerial photo. Parts of it are overtopped by nearby trees. The dark green color of the roof make it harder to see on a black and white photo.

For the last two sites visited more detail can be seen on the larger scale photos than on the smaller scale photos. The hilly nature of the landscape can't be easily seen on the aerial photos. With stereoscopic viewing the landscape will pop out.

Click here to see the sites on Microsoft Bing Maps. Bing Maps has different imagery and very detailed birds' eye views for this area.

Aerial Photos in Forest Fire Fighting

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 14:21:03 -0500

This picture from the Terrace Mountain Fire near Kelowna, British Columbia shows the how oblique aerial photos can help determine the extent of and amount of damage from a forest fire. An oblique photo is taken at an angle towards the ground instead of vertically. They are good for rapid estimations and are easy to interpret. They can't be used for photographic measurements.

Here is the original caption of the photo:

The charred forest stretches all the way up to near the summit of Terrace Mountain in this view looking up the eastern face of the peak. (Photo Chris Stanford)

Click here for more images.

Click here for a Google Map showing the area.

Do You Ever Feel Like You're Going Around in Circles

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 12:38:11 -0500

This recent article in the New York times describes research into why hikers who get lost feel as though they have been walking in circles. It's because they actually are. As long as hikers can fix on the sun, moon, or objects in the landscape they can keep more or less to a straight line. However, on cloudy days or when there are no landmarks it is very easy people to start looping in circles.

To avoid this problem, the article recomments using a compass or GPS. Another way is to pick a tree or landmark and head directly to it. Finally, if you are hopelessly lost you shold just sit down and wait for rescuers so that you don't make your situation any worse!

Photo from the Bibliotheque de Toulouse via the Flickr Digital Commons

Tele Atlas

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 16:19:17 -0500

Did you ever wonder who made and verified the road maps used in Map Quest, Google Maps, Yahoo! Maps, Bing Maps, and every other mapping service? One company, Tele Atlas, has a fleet of cars roaming the world to record the road data. They sell this data to all the other services. According to this article on CNN, the company is planning a number of new developments, including 3-D maps and more 360 degree map photos. They have a job that will never end given all the road construction and changes going on.

Graduation 2009

Sun, 17 May 2009 08:10:43 -0500

Yesterday was graduation, or commencement, at Mont Alto. At our campus almost all the faculty make it a point of attending the ceremony. Usually, a few weeks before the ceremony I resolve that this year I won't be going, that I've had enough. Yet I almost always do end up deciding to go. Why?

In the forestry program we work very closely with the same group of students for the full two years. We really get to see many sides, good and less good, of the students. I suppose they could say the same thing of the faculty. I have good days and other days when I wouldn't mind not being involved with the students again.

I go to graduation to see the story through to the end. College is a process. Education is a long journey. None of us know how it will turn out in the end. We don't know how or when we will meet again. Let's go out on a positive, happy note instead of thinking about that last less than perfect assignment. And the same is true for the sutdents, too.

Use GIS to study cover type changes

Fri, 01 May 2009 11:12:25 -0500

The Penn Pilot web site provides historical aerial photos for most of Pennsylvania. You can either view the photos on the site or download them to use with other applications. Recently, in GIS class we used ArcGIS 9.2 to position the old aerial photos from 1937 over a current map of the southern portion of the Waynesboro Watershed using a process called georeferencing. Much of the area that is now the reservoir and its watershed was actively farmed. Here is an image of the map layout showing the farm fields outlined in green. (Click on the image to see a full screen version.)

When we remove the overlaid aerial photo we can see what the land looks like today with just the bouhdaries of the old fields. It's evident that when forestry students in the 1950's started working in the watershed they put the pine plantations on the old fields. This makes a lot of sense considering that it is much harder to put a plantation in existing forest.
For instructions of how to perform this operation click here. To use Penn Pilot click here.

Doing the Blog Thing

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 22:25:13 -0500

Recently a colleague mentioned that faculty in his discipline on our campus were thinking about starting a group blog. He asked me which platform I thought would be the best for the new publication.

In reality any platform can work once you get the hang of it. All of them have their special capabilities as well as frustrations.

I have experience with Blogger and Movable Type as implemented at Penn State. Both have their advantages. I think Blogger would be a very good choice for a group blog. Editing is simple and it is easy to add multiple authors.

At Penn State the Movable Type blogs are tied to a single person's PASS space (personal university account), which is rather awkward for hosting multiple writers. I have seen in the help section that it is possible to add other writers, but departmental blogs are not possible. (Follow this link to instructions of additional editors.) If the blog deals more with academic issues it's nice to use the tool the University provides. I believe that the Penn State blogs' managers are developing some new tools for search and aggregating articles that will be very helpful for the internal audience.

Going beyond the choice of platform I started to think about what qualities make for a good blog, especially if more than one person will be contributing articles. Following are some of my ideas. I don't promise that I do all of them all the time myself, but they are worth considering.

Decide who will be the audience. Will it be current students, alumni, or outside people interested in the topic or discipline? Each audience would have different needs. In one blog the different audiences can be addressed in different entries.
Make sure all the authors are committed. If just one person on the team does all the writing the blog won't be successful. Stories don't have to be long. They aren't like a professional journal article. They do have to keep coming, though.
Good writing is critical, of course. However, blogs live on links. Stories should link to other stories or quote from them. The more that a sense of dialog comes out the more interesting the blog will be. Connectedness is critical.
Use plenty of pictures and graphics. These will make the blog interesting. People love to look at pictures. Pictures of themselves are even better. Make sure everyone knows their picture will be published. There are still the camera shy among us!
Publicize the blog relentlessly. Link to the blog from ANGEL, the campus web site, or personal sites. Refer to it in emails. Make sure the audience knows it is there.
Also in the publicity mode, take advantage of RSS feeds. The readers should have your blog bookmarked or entered into their favorite RSS reader (like Google Reader).
Use categories and tags (Labels in Blogger). This will help reader search for your articles. You can aggregate articles on a particular theme and send the links out to anyone who is interested.
Encourage readers to comment. This will get them involved in your stories.
Add widgets to the blog in the sidebars. This will add visual interest to the blog. It's also a good way to show what interests the writers.
Use some kind of metric program to see who your audience is. There are many free services out there who kind provide reams of data on your readers.
Have fun with it. Blogs are for sharing. They have to show your enthusiasm for your field. Keep it positive. A little bit of humor can help a lot.

I am hoping to add more ideas as they come to me. I hope this is helpful!