Jessica Wyland of Spatial Sustain and V1 Magazine discusses the role of GIS when measuring carbon footprints. Woods Hole Research Center (WHRC) scientists are using GIS to measure ‘carbon-rich biomass in heavily wooded areas to indicate the effect that deforestation and land use have on rising carbon levels in our atmosphere.’ Through GIS, the researchers are able to study and review changes and use maps to model the effects of different future land-use and carbon-related decisions.

GIS Blog discusses the ability of people to recognize maps made with GIS and the improvements needed for the quality of maps. One of the problems was “users of the maps (be it clients, project managers, creators) don’t value cartography. The savings of quickly producing a map outweighs excellent cartography.”

GISuser reports that through the partnership of Reutech Radar Systems and 3D Laser Mapping, field mapping robots are able to make intelligent decisions in virtual real time. The advanced laser scanning system supplies the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in South Africa with research into intelligent field robotics for studies relating to perception, mobility and navigation.

Mapping is officially taking new heights in the health sector. According to the Mapufacture blog, an article, entitled The Great Health Mashup provides the benefits of combining and visualizing numerous geospatial data streams together to help with awareness and decision making. Other reports, such as HealthMap, provide a global disease alert map.

Popularity: 17% [?]

Cuba has been in the spotlight lately as Raúl Castro officially takes over as President ending the 49 year rule of his brother Fidel Castro. What will be the legacy of Fidel Castro and the socialist revolution that he led since 1959? One of the most acclaimed successes for the Cuban government has been its progress in health and health care, particularly in the rural areas in the eastern part of the island. Whether or not health care in Cuba is what the government claims it to be is strongly debated. See for yourself the state of health and health care in Cuba using Finder!.

The Cuban government provides in depth statistics on the health of its population by province and finder has these data available for the years 1996 to 2006 with more than 80 health and health care related attributes. Whether you are interested in the change in infant mortality over the last decade, which provinces have more doctors per resident, or what is the leading cause of death in each province, this dataset will help illustrate what the situation is on the island.

Here is an example of what these data can be used for. This map shows the number of family doctors per habitant in 2006. Provinces in red have less doctors and the green ones have more.

See data for:
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
1999
1998
1997
1996

Popularity: 18% [?]

Over two weeks have passed since the 7.9 magnitude earthquake devastated Chengdu, China. The end of this tragedy is still hiding as aftershocks continue to ripple throughout the country. News feeds continue to stream from China as the recovery process continues. The most recent reports have the death toll climbing to 50,000.

The USGS keeps daily records of recorded earthquakes worldwide, and enables us to pinpoint earthquake locations by providing latitude and longitude coordinates. Within Finder we have made this data available for use in shape, kml, and CSV formats to the public.

The following Datasets can be found on Finder, and can be used to gain a spatial perspective on the current events in China.

USGS, M 1+ Earthquakes, World, 5.5.08 through 5.12.08
USGS, M 1+ earthquakes, World, 5.12.08 through 5.19.08
USGS, M 1+ earthquakes, World, 5.20.08 through 5.27.08
USGS, Earthquake Records, World, 1998-2007

Popularity: 21% [?]