Blog
This is a short statement about our blog and our mission and introduction to the blog.
Form Test
February 21st, 2011São Tomé Map Project Poster
June 17th, 2010
GIS Day Presentation!
December 9th, 2009Serra and Jeff had the great opportunity to present at the GIS Day 2009 conference today! A rough transcript of our talk is below:
You can download the powerpoint with these notes as well.
Slide 1 – Introduction to Sao Tome, overarching project
Hi, we’re representing the Sao Tome Map Project, which operates under the auspices of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science here at the University of Illinois. GSLIS has been in partnership with the island nation of Sao Tome and Principe just off the west coast of equatorial Africa for several years now, and this past summer professor Jon Gant was invited to begin development of a GIS project for the island.
Slide 2 – Website
We’ve been keeping track of and sharing most of our work as well as documenting our process on a custom-built, but Wordpress-driven (that is content management system) website. You can explore many of the maps and find out more about Sao Tome and our research projects here.
Slide 3 – Stages, Projects
This past summer, myself and two other research team members spent a month in Sao Tome performing a needs analysis and beginning the process of building a spatial data infrastructure for the nation. We met with stakeholders from many sectors of society, including government, education, non-profit, and international organizations, all of whom were interested in the possibilities GIS presented in Sao Tome. We introduced them to the basics of GIS software and use, then discussed the unique issues Sao Tome faces as a small, African, developing, tropical island nation and how GIS might better equip Sao Tomeans to face them. Just as a sampler, some of these issues include political districting, agriculture and soil usage, deforestation and erosion, natural resource management, clean water sources, transportation and road maintenance, and much more.
Many individuals and organizations supplied us with detailed paper maps of topography, geology, and more to either photograph or take back physically to the University. Upon returning, we inventoried and explored the information these maps contain. This past semester, we have collaborated across various departments and courses at the U of I to begin processing this information and building a spatial data infrastructure around it. We are now entering the written research and information dissemination phase of the project.
This semester we’ve begun work on three different research projects related to spatial data infrastructure development. As an evolution of our efforts to organize, process and catalog our growing collection of maps and materials we’ve been prototyping and investigating the supportive use of open source technologies. We created an extensible digital map library with Greenstone and a collaborative web-based image annotation tool for translating and analyzing maps with Omeka. If you’d like to learn more about these projects come stop by our table, in our talk today we’re going to overview a bit about our use of ArcGIS and Google Maps.
Slide 4-6 – From Paper to Shape File
So we wanted to give you guys an example of what we’ve been doing so far. Here you can see a picture of a topography map drafted by the military in the 1970’s, around the time of the Portuguese withdrawal. Buildings, roads and other infrastructure are well documented. We then overlayed this map with better contemporary satellite images from Google maps to see some of the changes. By tracing in roads and buildings as layers, along with other features like parks or docks we can begin to use GIS for comparative and developmental purposes. Particularly with this pairing it is easy to see migration and expansion, and it may be possible to begin to predict future movements.
Slide 7 – Problems with the data
One of the problems we now face is the dearth of tabular data and metadata for the geographic information we’ve collected. There is little standardized local geographic knowledge – it’s all fairly anecdotal. For instance, there’s no address system: if you want to mail a package, you list the person’s name and the neighborhood in which they live. There are interesting alternative models for addressing this, however. For instance, the Taiwanese government has as part of its anti-malaria initiative a database of all the houses in São Tomé with unique identifiers for each. The image here shows the house database number as well as the date of the last mosquito pulverization. Such a database could easily be turned into an addressing system.
Slide 8 – Where do we go from here
In the future, we look forward to processing the rest of the map images we’ve collected and developing useful GIS data from them to address issues in geology, agriculture, environment, health, and more. This spatial data could then be put to use for civic development and resource management projects on island by the university and by government, non-profit, and research institutions in Sao Tome. We are also standardizing the processes we have put in place in this project so that other academic institutions and countries might create similar partnerships for development.
Task List
December 8th, 2009
GIS and data
- Digital map library development – Yingbo Zhou, Fang Wan – in process
- Image annotation collaborative web-based resource demo – Jeff - in process
- Civic and political applications demo map – Jeff, Serra, Camille, Brian, Fred, Megean – in process
- Geography map development demo – TBA – pending
- Add in photograph layers – Serra, Jeanie, Jeff – pending
Photographs
- Collect relevant photographs – Serra, Damon? – in process
- Identify photo location with GPS and logical deduction – Serra – in process
Publication, Dissemination, and Future Research
- Identify conferences, grants, and journals for possible publication – Jon, Jeff, Serra – pending
- Prepare files and website for deployment in Sao Tome – Jeff? – pending
- Identify future information needs – Jeanie, Damon, Jeff, Serra, Jon, Martin – pending
People
- Contact and meet up with map librarian (what are we bringing/asking them?) – Serra – suspended
- Contact and meet up with NRES/Urban Planning/ACES people to determine worth of environmental/agricultural maps – suspended
- Contact Google about community data sources – Serra – suspended
- Contact Taiwanese about malaria pulverization database – Jeanie, Serra – pending
Website
- Pictures and Bios for Sao Tome local assistance – Jeff and Serra – completed
- Write up ‘About’ page – Jeff, Serra – completed
- Expand and detail ‘Issues’ page – Jeff, Serra, Jon – in process
- Expand and detail ‘Process’ page – Jeff, Serra, Fang, Jon – in process
- Concept graphic & feedback – Jeff, Serra, Jeanie – completed
- Coding and implementation, adjunct accessible version – Jeff – completed
- Sao Tome e Principe / mobile site version (low-bandwidth) – Jeff – completed
- Convert to Wordpress theme – Jeff – completed
- Work out bugs and switch to faster private server – Jeff – completed
Future Trip Planning
- Collect and upload contact information of task force and other contacts in ST – Serra – pending
Maps Processing
- Inventory and explore maps – Everyone – completed
- Image processing and organization – Jeff – completed
- Online gallery for class use – Jeff – completed
- Photograph/scan large non-digitized maps – Possible Jeff, Serra and David Kunzman – completed
- Capture and stitch Google Maps satellite feed images for downtown area(s) – Jeff – completed
Beginning Translation
October 27th, 2009With significant help from Maria Carolina Castanha from the Universidade Catolica de Pernambuco we have a translated legend for one of the agriculture maps:
Resources
October 20th, 2009People
Sao Tome-based assistance
Crowd sourcing opportunities
- Portuguese class
- Cartography class
- GIS class
Professors/researchers
- NRES – Guillermo Mendoza – gamendoz@uiuc.edu, Jennifer Fraterrigo – jmf@illinois.edu – NRES
- Geography – Jie Tian – jietian@illinois.edu
- Urban Planning -
- Map and Geography Library: Kate Swan, Map Cataloger: kswan@illinois.edu; Jenny Marie Johnson, Map Librarian: jmj@illinois.edu; Jim Cotter, Senior Library Specialist: jcotter@illinois.edu
- ATLAS – Maryalice Wu
Translation
Pictures
- Environment
- Flora and Fauna
- Landmarks
- Key businesses, govt. centers, and non-profits
- Casual research team pics
- Social practice
- Murals/communication
- Monuments/buildings
Maps
- Terrain
- Map of plantation districts, including population centers – only Sao Tome (not Principe)
- Agriculture (crops and soil types)
- Climate
- Roads, rivers, population centers
- Topography
- Rainfall?
NEED – demographics, political, infrastructure data
WANT-aquaducts, malaria pulverization database of house “addresses”
Data
Still an area of urgent need. Demographic data in particular would be of foremost use. Where can we get this?
Technology
- Digitization utilities
- Data transport/sharing
- GIS/Software tools
Info on maps of STP
September 21st, 2009Here are my notes on the maps we photographed at Henrique’s -
Carta Dos Solos do São Tomé 1960 1:50,000
” ” Principe 1960 1:50,000
Plantation Map undated 1:75,000
Agricultural Potential STP 1:50,000 (Henrique said that this map was not the most reliable)
I’m going to piece together what I can regarding the plantation map (I think this was the last map we looked at on Saturday).
1975 map of plantations
topography shows how population distribution was based on crops
green = subordinate towns
pink = main plantations/headquarters
color designates ownership of land parcels (who owns which plantations)
red circles = towns
a little extra info. related to this map (from my notes)
in 1974, the nationalization of Portugal led to the Portuguese abandonment of plantations in São Tomé. The division between city culture and plantation culture shifted after independence, but individuals still seem more likely to identify with their plantation area than with the nation as a whole.
I hope this information is at least somewhat helpful.
On being a low-tech Google, training the UN, and the joys and trials of working with technology on a less than wired island
July 31st, 2009It’s hard to believe that only a week and a half have elapsed for us on island considering all that we’ve been busy with. Since scheduling meetings and trainings can take a significant amount of time to do here, we spent much of that waiting period in the first week walking the streets of Sao Tome city and visiting nearby towns with GPS and camera in hand, doing a sort of low tech Google street view by marking waypoints and taking photographs of important landmarks, businesses, and buildings. With some finagling, we were able to transfer these points (and their metadata!) to the GIS map of Sao Tome that the tech team digitized from a scanned pdf before we left. After this first week, our GIS data for Sao Tome are looking much more complete, accurate, culturally relevant, and up-to-date.
Yesterday was our first training session, held specially for employees of the UN (specifically UNICEF’s water, environment, sanitation, and health workers). We are incredibly fortunate to have Elves from STeP UP as a community partner and ally, as he was able to come and translate complex technical teachings without much prior experience or time to prepare. The training went well, and all were invited back to a needs analysis task force meeting tomorrow morning and a more complete introductory training session this Monday. We learned about some intriguing prospects and contacts for GIS on island that we look forward to following up with later.
Today we head out to the Polytechnic Institute to meet with the president of the college and learn more about their (not insignificant) expressed interest in GIS, and to evaluate the capacity of the computer lab they’ve tentatively offered as a GIS server and work space in the future. This weekend, we head out to Angolares to map the roads there. Many of the available maps for these inter- and intra-city routes are either wildly out of date or not terribly accurate, so the more cities and towns we can gather data for, the better able we will be to usefully represent Sao Tome with GIS.
Doing technical work in a setting with slow internet and a temperamental power supply has proven an informative and patience-enhancing experience. Issues that would be annoying but manageable in the US (like one of the project laptops deciding its ArcGIS license no longer exists) are far bigger obstacles here. Because communication channels back to the US are slow to nonexistent, we are forced by necessity to be resourceful in solving these problems on our own – a situation which we find makes the solution far more satisfying when we eventually (inevitably!) do find it.
Preparing for São Tomé
June 19th, 2009Jeanie and Sarah will be leaving for Sao Tome on July 17, along with Professor Martin Wolske and Damon McGhee from the LIS451 lab section (Danielle Ross is already on island with the OLPC team, where she is laying the groundwork and building relationships for the rest of the team to continue when they arrive). Until then, they’re busily training on ArcGIS and other digital mapping methods with Jon Gant and reading up on best practices for systems needs analysis and design.
The driving question for all this research (and for the trip itself) is “How can GIS be useful in São Tomé?” The goal for the summer is to identify opportunities, problems, and objectives for São Tomé regarding information technology and GIS.
The Micro PCs that will be used for this research are about to be ordered, and we can’t wait to start training on them! One of the big challenges we’re facing at the moment is the dearth of reliable, up-to-date, accessible GIS data for São Tomé, so being able to create our own using the technologies we’ll have on hand will be invaluable as the project moves forward.