I used Google My Maps to identify various habitats and parks within Douglas County Nebraska. I distinguished between prairies, deciduous forests, and wetlands/lakes/reservoirs. Additionally, I am in the process of adding parks to the map as well. Parks in the area are typically created for human recreation, with a minimal thought for biodiversity. They usually have a large area of turfgrass with some intermittent trees. The amount of protected native ecosystems within the county is rather limited so I am mapping the parks in an effort to identify locations where native ecosystems could potentially be restored. If even a portion of the turfgrass could be converted to tallgrass prairie it would create additional wildlife habitat.
This was my first experience with Google My Maps, and I liked the ease of use. After a short 15 minute tutorial, I was up and running. This program has good potential for use in my career as an engineer as well as for conservation-related projects.
I have used ArcGIS during my undergrad, and in playing around with it for this class, I see that there are some nice features that I didn't find in Google My Maps. The various publicly available layers, the different base map options, analysis tools, etc. seem like they could really improve the functionality of the map.
No comments:
Post a Comment