2007 - an AGI retrospective

The previous post was my personal take on the year just gone. This is more of a review from our business perspective.

More of this is contained in our activities and achivements report. And these achievements in 2007 have been considerable.

We have moved forward the debate in a host of areas, not least the implementation process for the INSPIRE directive. We have formed new Special Interest Groups. We had a hugely successful annual conference. Membership income has risen. The AGI team have performed magnificently. And we have made a significant financial surplus. Not a bad list of achievements.

All in all, an excellent year and one upon which we can build in 2008 in order to achieve bigger and better things.

If anyone actually reads this blog, then please have a look at the AGI website. And if you are not a member, well why not consider joining? There are many interesting things coming up. I hope to report on them here as they arise.

2007 - a personal retrospective

For me it has been a strange year. Indeed a strange, and exciting, three years.

There I was three years ago in my 19th year of employment at the Royal Festival Hall, managing the finances and overseeing budgets on performing and visual arts. I was dealing with orchestras, dance troupes, foyer musicians. I was oblivious to the world of GIS and geospatial issues.

Then the RFH closed for renovation. I was offered redundancy. I was keen to go, and took it as a means to look for a more interesting challenge. I found that challenge, by accident, when I saw a job vacancy at the AGI.

At the start of 2007, I was the Finance guy at the AGI. So although I was interested in finding our more about GIS, hence the setting-up of this blog, my function was primarily in improving the financial situation. Knowledge of GIS was not key to this.

Then in March, our Chief Operating Office moved on to pastures new. With my Finance hat on, I had been banging on about the need to save costs on overheads, and salary costs were our biggest overhead. So I tentatively suggested that she should not be directly replaced, but that her work could be shared among the existing team. As a direct result, my role expanded. I took on the title of Chief Operating Officer and suddently I was going to meetings where participants were not interested in my financial background but instead expected me to at least make sensible comments about issues in the world of GIS. At first it was scary, but then it became quite interesting, almost exciting.

And so over the past 9 months, I have attended meetings of (apologies for the acronyms) JISC-GWG, SpLinT, IGGI, UK Geoforum and well as Scottish and Welsh regional AGI groups. I've been to meetings in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Leicester, Cardiff and Llandrindod Wells. And it has been fun.

I hope I have represented AGI well at these meetings. I feel I have made a generally positive contibution and where I haven't understood the nuances of an argument, I have been able to consult someone who has.

I am certainly now aware of the exciting developments in the world of GI. I am aware of the increasingly important role technology is playing. I am aware of the hugely dispirate group within this world, from corporate suppliers to local and central government including health authorities, police forces, insurance companies etc.

I have had a great year. And I am looking forward to learning more, and hopefully contributing more, in 2008.

Tsunami

The blogs have dried up recently, partly because I have been too busy to find the time. And now here I am away from work in Patong Beach in Thailand.

And sitting at a beach bar having breakfast and watching the world go by, I cannot help but think of the people who were going about their daily lives, whether locals or tourist, when the tsunami struck three years ago. The bay currently looks so peaceful. The destroyed buildings have been rebuilt. And I dare say lives have also been at least partically rebuilt.

But geography has a part to play in both forecasting disasters and in helping the relief teams after disasters. And with flooding becoming the norm in the UK and global warming leading to more severe weather conditions worldwide, we must put the GI response to disasters up the agenda. I hope that we will do this in 2008.

In the meantime, I shall return to enjoying the marine facilities of this area.

Strategy

This weekend I head for deepest Hampshire to take part in the annual AGI debate about future strategy. After the weekend, next year's Chair will produce a strategy document for approval by the AGI Council and then enactment throughout the next 12 months.

In my opinion, this year the strategy debate is even more important than usual. We are building on real successes in 2007, notably the conference, events programme and a membership increase, but the funding we receive for our running of the GiGateway metadata service is about to come to an end. We therefore will proceed with confidence but with caution. Twenty years after the Chorley Report, we need to refocus on who we are and what makes us relevant to our members.

And the end product from the weekend should not just be a written strategy document for the next twelve months, but a realistic and positive strategy to take us forward for at least the next five years.

It will be an interesting debate. It will, I believe, prove to our members that we have the energy and the ideas to meet the future challenges in the world of GI.

AGI Conference 2007 - review

The conference is over. Two days of networking, of talks, of debates and of socialising has come to an end. After all the planning, the administration, the worry - it now seems strange to realise that it is over. And very gratifying to find that the planning work before the conference turned out to have contributed to such a successful conference.

And it was successful. The initial feedback from delegates was very positive. Generally the venue worked well. The talks were stimulating. The debates were energetic. And the party was enjoyable.

From a personal point of view, it was all a great experience. The fact that I had been asked to be a judge, meant that I attended far more sessions than I otherwise might have. I attended eleven sessions in total. That showed me the breadth of issues and the range of work which are covered by GIS.

I am hugely grateful to the AGI Team for all their hard work, especially Claire, Susan and Maureen without whom the event simply could not have taken place. Chris's work, especially on the printed matter, added to the quality of the experience for delegates. Steven was an excellent and enthusiastic Chair of the event. I am really pleased that his initial optimism about the event was fully justified.

I hope that issues were taken forward and that the event marked real progress in some of the issues that we face in the world of Geography. I hope the event was more than a talking shop. I think it was.

Right now I have just got home and I am exhausted. Others will no doubt reflect at length and more thoughtfully than I can. But I am happy and content that we delivered a great conference. And now we turn out attention to AGI2008. Watch this space.

AGI Conference 2007 - preview

'Building a Geo Community'

The AGI conference starts on Wednesday in Stratford-upon-Avon. Bookings have gone amazingly well and the conference was fully booked a couple of weeks ago.

The AGI team, especially Claire, Susan and Maureen, have been working exceptionally hard on the administration. Now we move to the conference itself. We all head up for Stratford tomorrow to finalise the last-minute details ahead to the opening session on Wednesday morning.

It is always a bit scary a couple of days before the conference, but I am sure it will be a great success.

I have, much to my surprise, been asked to be on the judging panel for the 'Best Paper' award. I am honoured by that and will do my best to be fair and impartial and to give each paper an equal opportunity.

So, here's to a wonderful conference.

GI North of the Border

On Tuesday I went to Edinburgh to attend a meeting of the AGI Scotland Executive. I remain impressed by the positive commitment to GI north of the border and by the collective commitment of the AGIS Executive to lead progress. It would appear that a change in Government to an SNP administration will also do no harm in pursuing a Scottish dimension for GI and in particular to taking forward a Scottish Spatial Data Initiative.

There is an AGIS conference in Edinburgh on 15th November with the title 'Inspiring Scotland' which will take that process and investigate aspects of how to move forward particularly in relation to the 'One Scotland, One Geography' paper which was produced recently for the Scottish Executive. It is described as an ideas forum and open competition to encourage and promote innovative thinking connecting the places, spaces and faces of Scotland.

It is good to see a united commitment to GI without the petty bickering which has hindered progress elsewhere.

Online mapping

The scramble to digitalise the world of mapping. An interesting video from You Tube.

Who (What?) is JANET?

In my new role at the AGI, I am enjoying attending a number of meetings of groups concerned with GIS in their sector. On Thursday I went to Glasgow to attend a meeting of JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee) . JISC's mission is to provide world-class leadership in the innovative use of Information and Communications Technology to support education and research.

The meeting I was at was one of the regular meetings held by their Geospatial Working Group. This is a group which does a lot of work relating to accessibility of Geographic Data for the academic community. The meeting was really interesting. But as usual the acronyms were impenetrable. In particular was the constant mention of JANET? Who is she? Or what is she? Dr Finlay's Housekeeper? Or something more?

Well it turns out that JANET is the network dedicated to the needs of education and research in the UK. It connects the UK’s education and research organisations to each other, as well as to the rest of the world through links to the global Internet. In addition, JANET includes a separate network that is available to the community for experimental activities in network development.

The JANET network connects UK universities, FE Colleges, Research Councils, Specialist Colleges and Adult and Community Learning providers. It also provides connections between the Regional Broadband Consortia to facilitate the DfES initiative for a national schools’ network. Over 18 million end-users are currently served by the JANET network.The range of activities facilitated by JANET allows individuals and organisations to push back the traditional boundaries of teaching, learning and research methods.

For example, JANET’s videoconferencing and video streaming capabilities are being used to deliver lectures to remote groups of students. For researchers, the high capacity of the JANET backbone allows the linking of large data storage and high performance computing facilities at a national and international level.

This all sound worthy of more investigation. In the meantime, further information plus a video relating to JANET can be found here.

Cairngorm

On the way back from Orkney, I stopped off to see my parents and took them up to the Cairngorm car park. We hadn't been here for some time. I love the view from Cairngorm both upwards to the summit of the mountain and downwards to Lock Morlich and Aviemore beyond. As the ski-ing season in Scotland diminishes, areas like Cairngorm have to provide other facilities for tourists, including the controversial funicular railway. In my view they have done this is a sensitive and positive way so that the mountains retain their grandeur and beauty. These are three of the photos I took.

Orkney

Orkney was magnificent. Much more beautiful, much more fertile than I had imagined. And on the surface it seems to be thriving. But since this is a geog blog and not a travelogue, I will not give a full account of where we were and what we did. Instead I will quote from Orkney 2020.

Orkney—key facts
Resident Population 19,245 (2001 Census)
Main towns Kirkwall (pop. 7,500 approx)
Stromness (pop.2,200 approx), both situated on mainland Orkney
Area 100,000 hectares over 67 islands
Industry Tourism, agriculture, fishing, oil processing, craft manufacture and retail

Orkney has 18 inhabited islands, two of which (South Ronaldsay and Burray) are linked to the
Orkney mainland by causeways. Island populations vary in size from a single family to several
hundred, and the geography of Orkney offers a significant challenge to public agencies seeking to
deliver services effectively and efficiently. Orkney 2020 states:
Some of Orkney’s barriers to inclusion are shared with other communities. Poverty may be
less visible in rural areas than in inner cities, but exists nonetheless, and is exacerbated by the
high cost of travel: whether to work, to access shops or services, or to visit friends and
relatives. Those who are disadvantaged by disability, ill health or unemployment will need
their interests represented, and their needs prioritised when targeting resources.
The geography of Orkney gives rise to other barriers to inclusion. It is impossible to achieve
truly equal access to services such as the Pickaquoy Centre when some communities are
several hours away by sea. Many hospital services can only be accessed in mainland Scotland.
Consequently, some compromises are inevitable. We can try to deliver local services which
meet as many needs as possible, and ensure that they are available to all. Where services
cannot be delivered locally, we can do our best to help people to travel to them.
Orkney 2020, OCPP, April 2003

Orkney’s population has fallen dramatically over the past century, to the point where the survival of the smaller isles communities is uncertain. To quote again from Orkney 2020:
A century ago, Orkney’s population stood at around 29,000. In 2000 it was 19,500 and, if
current trends cannot be reversed, it is forecast to fall to 17,500 by 2016. Over the last 50
years, with the mechanisation of agriculture, there has been a steady drift away from the isles
towards the towns on mainland Orkney, as people move to find work, or to retire closer to
their families. Most of the predicted population decline can be expected to affect the isles and
more remote mainland areas, where it will threaten the survival of communities whose
existence is already marginal. Below a certain critical mass, communities die. There are too
few children to keep a school open, and essential services cannot be provided at a reasonable
cost. Young people move away and there is nobody to replace the older generation.
In 1901, Orkney had 26 inhabited islands; today, only 16 islands have permanently resident
communities. If these fragile communities are to survive and flourish, we need to take action
to halt and reverse the population decline. Lifeline transport services and supply lines must be
kept open, and communities helped to establish new economic activities to replace those in
decline. Young people will always want to move away, to study or travel, and we should
encourage them to do so. Our challenge for Community Planning is to ensure that they can
return to live and work in a thriving community.
Orkney 2020, OCPP, April 2003

It is the cry of all small communities. But I will return to visit.

Off to Orkney

This weekend, after a couple of days in Unstone near Sheffield, we head off to Orkney. Despite being born in Inverness, I have never been to Orkney and am huegley looking forward to the visit. The weather forecast is not good - windy and wet, but that might actually give us the variety of light and atmosphere for which Orkney is famous.

And of course it will be light until way past midnight and then again only a couple of hours later.

Above all it will be good to get out of the city, get north of the border, and experience nature, climate and geography close up and in an unrefined state.

Chorley Not!

I attended the AGI Chorley Day on Tuesday. This was a review of the receommendations of the Chorley Report of 1987, 20 years on. Some have been enacted but sadly some have made little progress. Of more interest to me perhaps was the looking through a geographic window into the future. So much is changing and so quickly all driven by the inexorable march of technology.

And we at the AGI need to ensure that we are not a barrier to change but that we continue to reinvent ourselves to ensure that we are here and are relevant 20 years from now.

Sir Wally Herbert

No sooner have I written about various explorers than one of the greatest contemporary British explorers sadly dies.

At the AGI conference last year I was fascinated and riveted by a talk given by Sir Wally Herbert's daughter, Kari, about her time living among the Inuit of Greenland both as a young child and subsequently. It was a life she had not chosen, she was too young, but one which she embraced with enthusaism.

Now her father has died, but rather than sadness the emotion must be of one of admiration for someone who lived life to the full, tested himself to the limits of human endurance and hightlighted the triviality of most of the difficulties which the rest of us face. I repeat here the obituary from today's Times newspaper.

The leader of the first expedition to make a surface crossing of the Arctic Ocean by its longest axis, through the North Pole, Wally Herbert was “the explorer’s explorer”. Sir Ranulph Fiennes called him the “greatest polar explorer of our time”. He proved his courage and determination time and again in both the Arctic and Antarctic, travelling more than 25,000 miles by dog sledge and open boats, and mapping 46,000 square miles of previously uncharted territory.
He loved the romance of exploration, and wrote a book about Antarctic men in blank verse. He relished the harshness and simplicity of the icy wastes. Though he rarely lost his temper, he was not to be thwarted, and long before he was finally knighted, his men would refer to him as “Sir Walter”.
Born into an English military family in 1934, Walter William Herbert served in the Royal Engineers, 1953-55, training at the School of Military Survey before learning the rudiments of navigation in the Suez Canal zone. He next worked as a surveyor in Shoreham-by-Sea until an entrée into the world of polar exploration literally dropped into his lap. A newspaper, fortuitously opened at an advertisement for men to join Britain’s Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey, fell from the luggage rack of a bus as he was commuting to work, with the result that he spent the years 1955-58 in the Antarctic, travelling with dog teams to map hitherto unvisited areas.
Being the first recorded human being to stand in a particular spot and the first to map a whole new area was always, for him, an exhilarating feeling. “We were a world of men in harmony with our environment,” he wrote of that first Antarctic experience. “We saw a paradise in snowscapes and heard music in the wind, for we were young, and on our long exploratory journeys we felt with the pride of youth that we were making history.”
Antarctica’s supply of virgin territory was dwindling fast under the onslaught of motorised expeditions, but 80 per cent of the Arctic was still uncharted. Therefore, his next big project was at the other end of the globe, where he planned to make the first surface crossing of the frozen Arctic Ocean by its longest axis, taking in the North Pole en route. Herbert considered this to be the last remaining element of a daunting trinity of challenges, the others being the ascent of Everest and the first surface crossing of the Antarctic ice cap.
His plan to walk “across the top of the world” involved traversing the more or less frozen Arctic Ocean, from Alaska via the North Pole to Spitsbergen, with the use of modern and traditional aids: radios, homing beacons and satellite information as well as dogs and sledges. In the four years, 1964-68, that it took him to plan the trip he would either spend 15 hours a day at his typewriter, drumming up what support he could from polar experts all over the world to help him to win the vital backing of the Royal Geographical Society, or would motor 260 miles a day between his parents’ house in Lichfield and the expedition’s headquarters in London. He often arrived in such a state of stress, despite tranquillisers, that he would have to shut himself away to unwind before getting down to business.
A spell of field training forestalled total collapse: he made a useful 1,200-mile dog-sledging journey across Smith Sound and through the Canadian North West Territories to test equipment and men – and finally, the British Trans-Arctic Expedition was ready.
Herbert, with his team – Allan Gill, Fritz Koerner and Kenneth Hedges, plus four heavily laden sledges and 34 huskies – set out from Point Barrow on February 21, 1968. On the map it was a 2,000-mile journey, but they all knew that the constant shifting of the ice could greatly inflate that mileage. Herbert and his colleagues, who would be spending a year and a half on the ice, would have to be ready every night for the sound of the sudden splitting or pressuring that would mean they had to move dogs, tons of equipment and themselves on to a new floe in double quick time.
Modern radio communications proved a mixed blessing. When Gill badly injured his back and the expedition committee in London radioed an order for his immediate evacuation, Herbert was incensed. The committee retaliated by suggesting that his opposition was due to “winteritis” warping his judgment. But in the words of a reporter for The Sunday Times, which shared exclusive newspaper rights to the expedition story with The Times: “Herbert has his faults – a Napoleonic sense of drama, impetuosity and a tendency to think too much in a loud clear voice – but he is a long way from going barmy. He wanted Gill to stay for the winter because the Arctic is Gill’s life and any alternative, death included, would be preferable to the stigma of failure during an expedition.”
Gill stayed, and gradually regained his strength. But the incident made Herbert enemies when some of his indignant remarks were relayed to a large readership. After this and other delays, it was only by dint of forced marches that the team reached the North Pole on April 6, 1969.
Arguably the worst of their journey lay ahead, with the ice splitting all around them as temperatures rose. But in mid-May they at last sighted land, and on May 29 an exhausted Hedges and Gill, his injury forgotten, summoned up the strength and the willpower to scramble on to Small Blackboard Island off the northeast coast of Spitsbergen, 3,620 miles after leaving Point Barrow.
Only half the team having landed, in Herbert’s eyes it was not the triumph he had hoped for, and he was further disappointed when the expedition’s achievement was, as he saw it, overshadowed in the eyes of the world by the almost simultaneous exploits of a new generation of explorers: the Apollo 10 astronauts, who were taking their first pictures of Earth from the Moon just as Herbert and his team were sighting land.
Yet the Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, rightly called his achievement “a feat of endurance which ranks with any in polar history”, and the expedition’s patron, the Duke of Edinburgh, numbered it “among the greatest triumphs of human skill and endurance”.
On his return from the Arctic, Herbert married Marie McGaughey, who not only understood his obsession with polar travel but was even prepared to share it with him. Two years later, with Marie and their ten-month-old daughter Kari, he journeyed to Qeqertarsuaq in northwest Greenland to spend two years living with the Inuit, recording their way of life before it was changed for ever by the incursions of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Hitherto a rather solitary man, he was greatly helped in his information-gathering by his wife’s gregariousness and the spontaneity of their tiny daughter, whose stay in the Arctic had been sponsored by Heinz but who was soon, with her mother, enjoying the sort of food that revolted Herbert, including the skulls and brains of little auks, cooked whole. When his daughter returned to Britain and a shop assistant overheard her talking Inuit, he relished the woman’s inevitable comment, “Oh well, it’s always nice to have a second language.”
After a sortie to Lapland in 1975 Herbert led an expedition in 1978-82 which attempted the first circumnavigation of the Greenland coast by dog sledge and skin boat, an enterprise that had to be abandoned after severe weather, problems with unseaworthy boats and expensive air rescues. This project never captured the imagination of public or press, but Herbert’s efforts won him renewed respect from his peers.
The death of his second daughter, Pascale, in an electrical accident in 1993, when she was 15, left Herbert devastated. Only a few years before, he had had a quadruple heart bypass, and after these two crises, painting and drawing pictures based on his many expeditions began to take up his time at home at Laggan in Inverness-shire. There were one-man exhibitions on several continents, and two of his works ended up in royal collections.
Among his books were A World of Men (1968), Across the Top of the World (1969), The Last Great Journey on Earth (1971), Eskimos (1976), Hunters of the Polar North (1982), The Noose of Laurels (1989), a controversial study which disputed Peary’s claim to have reached the North Pole, and The Third Pole (2003).
Knighted in 2000, Herbert was also a joint honorary president of the World Expeditionary Association and a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. His awards included a Polar Medal in 1962 and its clasp in 1969; the Livingstone Gold Medal of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, 1969; and the Founder’s Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical Society, 1970.
He is survived by his wife and their elder daughter.
Sir Wally Herbert, polar explorer, was born on October 24, 1934. He died of heart trouble on June 12, 2007, aged 72

Exploration

I am still struggling with the nuances of GIS, issues around GIS in government, geographical metadata, spatial data initiatives etc. etc.

But I can go back to historical geography and immediately understand geography as an incentive for intrepid early explorers to visit far away places and try to understand the physical world as a result.

History was about chaps, geography was about maps. And of course the chaps who drew the maps. Romantic names like Thales and Ptolemy from Greek and Roman times, then the European explorers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries such as Vasco Da Gama, Bartholemew Dias and Ferdinand Magellan. Even their names suggested exciting and remote journeys. No doubt some were concerned about enriching themselves but at the same time they enriched our knowledge base and transformed our fragmentary gleanings into a coherent body of knowledge.

Then in the nineteenth century James Cooke and Charles Darwin excited us all over again with a further interpretation of our world and the creatures who inhabit it.

And even today there are individual explorers climbing the highest peaks, crossing the hottest deserts, sailing the roughest seas and reaching both poles. Most do not have scientific research as their main driving force, but they do remind us of the geographic and climatic variety of our planet and our need to preserve that variety.

And on television, programmes such as Coast, or Micheal Palin's travel programmes are still fascinating for us, possibly because we have been to, or aspire to go to, some of the places which are being shown.

That's the geography I understand. Something I can visualise, something I can touch. And am still surprised when I look put of an aircraft window and see the land below exactly as it is portrayed on a map.

And that is why I am excited about my forthcoming trip to the Orkney islands, my first ever visit there. It's a new adventure, a new exploration and a chance to combine History and Geography in a single place. Chaps and maps.

Geographic Conferences

My thoughts on the nature of conferences were stimulated by an entry in Ed Parson’s blog. This entry was written while he was at the geoTEC conference in Calgary. He made the comment that there was a high technical content at this conference and how this was an interesting contrast to conferences in the UK. He felt, and here I paraphrase, that UK conferences can comprise vendor sales pitches and OS bashing.

I am on the working group organising the AGI2007 conference in Stratford Upon Avon in September, though very much the layman on that organising group. I am interested generally in what constitutes a successful conference and specifically that we get it right for our conference.

It seems to me that there is no single ingredient, but a whole range of ingredients which go to making a successful conference. A bit like a recipe I guess – too much of one ingredient can jeopardise the whole end product.

What if we gave a conference and nobody came? Well of course that would be a total disaster. So the conference programme must attract attendees. That may seem obvious, but it must be uppermost in our minds throughout the planning.

I also feel that the conference must generally move debate forward. So whatever the individual content, there should be a desire to make progress collectively and take some issues up to a higher level. There may be specific issues where consensus could be achieved and that consensus fed into future debate or even future legislation. Effectively the conference must aim to be more than just a talking shop.

And what about the content? Taking Ed’s points, how technical should this be? Perhaps I can digress a bit here. I used to work at the Royal Festival Hall in London. We had debates about the concert programmes we should be offering. There was a school of thought that we should do endless ‘popular classics’ concerts – Mozart, Beethoven, a bit of Bruch and maybe the 1812 to finish. This would ensure bums on seats. Another school of thought was that it was our duty to highlight the work of contemporary composers and educate our audiences. Perhaps concerts of the compositions of Xenakis or Birtwistle. Of course both schools of thought, in isolation, were wrong. Too many contemporary concerts with low audiences would not be financially viable. But if we did endless popular concerts, they would end up not being so popular any more. We would have a declining, and increasingly elderly, audience. Balance was key. Audiences, who would not attend a concert of purely contemporary work, would happily listen to a contemporary piece of work as part of a more general concert.

Back to Geography. Surely the issue is the same. We have a very wide range of potential attendees, some from the corporate world, some from Government, central or local, some from health authorities, some from utilities etc. All sessions will not appeal to all attendees and we shouldn’t attempt to achieve that. A conference should surely have a range of topics and a range of technical content within those topics. But there must also be a recognisable theme and a number of logical strands. And yes we must stimulate debate, but not by putting up an easy fall guy and allowing delegates to vent their frustration. The debate should try to push delegates into thinking in ways that they might not hitherto have done.

And what is the measure of success of a conference. Strangely I do not think the main measure relates to that conference at all. It is not whether that conference made money (though that is certainly important). The success of a conference is the base it can build for the conference in the following year. I would want delegates to leave the conference asking ‘ When is next year’s conference? We want to keep our diaries free.’

As I mentioned at the start, we are running AGI2007 on 19th and 20th September in Stratford upon Avon. The general theme is ‘Building a GeoCommunity’. I am really excited by the format and by the programme. Details can be found on the AGI website. I think the technical content will be high, but also there will be useful content for the less technically-minded delegate. There will be relevance to a wide range of interests within the GeoCommunity. I think we will live up to the theme. And on the Wednesday night, there will be a fabulous party.

See you there!

Addressing

I do realise that there is a debate going on regarding commonality of addressing. Not a debate that I can get involved in. Meanwhile, here are the British postcodes.

Infotech Golf Day

I was pleased to have been invited today to a golf day organised by Infotech Eterprises who are an AGI member and a global software services company specialising in geospatial solutions.

The day was held at the Buckinghamshire Golf Course, which was in superb condition. The hospitality was excellent. The weather was not so great - windy and wet.

Despite the weather I really enjoyed the day. All the more so because I played quite well and, amazingly, won the event. I'm dead chuffed.

AGI2007

I have, along with members of the AGI2007 working group, spent a couple of days in Stratford Upon Avon, venue of the AGI2007 conference in September. We reviewed the venue, the papers submitted and the administration.

At the end of the weekend, I was really excited by this year's conference. The selected papers are very interesting and thought-provoking, the proposed programme is I believe varied and educational and the venue is excellent.

I urge all who are interested in Geographic Information to make the effort to come along to our conference.

Data Links

The directive 2007/2/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 March 2007 establishing an Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community (INSPIRE) was published in the official Journal on the 25th April 2007. The INSPIRE Directive will enter into force on the 15th May 2007.

Should I get excited by this?

Well others are at least welcoming the progress made, even if some are I think questioning the direction and speed of that progress.

If we look at the INSPIRE website, I do not think we can quibble with the need for harmonisation and data comparability throughout Europe. As the site states,
'The general situation on spatial information in Europe is one of fragmentation of datasets and sources, gaps in availability, lack of harmonisation between datasets at different geographical scales and duplication of information collection. These problems make it difficult to identify, access and use data that is available.'

And if we further look at the ultimate aim, we cannot really quibble with that either -
'The initiative intends to trigger the creation of a European spatial information infrastructure that delivers to the users integrated spatial information services. These services should allow the users to identify and access spatial or geographical information from a wide range of sources, from the local level to the global level, in an inter-operable way for a variety of uses. The target users of INSPIRE include policy-makers, planners and managers at European, national and local level and the citizens and their organisations. Possible services are the visualisation of information layers, overlay of information from different sources, spatial and temporal analysis, etc.'

But as always, the path from A to B is not always straightforward and to get all European countries to enact the legislation and then put in the time and resources required to ensure harmonisation of data will be where the main challenge lies.

In the meantime I shall watch with interest the initial reactions and debates.

The Countries of the World

I have in some posts given the link to a You Tube video. But I didn't know how to embed the video within my blog. Until now. Many thanks to Simon Brand for his advice.

So here I am experimenting with this facility. And of course the first one must have a geographic connection. Which this does. But since it is a weekend, the geographic connection is allowed to be tenuous.

Here is a listing of most of the countries of the world. I hope you like it.

AGI's old office

This morning I returned to AGI's old office on Old Street. It was strange to see it without furniture, without cupboards, without clutter. It looked much larger, but soul-less. But then it was always rather soul-less. And speaking personally, I am glad to be out of it.

Here are some pictures of the old office as it looked this morning. It will be interesting to see who moves in and what they do with it.

Yes, actually, we have signed out. For the last time.

Royal Patron for Map Action

I was pleased to hear that Prince Harry has agreed to become the Royal Patron of Map Action.

Map Action do a fantastic job in difficult circumstances around the world - see my earlier blog. This Royal patronage will increase their profile which will undoubtedly be beneficial for them and for those countries in which they operate both now and in the future.

AGI on the move

Some of you may have visited us in the AGI office in Old Street. It was not the most inspiring of offices, but was expensive particularly because it had an area devoted purely to meetings. We were paying for this space all day and every day, but only using it perhaps once a week.

About a year ago, I was asked to investigate moving to alternative premises in April 2007 when our current lease was due to expire. The brief covered 4 major requirements -

1. A reduced fixed cost so that AGI could utilise a higher percentage on membership income back to the service of members needs and requirements.


2. More flexibility so that we are not locked into a long-term commitment which might not be appropriate in the future if for example we move to more part-time working, working from home etc.


3. Somewhere which has the ability to host meetings of AGI sub-groups.


4. An environment in which staff will thrive and give their best for AGI.

Meeting those requirements was not easy. But I am hugely grateful to the AGI team for their support and their embracing of change - indeed their enthusiasm for the change.

We found a suitable office off Bishopsgate near Liverpool Street Station. This is a serviced office run by a company called YourSpace which seemed to encapsulate within their philosophy the same philosophy which drives the AGI team namely an inspiration and a passion for their customers.

And so today we moved out of our offices in Old Street and into the new offices. The move went more smoothly than I had dared to hope. Our new address is
5 St Helen's Place
Bishopsgate
London
EC3A 6AU



I am looking forward to working in the new environment and using this as a base to continue to give our members real value for their membership. If any of our members read this, then please feel free to drop by and visit us. We will give you a warm welcome.

Weekend digression

I feel that at weekends I am allowed the occasional digression completely away from geography. On Saturday I was driving up to Hitchin and listening to Dermot O'Leary on Radio 2. In his 'maudlin music' slot he played Rufus Wainwright's version of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah. It is just such an amazing song.

I don't know how to embed You Tube videos into a blog, so I just give you the URL for the original version by Leonard Cohen. Stop what you are doing, click below, and just listen -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf36v0epfmI

AGI Conference 2007

The AGI conference will be in September in Stratford Upon Avon. The format is an exciting evolution from the format of previous years and the conference promises to be the major event in the UK Geographical calendar this year.

Chris Holcroft the CEO at the AGI (and my boss) has just started a conference blog. I urge anyone who strays onto my site to go over and read the conference blog. And even better, sign up to attend the conference itself. You'll have a great time, learn loads and come away with added enthusiasm for the potential of geographic information.

International waters

At work last week I got a call from a reporter on Sky News asking if the AGI could advise on how international waters are set and checked. I was alone in the office and could not answer the question so I suggested he contact the UK Hydrographic Office.

The question was asked, of course, because of the abduction by Iran of 15 UK marines who, they alleged, had strayed from Iraqi waters into Iranian territorial waters and were therefore trespassing.

The dispute has now been settled and the marine have been released unharmed. But were they trespassing? Britain categorically says 'no', Iran maintains that they were. And I guess we will never know. On land, counties borders can usually be measured in relation to a river or at least some permanent geographical feature - sometimes a man made on such as a wall. But on the ocean there is no immediate feature. Of course a border can be categorized by its latitude and/or longitude, but presumably borders do not lie directly north-south or east-west, bit can be diagonal, zig-zag or whatever.

In this case we are dealing with the waters of the Shatt al Arab waterway. Apparently the dividing line between Iraqi and Iranian waters was first agreed in the 1970s and marked by buoys. But two factors have complicated matters. Firstly Saddam Hussain renounced the agreement. Secondly the boundary is defined by its distance from the coastline. But in that area the coastline is constantly shifting with mud flats appearing and disappearing over time.

So effectively neither side can claim with certainty that they were correct. It does seem to me that it was at best rather cavalier of the marines to move out of reach of their mother ship so close to a disputed boundary in a politically sensitive part of the world.

This is of some interest to me as I lived and worked in Iran in the late 1970s during and after the period of the Iranian revolution. It was an interesting time and I had a number of inadvertent adventures including the time being Scottish saved my life and the time the music of Boney M almost cost me my life. But those are long stories which probably do not properly reside in a geog Blog. So I will just sign off with copies of the maps that were used by each side to try to prove their point.

British map

Iranian map

A sense of perspective

I think it is ironic that as technology moves on and millions start to use GIS either on the internet or in sat.nav. devices, one effect will be that we will lose a sense of perspective and a sense of scale.

Yes I use Streetmap or Google maps if I need to know at street level where a particular street or building is. I use them if I am meeting someone or have to get to a building I do not know. I love the car sat.nav. if I have a really obscure route to take.

But neither of these pays particular attention to North or South. They won't tell me where my destination is in relation to the rest of the country. They won't give an overall picture of the countryside.

So I will use them with caution. In some instances they are incredibly useful. But for some instances, and particularly for general knowledge and interest, I will be happy to stick with a paper map. Sometimes I want to enjoy the journey rather than get obsessed with reaching the destination. Geography should encourage exploration, it should feed curiosity. I fear that sat.nav. devices will destroy both.

Chorley Day

In 1987 a Committee under the Chairmanship of Lord Chorley was asked to produce, and delivered, a report for the Secretary of State for the Environment into the handling of Geographic Information.

I work for the Association for Geographic Information, a body which came into being in 1989 as a direct result of some of the recommendations of Lord Chorley's report.

So was this report a milestone in the discussion of Geographic Information in the UK? Did it lead to major changes in the way Government dealt with GIS? Or did it simply gather dust? Chorley not!

Thankfully the report did much to foster the development of GIS in the UK. But could more have been done?

I am not planning to answer that. This post is simply to note that we at AGI are rightly marking the 20th anniversary of the publication of the Chorley Report. On 19th June, at the London Chamber of Commerce, we are running a Chorley Day to celebrate, and I am sure that is the right word, the anniversary of the report. The full programme has not yet been finalised, but this will be an opportunity for a wide ranging discussion of GIS twenty years on. And is is particularly pleasing that Lord Chorley will be attending the event. I am certainly looking forward to it.

Further details are on the AGI website.

Gradients

Golf is of course a sport which demands fitness, strength and subtlety. More than that, it encompasses philosophy, mental strength - and of course Geography.



Today I was playing golf in Keith with my father - good going in his case since he turned 90 last July. I was reflecting as we went round on the geographic features both on the course and surrounding the course. On the course there are the hills, the differing soil, the water, the twists and turns and the slopes. The particular slopes which were bugging me were the very gradual ones on the greens which I could not read properly. I expected the ball to go straight towards the hole, but at the last minute it would turn left or right and remain stubbornly in view instead of disappearing in the cup.



But beyond the course as well, I looked at the Balloch as it rose above the town of Keith or Ben Rinnes in the distance. Maps often do not give that sense of varying altitudes. Even Google earth does not give quite the sense of geography being three dimensional, but it is getting there.



I was further reminded of this as I flew up to Aberdeen. It was difficult from the air to really appreciate the mountains of the Lake District or the Grampians. From the air, one can differentiate between water and land, between city and country, between fields and woods. But to gain a sense of height, to see hills and valleys, is much more difficult.



No conclusion to this. Just a rumination - and after all golf allows loads of time for ruminating.




(My Dad with a tricky chip)

Sea breezes

Last day in Malaga - and another couple of hours on the beach. Time once more to ponder. Well that's what beaches are for.

As the afternoon wears on, there is a strong sea breeze. This has happened every day, but is not something which happens here in the middle of summer. Why is that?

Here again I need more Geographic information than I have. But I suspect that the explanation is something like this. The temperature in Malaga is now 21C. This is much higher than it has been recently and crucially is much higher than the temperature of the water. I did in fact go for a (very short) swim today and can personally vouch for the fact that the water is still very cold!

So I guess the temperature of the air above the land is higher than the temperature of the air above the sea. Warm air rises. Therefore I suspect that as the warm air rises above the land, the space below that warm air sucks in the colder air from the sea. This effect is more pronounced in the middle of the afternoon when the temperature on land is at its highest. And thus we have quite a strong sea breeze.

In the summer, the water is much warmer than now in February (I certainly hope it will be) and the air temperature differential between land and sea is less significant. Thus the sea breezes which would be so welcome in July, unfortunately do not happen.

I am not sure if this is a correct explanation, but is seems logical to me.

I return to London tomorrow, so will leave with a picture of the Malaguata beach this afternoon looking northwards from Malaga towards El Palo. Back I understand to a London which is wet and windy.

Pebbles on the sand

I often stare at waves. Usually though I am staring beyond them in a spiritual way and pondering the eternity of waves compared with the transience of my existence. Or something like that.

Today I was sitting on the Malagueta beach watching the waves. And looking at them rather than beyond them. The waves were not hitting the shore straight on but at an angle of about 10 degrees. I watched a pebble just within reach of the waves. When a wave retreated the pebble was washed a couple of feet away from the shore. And when a wave broke, it was washed a couple of feet back toward the shore. But because of the angle of the wave, it was a few inches further along the beach. I believe that retreating waves are always at right angles to the shore - it is only the breaking waves that may not be straight at the shore. Anyway with the coming and going of each wave, this pebble moved inexorably a few inches further along the beach.

So where would it end up? Will it eventually get to Sitges? Might the Spanish pebble eventually become a French pebble? And from where will the pebble come which presumably will take its place?

Too many questions and no answers. But this must be another example of longshore drift, which I am reading about in school Geography blogs. And this is the phenomenon which gives rise to erosion and to spits.

But that´s enough for today. The sun is getting low and the local chiringuita is serving excellent Rioja. The waves will be here tomorrow. Hopefully, so will I.

Malaga Playa

I am currently in Malaga. On the morning I left after my last visit, 24th January, it was windy. All planes were slightly delayed as the wind forced times between departures at Malaga airport to be lengthened. What I did not know, was that the wind strengthened during the day of 24th January and finally ended up as the strongest gale along the Costa Del Sol coast for many years. Some trees were uprooted and buildings were damaged. And in particular the beaches were affected with sand being washed away in some places and many stones being deposited on beaches in other places.

I guess this is an example of longshore drift where strong waves at an angle to the shore sweep away stones from one part of the beach and deposit them on another part.

Today in Malaga it was warm and sunny. So I went to the Malagueta beach, the local town beach. This was always a beach which has a line of stones just below the waterline. But now there is a new line of stones about 6 feet up the beach from the edge of the water. Presumably these were deposited by the large waves on 24th January. And apparently the local authorities are to import tonnes of sand to deposit on the beach in time for the main tourist season.

In the meantime, the stones were not a major problem. Especially for me - the water was freezing and I had no intention of going down for a swim. But the evidence of my eyes for theoretical Geography having a practical consequence was interesting.

School Geography

I got an O-level in Geography in Inverness and a Higher in Geography after we had moved to Keith. But that was almost 40 years ago, so my memory of exactly what I did in School Geography is dim. I cannot even remember the name of my Geography teacher in Inverness, though I do remember Eric Barton, my teacher in Keith, whose daughter Erica was in my class. A few years later he taught my father word processing at an evening class I believe.

But quite what we did in the Geography class is not something I can particularly recall. Indeed I remember rather better the Geography projects we did at primary school. For example I did a project on Sydney, Australia, and as part of the project sent off to the Australian Tourist Board for some leaflets. A huge pile of wonderful glossy brochures on all parts of Australia arrived at our door in Inverness, and I still remember the excitement of looking through those at a world which seemed impossibly far away. I wonder what I would have said had I known that I would spend a year in Australia some 20 years later. And I remember also doing a project on the Irrawaddy River which seemed so much more exotic than the mundane River Ness.

But now I find that some Geography classes at schools have their own blogs and are doing exciting projects on map techniques, population, settlement, water resources etc. One such blog is from Paul Williams, a Gegraphy teacher (perhaps the Geography teacher) at the Shrewsbury School in Bankok, Thailand. Not only does this site have interesting information of its own, it has a myriad of links to other educational Geography blogs.

And that would seem to be a reasource that I can use in this quest to make sense of Geography. I can go back to school without ever having to enter a classroom. So I will do exactly that, and I will report again on how I get on.

But currently I am in Malaga and such educational issues will have to wait. I am off to explore the varying Riojas of the region.

Per Ardua Ad Cadastre

Last year I was getting to grips with the term 'mashup' which seemed to appear in every GI article I read.

Now I am finding many references to 'cadastres'. At the AGI council meeting last week, one speaker mentioned land parcel cadastres. An email received yesterday on potential subjects for our Chorley Day mentioned land values as a key component of cadastres.

But I don't know what a cadastre is. So off I go to try to find out.

Firstly I find that in Roman times a Cadastre is a land information system particularly minor roads, ditches and boundaries. The establishment of a cadastre was preceded by surveying (limitatio) and the establishment of survey markets (terminatio). One legacy of the Romans in Britain was the centuriation of land, basically an information system for land parcels based on grid structures.

Nowadays, cadastral maps define legal repositories of land ownership, value and location. The plotting of the edges of land parcels can be incorporated into a digital cadastral database. These can incorporate an interest in, and ownership of, the land parcel. This can be done for fiscal purposes, legal purposes or land management purposes.

And this is not just a historical process, but very much an integrated contemporary process which can map environments for 3D geomarketing which can use the visualisation of strategic information relying on geographic supports for decision making.

But I am falling into the trap of reason being submerged by jargon. So lets stop there for the moment and return later to learning more specific uses for cadastres.

Geography goes west

History is history as far as many pupils in British education are concerned. A recent survey has shown an alarming reduction in pupils studying history at GCSE level. I really do think that this is serious as it means that in the future many British citizens will not have a historical perspective in which to judge current events.

But this is not a history blog. I am more directly concerned with geography. Surely geography might be benefiting from this phenomenon. Well, no actually. In fact the number of pupils studying geography is showing an event steeper decline and now represents only 3.7% of pupils.

All of this is because these are no longer compulsory subjects for the over 14s. The number of pupils studying subjects such as media studies have increased by 32%.

So in the future citizens might get more insight into watching Big Brother but will know nothing about the facts on climate change.

Isn't it about time those involved in geography took this issue seriously and did what they can to reverse this decline? The future of geography is at stake.

Tracking the snow leopard

Apparently Global Positioning Systems (GPS) are helping to track the whereabouts of some elusive snow leopards in Central Asia. The GPS devices are attached to a small collar around the neck of the leopards and their movements can then be tracked. And how do they get the collar onto the leopards? Not, apparently, by going 'here kitty kitty' and then slipping the collar on. But through capturing the leopards through non invasive leg traps, which sounds like a contradiction in terms to me.

But this is certainly an innovative use of GPS technology.

Reaching the heights

Highest Mountain in the World (and Asia)Everest, Nepal-China: 29,035 feet / 8850 meters

Highest Mountain in AfricaKilimanjaro, Tanzania: 19,340 feet / 5895 meters

Highest Mountain in AntarcticaVinson Massif: 16,066 feet / 4897 meters

Highest Mountain in AustraliaKosciusko: 7310 feet / 2228 meters

Highest Mountain in EuropeElbrus, Russia (Caucasus): 18,510 feet / 5642 meters

Highest Mountain in Western EuropeMont Blanc, France-Italy: 15,771 feet / 4807 meters

Highest Mountain in OceaniaPuncak Jaya, New Guinea: 16,535 feet / 5040 meters

Highest Mountain in North AmericaMcKinley (Denali), Alaska: 20,320 feet / 6194 meters

Highest Mountain in the 48 Contiguous United StatesWhitney, California: 14,494 feet / 4418 meters

Highest Mountain in South AmericaAconcagua, Argentina: 22,834 feet / 6960 meters

Nearly all higher than I have been. I've been to Cusco and Quito, but since I got to both by plane they hardly count as having reached a high altitude. In Scotland, climbing to the top of Cairngorm is the highest I have reached. And worldwide, I guess some climbing near the top of Mount Damavand in the mountains above Teheran would represent the highest I have been above sea level, probably at around 16000 feet.

How low can you go?

About this low in fact -

Lowest Point in the World (and Asia)Dead Sea shore, Israel-Jordan: 1369 feet / 417.5 meters below sea level

Lowest Point in AfricaLake Assal, Djibouti: 512 feet / 156 meters below sea level

Lowest Point in AustraliaLake Eyre: 52 feet / 12 meters below sea level

Lowest Point in EuropeCaspian Sea shore, Russia-Iran-Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan: 92 feet / 28 meters below sea level

Lowest Point in Western EuropeTie: Lemmefjord, Denmark and Prins Alexander Polder, Netherlands: 23 feet / 7 meters below sea level

Lowest Point in North AmericaDeath Valley, California: 282 feet / 86 meters below sea level

Lowest Point in South AmericaBahia Blanca, Argentina: 138 feet / 42 meters below sea level

I confess that although I knew that the Dead Sea was the lowest point on earth, I had not realised that it was quite so far below sea level.

I once payed golf in Death Valley, California. The club pro watched me hit a few balls, came
over and rather conescendingly said 'Never mind - it will be the high air pressure which prevents you from hitting the ball very far.'

Malaga (2)

There is a completely different perception from above a city. At street level there are few landmarks, the sun does not permeate to that level and working out one's position in relation to the rest of the city can be tricky.

But it is easy to climb to the Gibralfaro, the citadel on the hill overlooking Malaga. From here one can see the streets, work out their position in relation to the sea or the hills or the river.

This picture shows the Plaza Merced which is close to our apartment in the Calle Pena.

And here we see the Teatro Cervantes, and the H-shaped roof in the middle of the right edge of the photo is in fact the roof of our apartment block. It is interesting to look down on one's home and of course Google Earth gives a very similar picture of the area although the picture there was taken before out apartment was built whereas this was taken today.

Mapas de Malaga

I am currently sitting in an internet cafe on the Plaza Merced in the old Centro Historico of Malaga. As I walked around the narrow streets in the Centro Historico, I reflected on how useful a map of the district is. The streets in the area are very narrow, and the buidings very tall. Sunlight rarely permeates down to street level. So unless one has an inate sense of direction, which I very certainly do not, it can be really difficult to know whether one is going north, south, east or west.

I remember when I lived in Teheran all those years ago, getting one´s bearings was easy because the whole city sloped gradually from north to south.

But although Malaga has high mountains behind it and, obviously, the sea at its other edge, the city itself is relatively flat. So by the time I have turned left, right, left and right again, I have no idea whether I am going in the same direction or in the opposite direction. If I am lucky, I might get back to the place from where I stated.

But of course a map allows me to continue to where I am headed and get there in a reasonably straight line. Provided of course I am on foot.

In a car, with directions made even more difficulat by one way streets, I often take a huge unplanned detour. But now satnav will prevent such difficulties. All I need to do is learn Spanish. Now is ´izquierda´ left or right?

Fit for purpose

'The INfrastructure for SPatial InfoRmation in Europe initiative (INSPIRE) aims at making available relevant, harmonised and quality geographic information for the purpose of formulation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of Community policy-making.'

Sounds logical to me. There must be some kind of data standard throughout Europe to allow harmonisation of this data across borders. The principles in INSPIRe also appear to be logical and sensible, namely -
'Data should be collected once and maintained at the level where this can be done most effectively
It should be possible to combine seamlessly spatial data from different sources and share it between many users and applications
Spatial data should be collected at one level of government and shared between all levels
Spatial data needed for good governance should be available on conditions that are not restricting its extensive use
It should be easy to discover which spatial data is available, to evaluate its fitness for purpose and to know which conditions apply for its use. '

And now there is an agreed text which will now go for ratification to the Parliament and Council of Ministers.

The ramifications are beyond me at present. Others will no doubt comment on this and I shall bring you their thoughts in due course. But if the Directive makes geographical data fit for purpose, then this is to be welcomed.

The Father of Geography

Apparently Eratosthenes could be described as the first geographer. He was born in 276 BC in Cyrene (now Libya) and died at the pretty good age of 82 in Alexandria. He was a mathematician and philosopher (weren't they all in those days) and was the first person to measure the circumference of the earth.

He was accused of being a jack of all trades but master of none. Apparently his mates called him 'Beta' because he never came first at anything! Certainly he had a wide range of interests, including Geography. He sketched, quite accurately, the route of the Nile to Khartoum, showing the two Ethiopian tributaries. He also suggested that lakes were the source of the river. A study of the Nile had been made by many scholars before Eratosthenes and they had attempted to explain the rather strange behaviour of the river, but most like Thales were quite wrong in their explanations. Eratosthenes was the first to give what is essentially the correct answer when he suggested that heavy rains sometimes fell in regions near the source of the river and that these would explain the flooding lower down the river. Another contribution that Eratosthenes made to geography was his description of the region "Eudaimon Arabia", now the Yemen, as inhabited by four different races. The situation was somewhat more complicated than that proposed by Eratosthenes, but today the names for the races proposed by Eratosthenes, namely Minaeans, Sabaeans, Qatabanians, and Hadramites, are still used.

Somehow he also found time to write. His writings include the poem Hermes, inspired by astronomy, as well as literary works on the theatre and on ethics which was a favourite topic of the Greeks. Eratosthenes is said to have became blind in old age and it has been claimed that he committed suicide by starvation. Not something for modern day Geographers to emulate, though I guess blindness in those days must have really stopped all his interests.

What I wonder would he have made of Google Earth?

Geography and war

You may have read at the weekend that British Army intelligence in Basra in Iraq have complained that terrorists attacking British bases have been using Google Earth in order to pinpoint their attacks. A raid on the homes of insurgents has uncovered print-outs from Google Earth. Apparently these show vulnerable areas inside army blocks such as tented accommodation, toilet blocks or vehicle parking areas.

Soldiers are threatening to sue Google if it transpires that one of their number is killed as a result of information gleaned from Google Earth.

It is certainly an interesting issue. Though I suppose that the British Army also finds commercially available satellite images useful for their purposes. I know that Russia during the cold war period used to produce maps which were deliberately not to scale in order to confuse an enemy who might get hold of those maps.

Should Google stop mapping sensitive military areas? Who would decide on which areas fall within that definition.

I guess this does show that geography now impacts on such a wide range of issues these days. I suspect this is something we must just live with and of course in most parts of the world such up-to-date detail is very much a benefit.

Weekend break

I can't keep up a geography blog seven days a week. Sometimes I, and you dear reader whoever you are, need a break. Particularly at weekends.

So today has nothing to do with geography. Well almost nothing, though I guess rainbows do have a geography connection. And geography probably has a rainbow connection.

I do spend some time browsing YouTube. And one of my favourite YouTubers is a photography studio called Stonewall Studios in Niagra, Canada. A few days ago I mentioned to them the fact that I loved the music of the late Eva Cassidy and particularly liked her version of 'Over the Rainbow'. The guys at Stonewall kindly added some visuals to the music and downloaded it to YouTube. And here it is. I hope you like it.

I like maps

I've always liked maps.

As a very young boy, I used to follow the map when we went for the weekend from Inverness to visit my grandparents in Craigellachie.

When we went on caravan holidays to Gairloch or Ullapool, I used to ask for a map in order to locate on a map the islands I could see from the caravan window.

I remember in primary school we did a school project on Takoradi in Ghana, and I was fascinated by maps of the area. I resolved to go there, but unfortunately that has not yet happened.

My first visit to Russia was in 1986. We were under the strict control of Intourist but in Tbilisi (not longer in Russia of course) I resolved to slip away from their clutches. A locally-purchased map showed a tram line going to a nearby lake. On evening, I slipped away from dinner and boarded that tram. The actual route did not seem to correspond to the map. At one point, well outside Tbilisi, the tram started to go through a cornfield. Time to get out I decided. No one else did. I then walked to the edge of the field and there a mile away was the lake I sought. I walked to a village on the shore. The villagers had never encountered a tourist and I was invited to share some tea with them all in the village square. Afterwards, as dusk was falling, I went back to the field. There I was, waist high in corn, beside a rail line waiting for what I fervently hoped would be a tram. And yes it turned up. A great evening that was not in the guide book, only on the map.

On another visit to Russia, I found, on a map, a church on the shore of the Volga. Two of us took a bus and visited the church. We opened the door. There was a wedding taking place. We shut the door. It was then thrown open. Our visit apparently was deemed to be good luck and we were invited to be guests in the front row. After the ceremony, we gave our Best Wishes to the couple and went off to the water's edge. It was a hot day. I decided to go for a swim. I had no swim shorts, but there was no-one around. So there I was splashing around naked in the River Volga when suddenly the bridal party and all their guests came down to the river for the wedding photos. I hope the viewers of those photos look only at the foreground and not the background.

I remember in India finding Kanyakumari on a map and wanting to go there. Not much of a town, but at dusk we sat on the roof of a hotel watching the sun setting in the west over the Arabian Sea and the full moon rising in the east over the Gulf of Mannar. Magical.

Guide books tell you to do what others are all doing. Maps let you decide for yourself. I like maps.

Reflection

Ten days in - and of course I am questioning the raison d'etre of this blog.

Firstly of course I am writing to myself. Is that one step worse than talking to myself? Probably.

And this is blog about Geography written by someone who knows nothing about the subject. How silly is that? It's a bit like Ann Widdecombe wring a good sex blog or Jade Goody doing a philosophy blog.

And then although I am writing from a personal capacity, I am aware that I work for the Association for Geographic Information, albeit as the finance guy. This is a members-based organisation and of course I cannot say anything that would upset, disadvantage or unduly favour any of our members. That caveat might become rather restricting.

But the blog is a journey of understanding. Starting very much from square one. And already I have felt that the discipline of writing the blog had been helpful to me. I have no idea where this journey will take me. I will hit barriers of understanding I am sure. The jargon will be a problem, the acronyms also. But in order to meet my responsibilities to both the AGI and to our members, I believe that I really do need to gain further understanding of Geographic Information and all the concepts which are wrapped up within those two words.

So onwards and upwards. And please click here for a rather amusing lesson about the countries of the world.

Layers

I am beginning, I think, to understand the concept of layers when applied to maps. Initially a map appears to be a flat one-dimensional representation of a part of the world. But even the most basic map has a number of features - hills rivers, lakes, villages towns etc. And I guess it was when I first discovered Google Earth that I understood that you can take a digital map and then decide to overlay it, or not, with roads, points of interest, town names etc.

I remember listening to a talk at last year's AGI conference on fresh fruit deserts (as opposed to fresh fruit desserts) in Liverpool. In that instance a map of Liverpool was overlaid with those retail outlets which sold fresh fruit and vegetables. Because increasingly shopping is done at out of town supermarkets, many small shops in the inner city have stopped stocking fresh produce because they cannot guarantee to sell it before it deteriorates. So there are whole parts on the inner city where it is impossible to obtain fresh fruit and vegetables. Yet these are the poorest areas of the city and it is in these areas where many people do not have their own cars. So they cannot get to out of town supermarkets. So a whole swathe of the poorest people in Liverpool have no real access to fresh food. They are eating tinned food, not always by choice, by by necessity. That for me was an example of using mapping and combining it with data whose connection to maps was not immediately obvious, in order to highlight the problem in a way that raw data could not.

Local government has the opportunity to overlay maps of their area with a whole host of data, from bus routes to school catchment areas to health service provision to drainage etc. This video from YouTube shows this working in San Francisco.

So I presume that a lot of the GIS software being developed is allowing maps to be overlaid with useful data either for internal use of for proving information to the public. Add I can undertand that if this layered information is held digitally then it can be analysed and the spatial relationship of the data can be queried in a range of different ways for a range of different purposes.

Am I beginning to understand at least the basic concepts do you think? Let's hope so.

Map Action

There are many commercial members of the AGI who are involved in producing GIS software. But I confess that I am not sure exactly what each does and for whom.

At the 2005 annual conference I attended a talk by Roger Wedge of Map Action and suddenly I was introduced to a use of GIS which I has simply not envisaged.

Map Action are a mainly voluntary group who swing into action whenever there is a major natural disaster. They arrive with their laptops and remap the area so that aid agencies can get their relief to outlying areas quickly and safely. This is how they do it.



Recently they have been working in Kenya and previously they helped in Indonesia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. They do an amazing job and put geography in the forefront of aid deployment. I am pleased that we have given them honorary corporate membership of the AGI.

Too much information

Before Christmas I decided a needed a PDA. My needs were simple. I mainly wanted a reliable one with Microsoft Outlook which I could sync to my PCs at home and work, and thus have a master diary.

But reviews in the computer magazines and on-line gave me great detail about the technical aspects of each machine, about facilities I don't really need and about compatibilities, extra software, upgrades etc.

They are probably all capable of doing what I want. But because of the plethora of information, I simply have not been able to make up my mind. So I haven't bought one. I am confused by information which I recognise is not even relevant to me, yet that is hindering my decision-making.

At present I am finding Geography a bit like that. I simply want to understand the basic concepts of Geographic Information. But because I work for the AGI, I get inundated with newsletters, press releases, marketing pitches etc. And all of these are aimed at geographic professionals. So they are full of acronyms and jargon and assume a degree of knowledge which I do not have.

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with that. These are not pitched at the layman. The audience to which this information is pitched does presumably have the knowledge which can recognise the acronyms and understand the jargon.

But for me this represents a problem. How can I find somewhere which gives more basic information which I can latch on to? I want my learning curve to be gradual. Perhaps that simply is not possible. Onwards I search for the simplicity I need to allow me to move forwward at my pace up that learning curve.

What is GIS software used for?

This thought was prompted by an article in this week’s GISCafé newsletter. North Somerset Council have purchased software to help them ‘deliver services from the back office to the customer’.

Now, using the previous definitions of Geographic Information, I can understand that local governments would be a user of GI. I can think of a number of instances where a local authority is involved with location – roads, housing, school catchment areas, refuse collection, council tax etc. We at the AGI have a number of local authorities among our membership, though it has to be said there are even more local authorities who are not members and a major task for us this year is to persuade all local authorities of the benefits of membership of the AGI.

But back to North Somerset Council, who are indeed members of the AGI. They state that they purchased WebMap software in order to ‘deliver back office functions using front office staff’. Now I don’t exactly know what this means. Their problem as I understand it was an inaccurate database with many duplications and no unique referencing system. The software purchased was, I believe, a gazetteer management system which would allow them to clean and match the gazetteer data. They used their in-house GIS team to do this with the software purchased.

Now I don’t begin to understand yet exactly what this software does, but if the end product is an accurate database which can match assets with council tax, waste services, planning etc. then I can see the advantage. And it appears that they have delivered this information to their front office staff via an intranet site and to the public via their internet site.
They claim they can deliver more integration, more functionality and better reporting. And finally they say that staff and public are beginning to realise the value of GIS.

Except that the layman does not presumably realise that it is GIS that is delivering these benefits. And this is still the concept that I am trying to understand. It will take me some time before I understand more about what GIS software actually does and how it does it. For now it is enough for me to know that GIS software can significantly improve the quality and availability of data.

And it is important for me to realise this because I suspect that for the take-up of the technology to increase within local authorities throughout the land, there will be a number of non-geographers, particularly finance guys, within those local authorities who will need to be persuaded that the benefits outweigh the costs.

G.I.

The organisation I work for is called the ‘Association for Geographic Information’. Not, you will note, ‘for Geography’ or ‘ for Geographers’, but ‘Geographic Information’.

So having identified that Geography relates to the location of items, what do I now make of Geographic Information (GI)? What sort of information is that? I guess this must be any information whatsoever which relates to location.

I have recently returned from Malaga. This is a city south of Nerja. Presumably that is a piece of Geographic Information. Someone else might tell you that Malaga is north of Marbella. Another piece of Geographic Information. Put the two pieces of information together, though, and there is no increase in clarity. Even less if you do not know where either Nerja or Marbella is located. I suppose that is because there is no unique reference point and no commonality in those pieces on information. Presumably this is similar to the debate going on regarding commonality in addressing data. But I am getting ahead of myself there.

Malaga is 36.43 north and 4.23 west. Now that is Geographic Information which can pinpoint Malaga exactly on any map of the world. Very precise, very useful. And in a format that can be applied to any location, anywhere.

The AGI website is full of information of all types. It also includes a definition of Geographic Information as follows - 'Information about objects or phenomena that are associated with a location relative to the surface of the Earth'. I can understand that without too much difficulty and can immediately see that latitude and longitude fulfill that definition totally.

Where I do start to have a problem is with the use of Geographic Information in areas which might not at first seem to have a direct relevance to geography. We at the AGI have a large group of members who are commercial companies. This means that they sell things. Presumably. And I would have thought that most of what they sell can loosely be termed as geographic Information. But the key question for me is who is willing to pay for that information and why do the buyers feel that this information is valuable to them. Who uses Geographic Information and for what purpose? Does it supply commercial benefits, social benefits, benefits to the citizen or all three?

And to answer that question, I guess I must look at the websites of a number of organizations who refer to Geographic Information. But that is for another day. For the moment I just start with the knowledge that there exists a pile of information regarding location and that this information is useful for a huge range of purposes. And again I can see that our organization, the Association for Geographic Information, is uniquely placed, not to create that information ourselves, but to make information about that information available to our members via the website, via seminars, via the annual conference etc.

Oops now I’ve introduced the concept of information about information. Which is the same I guess as data about data. And I know that is known as metadata. But now I really am getting ahead of myself and straying into concepts that I need to leave for another day.