Irene Heading For Densely Populated Northeast

As of Thursday morning, Hurricane Irene was heading towards the Northeast's population centers.

Communities in the Northeast are preparing for the impact of Hurricane Irene. Mayor Bloomberg is urging citizens to prepare themselves in New York City, and reports are that the city of Boston is investigating potential shelter locations. If Irene comes to shore in the Northeast, there will be large numbers of people affected, which is why some are weary of a potential disaster in the making. Today, I created the population density map above with ArcGIS to show this. On the map, you will find the projected path and cone in addition to population; each dot on the map represents 5,000 people. I have posted a tutorial on where to find the applicable data and how to generate a similar product in ArcMap on Outside the Neatline.

GIS Used to Monitor Disease in Coral

In honor of Discovery Channel's Shark Week, the CRE Blog is featuring ocean-related content  this week.

ReefBase is a "Global Information System for Coral Reefs"

In a blog post earlier this week, I highlighted the relationship between coral bleaching and climate. Yesterday, the American Association of Geographers' Smartbrief featured this article in Environmental Protection discussing researchers at the University of Florida using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to monitor the health of coral reefs. Caribbean coral reefs have recently been ravaged by disease, and researchers are trying to find the cause; with some theories being climate related. For more on their results, read their article in PLoS One. For more GIS related content, check out Outside the Neatline and for more coral-related GIS content, visit ReefBase.