Evolving Data Server Solutions

Many are interested in the intersection of geospatial technologies, place, and culture because of the power that maps have for telling stories about the relationships between people and the places they inhabit and transform. That is certainly one reason I´m continually fascinated by this subject. However, if once produced a map simply sits in a dusty filing cabinet than what good is it?

Geographic information systems (GIS) as digital repositories of spatial data (including both quantitative and qualitative data forms, vis. a vis sources such as multimedia and embedded text). With the advent and now ubiquitous place of GIS it has become very easy to transmit maps and cartographic data electronically.

The caveat, until relatively recently, has been how and to whom the data are transmitted. Emailing a map as a .jpg or set of cartographic data as a zipped attachement to a colleague is one thing. Making those data available for public usage is completely different.

High-end (in terms of both financial expenditure and tehnological prowess) spatial data servers have been online for sometime now. These include product by the big names in databases Oracle for example. ESI´s ArcGIS server is another common player. However, these are mostly spatial database solutions for those with big budgets (again in terms of finances and labor-which are maybe the same...).

What options are there for those of us interested in more open-source data serving solutions?

One option that I'd like to highlight is called Data Basin. It is a great site that allows users to "explore and download a vast library of datasets, connect to external data sources, upload and publish your own datasets, connect to experts, create working groups, and produce customized maps that can be easily shared". And best of all....it's free! Within Data Basin, users can search and download datasets, as well as share their own. The website also provides a space for user groups where spatial data can be easily shared. Very cool indeed.

Mapping the Deep Water Horizon

The basic details are well known: on April 20th, an explosion on the drilling rig "Deepwater Horizon" killed eleven crewmen; the fire was could not be extinguished and on April 22nd the rig sank, leaving the well gushing, resulting in the largest off-shore oil spill in United States history.

Since late April, millions across the globe have become increasingly concerned with the impending disaster growing in the Gulf of Mexico. One of the factors behind this growing concern have been the proliferation and extensive usage of remote sensing technologies. From satellite sensors to underwater cameras, concerned citizens, politicians, disaster management responders, and corporate executives have anxiously followed the online images and video feeds.



Aside from pretty (or grainy) pictures and videos, at a broad scale, what do these media forms, and their usages, tell us about interactions between humans and the environment in this contemporary moment. More specifically, how do these technologies, and their usages, inform our understanding of the "production" of environmental disasters, their (re)mediation, and the assignment of blame?

First, what are the media through which we are increasingly coming to remotely know this expanding place that is the disaster area? Due to the spatial and temporal scales of the spill (i.e. how much and how fast it is growing) as well as its distant location (both from land and below sea), remote sensing technologies have been of incredible value and used widely. Remote sensing is frequently thought to pertain solely to satellite images. However, as wiki informs us: remote sensing is "the use of either recording or real-time sensing device(s) that are wireless, or not in physical or intimate contact with the object". With this definition, we see that much of our individual and collective knowledge of this place, and its recent transformations, have occurred as a result of remote sensing technologies: principally satellite images and underwater video feeds.

In trying to keep this post short, I´ll simply direct the interested reader to several sites I think are thought provoking on the topic.

The first link takes you to NASA´s page devoted to the oil spill. Here you´ll find a variety of links to specific sensors, and stories derived from them (think how do we know we have environmental problems...)

The next link takes you once again to NASA, but this time o it´s AVIRIS sensor page (for images obtaned from an airplane vis a vis a sensor)


Following that you might be interested in what some of the other private and commercial satellites are up to in this time of environmental disaster. To help answer that question see the following link for imager from Terra, Digital Globe etc.

After that, on our tour of remote sensing media, I´d suggest a peek at this link to a real-time server illustration showing the growing extent of the damage showing spill.

It's not only the spatial and environmental scale of the disaster that are expanding (clearly the two are linked)as the following link shows, the political extent of spill is increasing...

Perhaps Obama gave Discover Magazine it´s headline illustrated in this last link...

What will be the short and long term implications of this spill at various scales from environmental, economic, political, and cultural perspectives. I don´t have the answers, but what I do think is that remote sensing technologies will play an important role in how we understand the nature of the problem and the potential solutions.