Due to the incredible amount of data available in the internet, anyone can monitor protected areas around the globe. For journalists, looking closer to what is happening in parks and other kind of reserves can just give a lot of material for good stories. If you read the previous post, on “Tracking Forest Fires”, you saw how simple is to download updated fire pixels into Google Earth.
Now once you just have the firepixels on your computer, you can cross this information with the limits of national park for example. The best way of doing it is to go the World Database on Protected Areas. Overthere you go to the Advance Search Area and then just look for you country. After is just to search in one of the countries protected areas categories and finally they will open a page with the parks names. Once you click in one of their names you get a lot of good information. But the main thing is to download the Google Earth -KML file with the shape of the area. And well, one click is everything done. I used this resource a lot to illustred our O Eco Monitor on Fires at the Protected Areas (in Brazil).
I get pictures like this one, from the Bom Futuro National Forest. This is how it look like on last august.
Producing stories and graphics with forest fire information is one of the most interesting applications that journalists can do using the satellites information. The slideshow you see above was very simple to do. I just colect all the fire alerts that Fire Information Resources Management System (FIRMS) send everyday on my email. Once you get in the website you can sign for a newsletter with your area of interested and they send you all the fire spots registered.
The FIRMS is done by the University of Maryland, a well known center of geo-technologies which work with NASA and a lot other institutions. One thing that helps me a lot on their website is Web Fire Mapper. It is pretty good deal for finding stories if you just ask to see the latest fire spots with the Protected Areas Layer. Go to the right hand side, click on ‘Layers’ and choose ‘Protected Areas’. You might see, if you live in tropical country like Brazil that, protected areas has been very much affected by fire.
And finally, do not forget testing the data on Google Earth. Just go the Web Mapping Services and choose ‘KML/Google Earth`. Once again you can choose the fire spots by region. Download the KML file (suitable for opening in Google Earth) and once it is open in you computer, try to cross the information. See which cities are close to the fire. Or even more interesting just import some protected area limits and see how they burned lately. Next post I will show where to get parks and reserves on KML format very easily.
If you interested on using geographical tools in your stories or in your projects, I think Google Maps is effective and easy way of doing it. The only thing you need really is to create an account in Google, which does not harm so much. Once you are able to log in on Maps website, you choose the option of creating a new map and then you just have to put some place marks where you want you readers to have look at.
The example bellow shows how I am editing the map of forest fires in Brazil. Once I get the location of the fires (subject for a following post) I put a place mark there and add some picture and links.
After that, if you go the right side where is the word “Link”, you can get the URL for embed the map in your website. That what we are doing at O Eco. See here.
Beyond that, you can use your skills on design and mix your map with Flash. Well take I look on this storie me and my good friend Aldem Bourscheit created after doing a two day trekking on the southeastern mountains of Brazil. We took pictures and place then on the points we spoted on GPS. Then we just put it over the Google Maps and our skillfully designer, PA Vieira, mashed with Flash. Just click here for the whole storie.
To finalize. It is also nice using Google Maps with a lot of people editing togheter. When you create your own map just click on the “Collaborate” button and invite other people to plaice some data there.
I am myself inviting everybody who wants to participate in the GeoNewsMap . The idea is just send me an email and then you will be able to edit the map and geotag the news and the content you want other people to see. Let`s try.
I have been saying to a lot of people that US’s National Aeronautics and Space Agengy (NASA) are not only good on building rockets. Believe me, the people who put the man on the moon, are doing also good journalism.
Just take a look on the images bellow. These are satellite images from the Artic and show a large ice melting within a short space of time in last august. The whole story can be read on Nasa’s Earth Observatory website.
Huge melting going on
My point here is `This is a tremendous compelling image!’.
But it is not only about image, I must recognize. When you read the full story, you see that good information make the whole thing even better.
I have to tell you that the NASA’s Earth Observatory was kind of a shock to me. These guys are producing amazing information and yet giving us beautiful (free!) images. I signed their newsletters right away and everyweek they are sending amazing material. Specially if you sign up for the Natural Hazards section, you might find a lot of stories to write about only by looking at a map. Try.
I have been reading Arthur C. Clarke and there is no doubt that he was ahead of his time when defending that space research and, more specifically, sattelites are tools of peace. He was writing a couple articles in the middle of the Reagan´s Star Wars, in 1980s, and had foreseen the huge impact that satellites would have on peoples way of working, travelling, producing, talking. Much more important than military use.
Besides, it is nice listening to Clarke remembering us how beautiful can be the pictures took from the outerspace. I would say here that we should also considering how powerfull these images has been on communicating Earth´s most urgent problems.
Take the example of this images bellow. It was obtaneid (for free, it must be stressed) on Nasa’s Earth Observatory.
Forest fire in Los Angeles
This is something that everybody could understand. It is huge forest fire and huge columm of smoke. Does not need translation.
But where the journalism came to forefront? Well, I think that we, journalist, are not taking advantage of having all these free imageries and immense flow of information on Earth events. The interpretation of sattelite images is, so far, seen as duty of GIS (Geographical Information Systems) experts. This is true when we talking about information that is going to lead public policies or some private investment. But we can do a great job interpretating ourselves some of the image and delivering to our public .
