Location is Personal: Issue 10, October 2019
Mapping disasters for the people
Location is Personal is a monthly newsletter by Mapbox, from the desks of Lo Bénichou and Amy Lee Walton. Sign up here to get it personally delivered to your email inbox, by an email sending robot.
I’ve been living in the Bay Area for 14 years, and only now started prepping everything I need for natural disaster. I would have expected that when I moved from a city like Paris —where the worst natural disaster was getting pooped on by a pigeon—to California it would be an adjustment. Earthquakes? Fires? Drought? You’d think that experiencing a good shake or multiple days of unbreathable air would sharpen my sense of danger. Yet, only recently have I purchased everything I need for a go-bag and to be fair, that was largely due to 10 seasons of The Walking Dead rather than the obvious impacts of climate change.
The probability of a natural phenomenon destroying anyone’s livelihood should be enough to bring the point home and yet, for many, it does not. The lack of preparedness or willingness to leave before a disaster is actually a well-documented phenomenon.
Research shows that many people don’t leave before imminent storms for many reasons, including economic burden, and more. But others who have the means to leave, simply don’t. According to the Washington Post, “lack of preparation, research shows, is caused by cognitive biases that lead people to underplay warnings and make poor decisions, even when they have the information they need.”
For others, emotional attachment and trauma make it difficult to leave, even in the face of dire reality. Just this week in Northern California, we’re seeing fires break out just outside of Santa Rosa, where survivors of the devastating 2017 Coffey Park Tubbs fire—who are still trying to settle back into a new sense of normal—are facing a difficult decision of whether to evacuate or stay put.
So, my question is this: How can we make disaster and emergency maps less abstract and more personal? Can maps move people to action?
I don’t claim to have the answer here, but I did see a map that made me want to do something. At NACIS in Tacoma this month, Daniel Coe shared his work at the Washington Geological Survey and emergency mapping:
These maps show walk times to tsunami evacuation zones if an earthquake were to hit, and how fast one would have to walk from different areas of the region. My first thought was “I can’t walk that fast!” and I don’t even live in Seattle. The map made me realize what it would take for me to survive. I found it quite effective. The map was well designed for its audience of the general public.
Similarly, the Defensible App map above allows you to check your building’s fire risk by entering your address. While I find those maps very informative, I don’t think they’re an effective call-to-action because they don’t truly convey the danger I would face in case of a fire or an earthquake. It tells me that I may be at risk, but at risk of what? And what will it take for me to survive? Of course, we know that personal possessions may be destroyed, but the key here is to inform people of how they can save themselves and possibly their homes.
Have you seen maps that make you want to pack your bags and go? Share them with us on twitter using #locationispersonal.
— Lo Bénichou
Support Victims of California Wildfires
- ASPCA is coordinating shuffling around animals from the North Bay.
- SF Marin Food Bank is coordinating getting food to shelters during the fires and handing out food and water.
- Sonoma County’s Animal Services is helping with animals with food and housing during the fires. They also have an Amazon Wish List.
- Catholic Charities of Santa Rosa is coordinating shelters.
- Marine Humane is offering emergency boarding for evacuated animals.
What we’re reading
- Where in Northern California PG&E shut off power to avoid wildfires — LA Times
- How Language and Climate Connect, JSTOR Daily — How biodiversity and linguistic diversity inform how we understanding of the planet
- “What Satellite Imagery Tells us About the Amazon Rainforest Fires,” The New York Times
- “You Can’t Stand in Louisiana and See a Glacier,“ New York Times — photographic studies of the warning signs of environmental mirroring
- “The Most Detailed Map of Auto Emissions in America,” The New York Times — Find your city’s CO2 footprint
- This prepper-perfect process of making custom waterproof, tear-resistant maps for emergency preparedness scenarios, via Reddit
- “Assessing How Well Earthquake Hazard Maps Work: Insights From Weather and Baseball,” Earth Magazine
- “When a Natural Disaster Strikes, it’s Too Late to Start Making Maps,” Geographical
- “How PG&E’s Aging Equipment Puts California at Risk,” Wall Street Journal — Excellent explainer on PG&E’s responsibility in the California fires
Who we’re following
- Kate Harris, writer and wanderer, author of “Lands of Lost Borders”
- Nadja Popovich, reporter and Graphics Editor for climate at New York Times
- Denise Lu, reporter and Graphics Editor at New York Times
- Joe M Fox, writer and feminist at The Washington Post
- Tina Freeman, photographer exploring the global dialogue between water across geographies
- KK Rebecca Lai, reporter and Graphics Editor at New York Times
- Eleanor Lutz, PhD candidate studying mosquito behavior, science designer, data enthusiast
- Daniel Coe, Graphics Editor for the Washington Geological Survey in Olympia, Washington
What we’re building
- Speed up your game design process with Maps SDK for Unity version 2.1.0
- Expanded coverage in Mapbox Boundaries and offline in Atlas
- How we’re building 3D Maps — terrain, 3D models, and 3D network data for navigation
- Yahoo! Japan maps on iOS and Android — Building apps for Japan? Sign up for private beta
- Discover and analyze location data of any scale with Mapbox macros in Alteryx Public Gallery
- Participatory mapping and support for the Waorani in Ecuador — how you can get involved!
- Visualize data faster & in-browser with our new Data Explorer
Developer Spotlight
David Garcia is a mapmaker and PhD candidate exploring the ethnography of crowdsourcing and mapping via OpenStreetMap. In the Philippines, he worked as a geographer and urban planner in cities and communities that were hit by disaster or war. David is super active on twitter sharing his amazing map prints and promoting inclusive and diverse voices in mapping with #Indigenousmapping #decolonisemapping and other initiatives.
Events
- PostGIS: A Beginners Guide to Spatial Databases | Mapbox SF | November 4, 11, 18
- GIS Day Happy Hour & Maptime | Mapbox SF | November 12
- GIS Day/Open House | University of Oregon DREAM Lab | November 13
- GIS Day Happy Hour | Mapbox DC | November 13
- GIS Day | George Mason University | November 13
- RoboSat Workshop | Stanford University | November 14
- Intro to Mapbox | University of California San Diego | November 22
- Intro to Mapbox Vision SDK | University of San Francisco | December 5
Jobs
- Engineering Manager, Search — Washington, DC
- Senior iOS Engineer, Mobile Telemetry — San Francisco, CA
- Senior Product Designer, Map Design Tools — Washington, DC or San Francisco, CA
- Senior Frontend Engineer, Map Design — San Francisco, CA
- Engineering Intern — Multiple Locations
