Mapping Tools

To gain understanding of mapping tools, I used Google MyMaps to mark up this map of Saunders Woods Preserve.

For a small preserve like Saunders, there are only so many features I can highlight, but the MyMaps tool itself has proved to be a useful and easy to use mapping tool. This program could be applied to a wide variety of situations and does not require much or any knowledge of mapping software. You can mark any number of specific locations or ranging areas, add a picture and description, and sort them using layers, colors, or icons to indicate different types of landmarks. I used the layers feature to sort natural features and habitats versus manmade structures. While almost the entirety of the preserve is woodlands, I marked the meadow using the range/area highlighting tool. I used a combination of pictures I have taken along with google images to provide the photos. I also added the usual trail that I take, a nice, long loop around the whole preserve. You can focus and mark locations of a small area like I have, or alternatively of an entire country, or the whole world. The only minor issue I had was with the photo uploads sometimes turning the pictures sideways, but with a little of persistence that can be resolved. I have never used a mapping program before, but with the help of the brief tutorial video I feel as though I have nearly mastered this tool, and would definitely recommend it to other beginners in mapping.

ArcGIS, on the other hand, is a much more complex tool with a far greater variety of uses for professionals and academics. Whereas MyMaps can be used by anyone interested in maps for personal usage, ArcGIS has many practical applications. There are tens of thousands or more filters you can search for and apply to your map: different slope/elevation options, forest types, soil data, species nesting locations or sightings, and most things you could think of. This is possible because users are able to upload their own data/map filters which has led to a massive accumulation of filters to examine and choose from. The down side of that is that not all of them are complete or lack certain details you may be looking for as many are not officially or professionally created and do not have as much data as possible. For example, I was curious about the invasive species called spotted lantern flies that were first sighted in this area (southeast PA) a few years ago, and there are a few different map filters showing some of their locations, but many were not very comprehensive. One, called The Probability of Spotted Lanternflies, though, was fairly informative and scaled down well enough, but only covered PA. To show this map filter, I've added 3 screenshots: 1) a zoomed out view of all of PA, 2) a zoomed in shot with Saunders Woods Preserve circled without the SLF probabilty filter, and 3) a zoomed in shot with Saunders circled and the SLF probability filter on. This should provide some visual aid in describing what I've discussed.

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If I or anyone was interested in uploading their own data, this would be a fantastic program to use, and that data could be useful to others as well. A lot of these filters are intended to be used when looking at larger areas such as counties, states, national parks, countries, even continents and worldwide. When trying to use the Forest Type map filter, as well as the Hydrologic Soil Type filter, and zooming all the way in to Saunders' 25 acre property, they do not scale down to that level very well, but can still be used to gather some general information about the greater area. The same can be said for the Lithology and Ecological Facets Landform filters. The Slope map filter, however, did an effective job showing the hilly terrain of Saunders from the meadow at the top down to the stream at the bottom. I would definitely recommend this program to anyone looking to study or learn more about larger areas in any number of categories from factors relating to physical science like biology, geology, environmental science, to sociological, political, and economic factors such as buildings, populations, poverty, and much, much, more. ArcGIS has an extremely large and diverse plethora of uses with the potential to get very in depth in terms of application of data.