Participation Assignment Oil Spill

Role of GIS in disaster response
Every day, the world transforms, shores erode, water rises and falls, and land wiggles and cracks. In order to keep up with the unpredictable nature of our planet, people have created computer programs to map the constant change. Maps provide guidance to the change. Geographical information system manages, manipulates, seizes, and analyzes geographical data to produce these maps. This program has provided aid to millions by creating order and structure to the chaos natural disasters bring to communities. More and more communities utilize the power of ArcMap to map growing neighbor hoods, provide information to the public, and aid in natural disasters.
At 10 pm on April 20th, another disaster struck in the Gulf of Mexico as the New Horizon oil drill started to release oil into the gulf. As every second passed, the situation worsened. Oil was spreading, new coastlines were being contaminated, new fishing water deemed unsafe, and new barricades were being built. GIS was made for helping these types of situations. GIS allows us to identify where help is needed, which allows for help to be allocated quickly and accurately. It is being used to determine clean up needs and costs of the oil spill. GIS was also used to calculate a flow rate of the oil spill from aerial photos. In addition, it allowed for the quick production of restricted area maps to the public. GIS also produced maps of the damage to be sent to the government for funding accounts. GIS role in disaster relief is priceless; without it there would be chaos.

ArcGIS Animation

http://students.uwf.edu/hkm3/participation3.avi

This video shows boundary lines of the oil spread over time. The layers represents the oil spill over six dates from April 29 2010 to March 26 2010. This animation was made through the animation feature on ArcMap. This lab was straight forward and simple.