Lab 4 AcrGIS

Proposed Airport Expansion

There are many advantages and potentials in using ArcGIS. This is usually for environmental calculations. People can learn more about their surroundings using GIS. For example, on the tutorial, GIS gives me geographic information such as where things are (schools, airport layout (runways), routes and county boarders) so I know how big the county is. GIS shows arterial roads which are high traffic streets. This can really help in deciding if it is a good idea to expand the airport because I can see how many roads there are and how many are going to the airport. GIS helps in seeing if there is a good balance, thus, to predict whether too many or too few cars would go to the airport. I can see if it is convenient for cars to get to the airport on arterials and which arterials. The map also allows me to see schools in the county and where they are. This is important because schools can be affected if the airport is expanded. The school, students can be negatively affected if expanding the airport causes more planes to fly in and out. This way, traffic will increase and there will be a lot of noise from planes.

The second map tells the viewer how the area is being used. We can see how the airport expansion would affect everything in the county. There seems to be many residential areas near the airport and this suggests that airport expansion is not a good idea because people will complain about the noise. However if you look at the population density map which shows how many people live in a certain area, we can see that maybe the airport expansion is a good idea because it is an urban area with many people, so a large airport would be nice to have for business trips and personal travels.

One pitfall of GIS is that one mistake can wreak and cause the whole project. It is very easy to make a mistake because GIS is so complicated and there are so many options to pick from in every step. If you pick the wrong tab, the map can show you a totally different point of view or calculate the information in a different way, giving you different results. Because there is so much to learn from GIS and how to use such advanced technology, industries and companies that use GIS must employ careful and detail oriented professionals. Employees and the technology are very expensive so the price to use GIS is very high.

Living Healthy in Down Town Los Angeles

After using Google Maps to create my own map, I learned that one pitfall of using this tool is that I cannot add specific or remove specific features to and from it. For instance, freeways are unimportant on my map, however, unfortunately, its point and emphasis will still be there on my map because I can’t take them out. Another consequence of using and relying on Google Maps is that sometimes it is unreliable because anyone can post and create a map on there. This means that anyone can pin a place and write a wrong destination, place name or place at a wrong location. Also, some maps created by people are not useful so it becomes a waste of time to look at them. Google Maps also has the limitation of looking into the interior of buildings and the blueprint and layout. I know if Google Maps was able to do this, it would be invading privacy, however, if I wanted to make a map of a confusing building like the UCLA Medical Building, I could not. In addition, Google Maps limits the amount of space you get for writing and describing a place or pin.

Aside from disadvantages and consequences of Google Maps, there is potential to it. Because anyone can create a map of their own they can choose where they want to remember and pinpoint. For example, if I borrow a tour book and get a list of the city’s attractions, I can pick out everything that interests me and pin point them on Google Maps and make my own tour that suits me the most. Google Maps allows people to take notes on the pins so their location will be revealed with just one click. People can also choose an icon to represent their place so they can better remember the point or have an idea of what that point is.

Website: http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&vpsrc=1&ctz=420&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=202664028242823768863.0004af0f94b432003c44b&t=m&z=15