The Making of "Envisioning California's Delta"

Presentation to the Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis (CESTA) at Stanford, August 14, 2012.

Transcript

1. A Science and Media Collaboration Geoff McGhee (@mcgeoff) and Lauren Sommer (@lesommer) CESTA Lab Lunch Talk August 14, 2012 The Making of “Envisioning California’s Delta”
2. Creative Director for Media and Communications Bill Lane Center for the American West, Stanford University 2010-Present Research, Teaching and Public Engagement
3. • Environment and Resources • Economy and Political Science • History and Culture of the West Research, Teaching and Public Engagement
4. • Environment and Resources • Economy and Political Science • History and Culture of the West Research, Teaching and Public Engagement
5. • Environment and Resources • Economy and Political Science • History and Culture of the West Research, Teaching and Public Engagement
6. • Environment and Resources • Economy and Political Science • History and Culture of the West • Data visualization and multimedia for scholarship, outreach, journalism Research, Teaching and Public Engagement
8. (Example: Harper’s map) Media Fellowships
9. (Example: Harper’s map) Media Fellowships
10. Media Fellowships
12. Media Fellowships
13. Radio and multimedia journalist specializing in environment, science and energy. Media Fellow at The Bill Lane Center for the American West, March-May 2012 Lauren Sommer Radio Reporter, KQED QUEST Media Fellowships
14. The Delta
18. KQED Video Clip: “What is California’s Delta?”
19. • Largest estuary on the West Coast • Fed by Sacramento, San Joaquin, Mokelumne, Cosumnes, and Calaveras Rivers • 40% of California’s runoff passes through it • Environment radically altered over 160 years • How would you restore it? First you need to know what it looked like • Let users explore the evidence, learn about research process A Center of Controversy The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta
20. Section Break
21. • Highly respected independent research and consulting organization • Working for four years on report to California Department of Fish and Game • Preparing to release report in Summer 2012 The San Francisco Estuary Institute Aquatic Science Center Making Sense of the Delta Historical Ecologists at Work Robin Grossinger and Alison Whipple, Delta Historical Ecology Project
22. Section Break
23. What Was the Delta Like Before?
25. Historical Ecology Synthesizes diverse historical records to learn how habitats were distributed and ecological functions were maintained within the native California landscape. Understanding how streams, wetlands, and woodlands were organized along physical gradients helps scientists and managers develop new strategies for more integrated and functional landscape management
26. Radio story here
27. Evidence-Gathering
28. Historical Documents and Accounts
29. Historical Documents and Accounts Figure 5.9. An 1851 sketch of the basin landscape pattern. Though the author of the letter and this map gets a few of the facts wrong (e.g., Cache Creek did not connect directly to Cache Slough), he does convey the character of the basin landscape. To describe the pattern and his map, George Browning (1851) states that the land near the river descends (the dark pencil hashes), ” then comes the Tola or Bull Rush [stipples]...and then comes the Lake or Pond [marked with ‘L’].” (Browning 1851, courtesy of The Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley)
30. Historical Documents and Accounts
31. “Shortly after 1900, the USGS (established in 1879) began surveys in the Delta region that resulted in a rather unique 7.5 minute topographic quadrangles at a scale of 1:31,680 (use of this scale was discontinued in the 1950s). With contours spaced at 10 feet, this scale provides great detail of the early topography of the Delta.” USGS Topographic Quads Ca. 1909-1918 Mapping the Delta Historical Evidence
32. “Depression-era program to ensure crop stability and soil conservation practices resulted in extensive aerial photographic coverage for much of the county. While the photographs were taken after substantial modification, the photos nevertheless reveal relict ecological features, traces of which are often still present in the landscape.” Aerial Photographs ca. 1937 Mapping the Delta Historical Evidence
33. Historical Documents and Accounts: Sources
34. Historical Documents and Accounts: Sources
35. Bureau of Land Management Bank of Stockton Archives California Department of Parks and Recreation California Historical Society California State Archives California State Library California State Railroad Museum Library Center for Sacramento History Clarksburg Library Contra Costa Historical Society Dutra Museum of Dredging East Contra Costa Historical Society & Museum Haggin Museum Isleton Brannan-Andrus Historical Society Isleton Public Library Reclamation District 999 Rio Vista Museum Sacramento County Municipal Services Agency, Survey Section Sacramento Public Library Sacramento Recorder Sacramento River Delta Historical Society Sacramento State University – Special Collections and Maps Sacramento Surveyor San Joaquin Historical Society and Museum San Joaquin Surveyor Solano County Archives Solano County Public Works State Lands Commission Stockton Public Library The Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley UC Berkeley Earth Sciences Library UC Davis Shields Library University of the Pacific United States Geological Survey Water Resources Center Archives West Sacramento Historical Society Woodland Public Library Yolo County Archives Yolo County Recorder Yolo County Surveyor Historical Documents and Accounts: Sources
36. Additional Sources: LIDAR Imagery
37. Assembling a GIS from Historical Layers
38. • ~400-page report to California Dept. of Fish and Game • In peer review during Summer 2012 • We worked from a draft copy A Work in Progress (And a Rich Resource) SFEI’s Report
48. Big assist from Maria Santos!
55. ~4gb!
56. • Donationware application for Mac/Win/Linux • Feed in georectified hi-res image • Churns out tiles at specified zoom levels • Creates HTML wrapper for viewing Making Web Maps with MapTiler http://maptiler.org Web Development Turning the GIS into Map Layers
67. • Donationware application for Mac/Win/Linux • Feed in georectified hi-res image • Churns out tiles at specified zoom levels • Creates HTML wrapper for viewing Making Web Maps with MapTiler http://maptiler.org Web Development Turning the GIS into Map Layers
69. • Free Javascript framework for combining map layers from different public and private APIs • Can mash up Google, Open Street Maps, Yahoo, Bing Maps with homemade tile sets, vector data from GeoJson, KML, WFS servers • A little less polished than some other kits, but very powerful and flexible Using OpenLayers to Combine APIs http://openlayers.org Web Development Open-Source Map Mashup Framework
70. • Great introduction to OpenLayers • Covers all different map layer types • Symbology, mixing vector and raster data • Restyling and extending UI elements Learning More About OpenLayers Open Layers 2.10 Beginner’s Guide By Erik Hazzard Web Development Open-Source Map Mashup Framework
72. Now What?
80. • Explain basic concept of historical ecology • Introduce the components of the Delta • Show A/B comparison between 1800s & 2000 • Tell the story of the Delta’s different eras • Outline main findings of the report • Expose richness of imagery, original evidence, maps to users – especially more expert users • Be a map/database that doesn’t feel like a database • Allow images to escape from confines of the “speech bubble” of web maps Goals of the Interactive Feature Web Development Planning the Interactive Map
81. • Pagination reduces need for complex menu system, enables more creative space on each “page” • Core of interactive feature is multi-layered web map instance • Rather than forcing all annotations and media into floating bubble windows, page is divided into regions over map • Interacting with map is possible on most pages; final page allows for free exploration The Plan
82. The Result
83. Ended up using pagination to let users navigate from screen to screen Combination of narrative text with map “posed” to appropriate zoom level, center, and base map Text area with images has primacy on the page, rather than being in a tiny popup window but sometimes the map is more or less important Meant to be like an e-book Last page allows for free exploration Final version
84. Ended up using pagination to let users navigate from screen to screen Combination of narrative text with map “posed” to appropriate zoom level, center, and base map Text area with images has primacy on the page, rather than being in a tiny popup window but sometimes the map is more or less important Meant to be like an e-book Last page allows for free exploration Final version
92. Thanks! gmcghee@stanford.edu, @mcgeoff lsommer@kqed.org, @lesommer http://science.kqed.org/quest/delta-map