Google Earth Ireland - Recently Updated Pages

Survey group

ricardoo3 — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 08:49:54 CST

NAMES: Michelle Killeen, Robert Matthews, Paul Alexander, Richard Webb
IDEAS (use discussion board at bottom of page to respond) let it rip!
THINGS TO DO... Visit Council Print map of Stella Gardens and surroundings Richard is putting together a virtual tour of the area to set the scene and get everyone thinking about the dynamics and factors that play out on the ground. (due 12/02/10) We need to look at the work of Gilbert White in relation to conducting the survey. Draft up themes, questions and format for survey. So far we are interested the populations capacity to deal with an event, flood partnership, vulnerability linked to various factors (age, car ownership, ability to leave in an emergency) insurance problems, climate change awareness, faith in new infrastructure to prevent future events, residents ability or interest in influencing the decision making process (i.e contacting politicians)
WORK ALREADY COMPLETED Email drafted by Paul and awaiting thumbs up. (02/02/10) Email Sent 03/02/10 - to date, no response (15/02/10) Follow up phone call attempted (12/02/10) no response Follow up phone call attempted (15/02/10) Meeting organised Meeting 22nd February 1pm Block 1 5th Floor Civic Offices, Fishamble Street.
LINKS This OS mapping site seems to be the business. (I took the image above from it) Has a range of maps from historical to present. http://ims0.osiemaps.ie/website/publicviewer/main.aspx?id=&utype=&ecom=S1&user#V1,727182,734685,1 www.surveysystem.com/sdesign.htm www.accesscable.net~infopoll/tips.htm http://www.mathsisfun.com/data/survey-questionnaire.html Moving along from today I found this website that appears to have links to what we are trying to define in terms of vulnerability to flooding. The focus is the third world but still relevant. It also has an example of a questionnaire that adds some new ideas to ours. Such as people with disabilities and ability to leave flooded area in terms evacuation roads. It terms flood vulnerability as been a combination of exposure/susceptibility and resilience and documents themes under Indicators similar to our own: · If we are just interested in gauging the General Social Vulnerability Index then http://www.unesco-ihe-fvi.org/ · I think we should also look at the work of Dr. Joern Birkmann (see examples below) and link here: http://www.apfm.info/pdf/flood_mapping/21Approaches_to_flood_vulnerability_assessment.pdf The slideshow also contains some interesting ideas on mapping vunrability for the GIS team. This paper highlights the development of INDICATOR DESIGN FOR FLOOD VULNERABILITY ASSESSMENT http://www.cabri-volga.org/DOC/D3-CaseStudies/CaseStudyIndicatorDesign.doc

NAMES: Michelle Killeen, Robert Matthews, Paul Alexander, Richard Webb

IDEAS (use discussion board at bottom of page to respond)
let it rip!

THINGS TO DO...

Visit Council
Print map of Stella Gardens and surroundings
Richard is putting together a virtual tour of the area to set the scene and get everyone thinking about the dynamics and factors that play out on the ground. (due 12/02/10)
We need to look at the work of Gilbert White in relation to conducting the survey.
Draft up themes, questions and format for survey. So far we are interested the populations capacity to deal with an event, flood partnership, vulnerability linked to various factors (age, car ownership, ability to leave in an emergency) insurance problems, climate change awareness, faith in new infrastructure to prevent future events, residents ability or interest in influencing the decision making process (i.e contacting politicians)

WORK ALREADY COMPLETED

Email drafted by Paul and awaiting thumbs up. (02/02/10)
Email Sent 03/02/10 - to date, no response (15/02/10)
Follow up phone call attempted (12/02/10) no response
Follow up phone call attempted (15/02/10) Meeting organised
Meeting 22nd February 1pm Block 1 5th Floor Civic Offices,
Fishamble Street.

LINKS

This OS mapping site seems to be the business. (I took the image above from it) Has a range of maps from historical to present.
http://ims0.osiemaps.ie/website/publicviewer/main.aspx?id=&utype=&ecom=S1&user#V1,727182,734685,1
www.surveysystem.com/sdesign.htm
www.accesscable.net~infopoll/tips.htm
http://www.mathsisfun.com/data/survey-questionnaire.html

Moving along from today I found this website that appears to have links to what we are trying to define in terms of vulnerability to flooding. The focus is the third world but still relevant. It also has an example of a questionnaire that adds some new ideas to ours. Such as people with disabilities and ability to leave flooded area in terms evacuation roads. It terms flood vulnerability as been a combination of exposure/susceptibility and resilience and documents themes under Indicators similar to our own:
· If we are just interested in gauging the General Social Vulnerability Index then http://www.unesco-ihe-fvi.org/ · I think we should also look at the work of Dr. Joern Birkmann (see examples below) and link here: http://www.apfm.info/pdf/flood_mapping/21Approaches_to_flood_vulnerability_assessment.pdf The slideshow also contains some interesting ideas on mapping vunrability for the GIS team. This paper highlights the development of INDICATOR DESIGN FOR FLOOD VULNERABILITY ASSESSMENT http://www.cabri-volga.org/DOC/D3-CaseStudies/CaseStudyIndicatorDesign.doc

GIS/Census

ricardoo3 — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 08:45:34 CST

PEOPLE IN GROUP Danny, Niall, Josephine and Manuel
WORK TO DO We are currently in the midst of making maps, and wrestling with excel documents. below you should find two of the maps that we have made today. tell us what you think. the historical group asked us to do up a map of the 1986 flood. they has provided us with the streets that were flood. now all we have to do is find a way of mapping it effectivly. one way that i (Danny) can see us doing this would be by getting an image from Google earth of the area and even doing something as simple as filling in the flooded areas wis MSpaint or a similar program. i'm sure ill bring this up in class on tuesday but us any thoughts you have down the bottom.
WORK COMPLETED we ran into a small problem today with GIS when it decided not to recognize about half of the EA's. so the maps from now on will just be of the Dublin city EA, but we think it still gives us enough information to make good comparisons. and the little white spopt in the middle of the city is something that we hope to be able to fix soon also the maps below are not the final maps. some things have to be snipped and we still have to agree on a colour scheme and on how to classify the breaks and so on, but when we figure that out the maps are very easily changed. please tell us what you think :)
IDEAS (Respond using threads at bottom of page) You may want to take a look at this slideshow which gives examples of different mapping techniques applied to defining vulnerability http://www.apfm.info/pdf/flood_mapping/21Approaches_to_flood_vulnerability_assessment.pdf
MAPS SO FAR Population Density for the whole of Dublin http://i737.photobucket.com/albums/xx16/Sir_snackbox/Population_density.jpg Population density for the coastal zone of Dublin http://i737.photobucket.com/albums/xx16/Sir_snackbox/banana_Population_density.jpg Dot density for the whole of Dublin http://i737.photobucket.com/albums/xx16/Sir_snackbox/DotDensityofDublin.jpg Dot density for the coastal zone of Dublin http://i737.photobucket.com/albums/xx16/Sir_snackbox/DotDensityCoastalZone.jpg % Household owned in Dublin city http://i737.photobucket.com/albums/xx16/Sir_snackbox/Owneddublincity.jpg % households rented in Dublin City http://i737.photobucket.com/albums/xx16/Sir_snackbox/RentedDublinCity.jpg Dependancy Ratio http://i737.photobucket.com/albums/xx16/Sir_snackbox/Dependancy.jpg
CHAT ROOM

PEOPLE IN GROUP
Danny, Niall, Josephine and Manuel

WORK TO DO
We are currently in the midst of making maps, and wrestling with excel documents. below you should find two of the maps that we have made today. tell us what you think.

the historical group asked us to do up a map of the 1986 flood. they has provided us with the streets that were flood. now all we have to do is find a way of mapping it effectivly. one way that i (Danny) can see us doing this would be by getting an image from Google earth of the area and even doing something as simple as filling in the flooded areas wis MSpaint or a similar program. i'm sure ill bring this up in class on tuesday but us any thoughts you have down the bottom.

WORK COMPLETED
we ran into a small problem today with GIS when it decided not to recognize about half of the EA's. so the maps from now on will just be of the Dublin city EA, but we think it still gives us enough information to make good comparisons. and the little white spopt in the middle of the city is something that we hope to be able to fix soon

also the maps below are not the final maps. some things have to be snipped and we still have to agree on a colour scheme and on how to classify the breaks and so on, but when we figure that out the maps are very easily changed.

please tell us what you think :)

IDEAS (Respond using threads at bottom of page)
You may want to take a look at this slideshow which gives examples of different mapping techniques applied to defining vulnerability
http://www.apfm.info/pdf/flood_mapping/21Approaches_to_flood_vulnerability_assessment.pdf

MAPS SO FAR
Population Density for the whole of Dublin
http://i737.photobucket.com/albums/xx16/Sir_snackbox/Population_density.jpg

Population density for the coastal zone of Dublin
http://i737.photobucket.com/albums/xx16/Sir_snackbox/banana_Population_density.jpg

Dot density for the whole of Dublin
http://i737.photobucket.com/albums/xx16/Sir_snackbox/DotDensityofDublin.jpg

Dot density for the coastal zone of Dublin
http://i737.photobucket.com/albums/xx16/Sir_snackbox/DotDensityCoastalZone.jpg

% Household owned in Dublin city
http://i737.photobucket.com/albums/xx16/Sir_snackbox/Owneddublincity.jpg

% households rented in Dublin City
http://i737.photobucket.com/albums/xx16/Sir_snackbox/RentedDublinCity.jpg

Dependancy Ratio
http://i737.photobucket.com/albums/xx16/Sir_snackbox/Dependancy.jpg

CHAT ROOM

Virtual Fieldwork

ricardoo3 — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 08:10:36 CST

This page highlights lessons using virtual fieldwork on Google Earth.

UPDATE 08/10/09...You can now record tours in the free version of Google Earth 5.

The first lesson here on virtual field trips uses a host such as Photobucket to store the pictures that you then load to Google Earth placemarks by copying and pasting the html code over. You can send and save the tours as kmz. files.

The second tour stores the pictures on your computer and therefore makes you have to send the whole file (pictures and tour) as a kml for it to work. This makes for bulky files.

LESSON 1
Please download the word document on this tour here. A video tutorial is also available on this on the tutorials page.

LESSON 2

Here is the first and most basic virtual fieldwork lesson I have tried out with students using Google Earth. The class have been studying Brazil so I got them to create a virtual tour which consisted of 3 basic steps. 1. find locations of interest, 2. add information they had prepared on each place, 3. add a photo using basic html. The full 10 step lesson is below. You can download it here if you want to print it as an example. The virtual tour we created is located here and will open on Google Earth when clicked.

TOP TIPS! Change the setting for touring on Google Earth before opening KMZ files. Go to Options, touring and slow it all down! Also, make sure the open balloon option is ticked so that you can see the full placemark information.

Virtual Fieldtrip of Brazil

You have been learning all about Brazil in Senior 6 and today I want you to add that knowledge and interest you have into a short virtual fieldtrip using Google Earth. Once we have completed the work I will put the tour on my website ‘googleearthireland.com’ so that interested schools and teachers can look at the information you have created. We will work at the same speed so that I can show you each step on the projector before you complete it.

Here is the work for today.

1. Getting to know Google Earth on the large projector screen.
2. Next, on your own PC you will each be given one place you have learned about during your class project on Brazil to find on Google Earth.
They are listed below.
Christ the Redeemer 1, The Favelas 2, The Maracana 3, The Rainforest 4, Street Children 5, Copacabana beach 6
3. Once you have found the place you then have to add a place mark. To do this:
- click on the yellow pin at the top of the GE screen.
- give the placemark a title.
- change the placemark to a different icon by clicking on the pin.
- Change the icon to the correct number (see your place above)
4. Type in the information you have prepared into the placemark description box.
5. Now you need to get a photo to go with the information.
- find a picture using Google images
- save the image to the desktop
- right click image and select open with Internet explorer
- In the description box on Google Earth type in <img src=”
- Then copy and paste the file path you see at the top of the picture in Internet explorer.
- then add “> at the end of the image path Check your picture is added to the placemark by clicking on it..
6 . Set the view you want to show of the placemark then right click and select ‘snapshot view’. This will safe your view for the tour later.
7. Now you have created your placemark we need to get them all onto one computer so that we can run a tour.
8. Using the memory stick save you placemark
- right click on placemark in the ‘places’ folder on the right hand side.
- save to memory stick.
9. We will now work as a team to change the speed and effects of the tour.
10. Presentation to class of work completed. Well done! k

Here is an example of one of the placemarks created.

The Pupils enjoy the fruits of their labours...

Video Tutorials on Google Earth

ricardoo3 — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 08:01:45 CST

Here is a new tutorial that shows you how to add hosted images to Google Earth placemarks. There is also a step by step word document that outlines the process and could come in very handy if you were teaching this. Download it here.

Below is a 3 part video showing you how to add gps, photos and video to placemarks in Google Earth. I hope you enjoy them!

PART 1

ADDING GPS PLACEMARKS IN GOOGLE EARTH

PART 2
ADDING IMAGES TO GOOGLE EARTH

PART 3
ADDING VIDEO TO GOOGLE EARTH

Welcome to the World...

ricardoo3 — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 07:42:50 CST

Video Tutorials on Google Earth	Virtual Fieldwork Lessons
Using Google Earth in Word / Publisher	Download layers and lessons for Google Earth
About the owner of this site... This site was created in 2008 by Richard Webb as part of my dissertation for UCD titled 'Creating a Platform for Google Earth in Irish for download at the bottom of this page. In the last year over 20,000 visits to the site have been logged and my videos tutorials on Google Earth viewed over 40,000 times. I am currently working on a Masters in Geography at UCD that will focus on taking Virtual Fieldwork in the classroom to the next level. LINKS Get Google Earth Free You mean to say you don't have Google Earth installed on your computer! Well no time like the present. Get it here. PLUS: Educators can get a free licence for Google Earth Pro HERE worth $400. . . Public Transport Advisor: http://justroutes.com/ This site uses Google Maps to tell you the best way to travel in a City. Dublin included. Shame the buses aren't coordinated with GPS in realtime. A Finger on the Pulse Jamie Buchanan-Dunlop is director of inomad and operates Digital Explorer in the UK as well as being a grass roots Geography teacher. He first wetted my appetite for virtual fieldwork at a course he led at the RGS in London. His fantastic blog gives a personal account on the good, bad and ugly of all things relating to technology in the geography classroom. On the topic of ugly, check out what he has to say on one of my deepest frustrations and ongoing battles: the blocking power of multimedia devices in schools: Why are schools so afraid of web 2.0? The Guardian online also had its say on the issue: http://education.guardian.co.uk/elearning/story/0,,2074232,00.html He has a lot to offer and hopefully he will visit Ireland in the near future to provide some inspiration to the web 2.0 nation! The best blog on all things Google Earth Frank Taylor’s blog is the best Frank Taylor’s blog is the best place to source the latest news on Google Earth imagery and new layers/tours that have been created by people and organisations around the world. Where did you get those gloves? People are always asking if that is me with the lit up gloves in the picture above. No, maybe soon it will be but at present I should respect these folks! What an amazing invention and something you could try with the students. 2 LEDs, 2 ping ball balls and a projector and hey presto watch the demo video here: http://atlasgloves.org/demo or visit the website. I don't have time to make gloves! Well try this instead. For the price about 30 Euro you can have a 3D connexion Space Navigator. It uses sensors to allow total freedom of movement within Google Earth. Say goodbye to the pesky mouse. You can purchase the navigator here www.amazon.co.uk .The demo video below is class and will put you right in the mood to own this little piece of kit. Make sure you have the volume up. Are you a Geography Geek? I suppose I am judging by the time spend building this site up. Anyway, if you feel the need to expand your knowledge then check out Geograhy Geek which charts IT developments and resources in Geography teaching. Internet Speed test...Don't believe what they say... Here is a handy site to measure your true Internet upload and download speed. It is pretty common for providers to sell you x amount when in reality you are getting ...click here to find out. This site is oozing with geography ideas Noel Jenkins site focuses on ICT and GIS in Geography classrooms. Along with virtual lessons using Google Earth. He has some wonderful ideas The best Educational layers on Google Earth __________________________________________________________ The official education portal of the Department of Education and Science in Ireland. Managed and developed by the National Centre for Technology in Education. Association of Geography Teachers of Ireland	Updates... Discussions threads can be started at bottom of page! 25/02/10 New video tutorial on virtual tours. This video shows you how to add images and record a tour in Google Earth. It is for first time users of the programme. I have also attached a word document outlining the basic steps that you can download here. If you are a teacher I think your students would really enjoy attempting this work. If you have time let us now how you got on by adding your reaction to a discussion thread at the bottom of the page. *19/01/10* *Dynamic mapping moves closer...* It appears it was only a matter of time before real-time life merged with the static, abstract world of cartography. Forget viewing photos and pre-recorded video with Google Earth and start thinking of Augmenting Aerial Earth Maps with Dynamic Information. Or in layman's terms, combining live video imagery with current Google mapping appications. Check out this video. *23/12/09* *Well first off Happy Christmas to all the members of this site.* My attention has been drawn to www.3dmodeling.eu/indexe.html by the creator Thomas Bialek who is based in Kilkenny, Ireland. He offers to build sketchup models for home and business users of Google Earth. It is great to hear this sort of thing is going on in Ireland and best of luck with your work. 15/11/09 The AGTI are hosting a workshop on Google Earth and Scoilnet maps for Geography teachers in Dublin on the 21st November. I will be giving the class on virtual fieldwork and uses for Google Earth within the Geography curriculum. Please contact Peter Lydon at the AGTI for more details. 10/10/09 3D Dublin Forgot to mention that Dublin city centre along with many other cities are available in 3D now. You will need to download a plugin from here to view them then tick the box in the layers section of GE to activate. *09/10/09* At the moment I am studying a GIS course at UCD and although I chose to study Geography to avoid numbers I am actually enjoying it. It made me think that actually starting to create thematic maps in Google Earth could be a real possibility. This has led me to Bjørn Sandvik from Norway who also wrote a thesis on combining thematic maps with Google Earth. He has created a beta version of an API that allows you to create maps from your own data source. An example is posted above or you can visit his website and download a kmz file to Google Earth here. I will let you know how I get on with it. *07/10/09* The people at AR sights have a great piece of software you can download here. Using your webcam and you project Google Earth models onto your desk. 1. Download and install plugin 2. Print of a piece of paper 3. Point webcam at piece of paper 4. Get scared as Effiel Tower appears infront of you. *05/10/09* Make sure your download the new version of Google Earth (5). You can now record tours you have created, add speech and send the tour to other Google Earth users. This is a major breakthough as before this feature was limited to Pro users. Happy recording. Check out all the new features in the video below. *01/10/09* Check out the new historical view on Google Earth. Hover over an area and move the timeline to reveal past images from Google Earth. This is an exciting add on and great for showing pupils how areas such as the Dublin docklands have developed since Google Earth was concevied. I imagine this feature will only get better and better with time. *21/09/09* I will be a guest speaker at the Association of Geography Teachers of Ireland on the 3rd of October. Saturday 1.45 -2.45. Green Isle Hotel, Nass Rd, Dublin Richard Webb talks about promoting technology in the classroom and Google Earth. 20/09/09 The future looks grim... Interesting video on the future of the internet. Makes me worried if the NTCE can't accept web 2.0 in our schools what will they do when web 3.0 arrives. This video produced by the EU predicts most services we consume will be linked with web 3.0 in the next few years. We can teach children how to use a phone book but what about this? *18/04/08* TUTORIALS ARRIVE! Great stuff has been happening the last couple of days. I have worked out how to record the desktop on the computer so that you can listen and watch Google Earth video tutorials. This is a major step forward and I hope you enjoy my efforts. The first tutorial focuses on adding placemarks with photos/video and can be found below. This video was featured on teachertube and in four days was watched 2000 times! (now 12000) PART 1 ADDING PLACEMARKS USING GPS PART 2 ADDING IMAGES TO PLACEMARKS PART 3 ADDING VIDEO TO PLACEMARKS 09/04/08 UPLOADING VIDEO So Teacher Tube finally allowed us to upload a video. They say upload is unlimited but don't get to excited, anymore than 15mb and it is likely to crash! Instead you have to reduce the quality of videos you make. There is an excellent free converter you can get here. I would recommend selecting mp4 and best quality to get a 100mb film down to 7mb. If your video is more than 5 mins start breaking it up into parts. This is quite common and can be done very simply using Windows Movie Maker. Anyway, here is the result below. The 3 minute movie focuses on urban regeneration and contested Space in Belfast. Remember you can do all this yourself by setting up a tour. See the virtual fieldwork page and video tutorial page for more information. Here is the version with text and music on Youtube NEW VIRTUAL TOUR! Here is another attempt at creating a video tour in Google Earth, this time using the course of the River Liffey as it meanders through Dublin. My latest headache is the video server teacher tube. Basically they are awful but on the plus side schools can access the content. The quality of upload is so poor I would not subject anyone to my videos on teacher tube at present. If you are in a school in Ireland and want to watch this tour the best thing is to view it on Google Earth here. If you can watch Youtube then lucky you! Click on the video below. I have worked out teacher tube is an American server so if you upload out of US time it seems to work better. Why is something so simple so hard. If I could get some finance I would build my own media provider and shake up the NCTE. It is slowly sucking the life out of anyone with an interest in ICT in Ireland. Their lastest trick was to block Google and Yahoo images, a stable of any teacher who wanta to make displays more interesting. They claim there is a virus in the system by it ain't harming me or anyone else around the world. I think we would have heard about it. 08/04/08 DARFUR CRISIS ON GOOGLE EARTH Here is a link to a super layer from the United Nations Outreach Programme. It weaves together satellite maps, photos, videos and eyewitness accounts to give viewers a close-up look at the refugee crises in Iraq, Chad, Columbia and Darfur in Sudan. Download to Google Earth here 18/03/08 JUST LOOK AT WHAT GOOGLE EARTH CAN DO! I came across this tonight. The first video is a flight over the Swiss Alps. The second is Noel Jenkins (from Juicy Geography) attempt to copy it using Google Earth. Surely this is the one if the finest examples of the power and realism of the software. You will have to stop one video now and again to get them in sequence but that in itself is part of the fun. However, if you want someone to do it for you then I know a nice Spanish man click here

UCD Geography Skills: Evaluating vulnerability to climate change in Dublin

ricardoo3 — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 06:40:15 CST

Introduction by Dr. Gerald Mills

The project that we will work on this term is an environmental risk analysis focused on coastal
Dublin and, more specifically, the Ringsend-Irishtown area. Our purpose is to bring together
physical geography (variation in the environmental conditions) and human geography
(management of natural systems and responses to fluctuations) to assess the vulnerability
of coastal Dublin to flooding. This study is timely given the concern for global climate
change and its implications for planning at all scales.

SAFER VIDEO: How Dublin is preparing for flooding

Part 1 Part 2

*****NEW VIRTUAL TOUR OF FIELDTRIP AVAILABLE TO DOWNLOAD ON GOOGLE EARTH*****

Updated with Enumeration Areas and potencial survey areas 15/02/10

Updates...

Here are some links to videos on flooding in Dublin that I think everyone should watch. The first is from the Eco Eye series and looks at how Dublin is planning for future events. It mentions the Safer project. http://www.eu-safer.de/272.html
The second is from the Safer European website that seems to contain more information than the Irish Safer site on Dublin. You can watch a 15 minute DVD online that has been prepared by the Safter Dublin team and summaries what their aims and objectives are. It also mentions flood partnerships and how they are keen to build up a pitcure of risk and vunrability. Watch 'DVD-"Behind The Paradigm' Working with SAFER - the Strategies and Actions for Flood Emergency Risk Management project - Dublin City Council have developed an approach that incorporates SAFER principles with the internationally accepted five stage emergency management process. http://www.eu-safer.de/273.html

There are a number of discussions taking place at the bottom of each page if people would like to contribute.
Richard has added a chat feature to every page so that students can arrange a time to meet online and discuss ideas.
Danny has added the maps the GIS team made today (15/02/10) on population in the Dublin area.
Richard has completed a virtual tour of Ringsend and the River Dodder that can be viewed above with enumeration areas added so that we can define the area in question.

Also it would be helpful if the groups copy and pasted links (not uploaded) to each page and also updated what they were working on.
Michelle Killeen has added some of her photos from the fieldtrip.
Meeting with Council has been arranged by Paul.

Links...

Dublin City Council Emergency Plan 2008, has a section on how they intend to deal with future flood events. http://www.dublincity.ie/waterwasteenvironment/major_emergency_planning/documents/major%20emergency%20plan%20dec08-sections%201-14(public%20access).pdf

Paper written by Tony Mcguire (SAFER) on the Dublin Coastal Protection scheme. Covers what SAFER do and how they fit into the wider equation. Available for download in the box below or here https://www.box.net/shared/474rqnxm4g

River Dodder Catchment Flood Risk Assessment & Management Study http://www.dublincity.ie/WaterWasteEnvironment/WasteWater/Pages/RiverDodderCatchmentFloodRiskAssessmentManagementStudy.aspx Worth marking contact with Gerry O 'Connell who is the project leader gerry.o’connell@dublincity.ie

Dublin Coastal Flooding Project: Has good background information and a survey to download that we should take note of. http://www.floods.eu.com/

Basic terminology from International Strategy for Disaster Reductionhttp://www.unisdr.org/eng/library/lib-terminology-eng%20home.htm

Upload Documents to this file for sharing or place a link to attachments above.

Climate Change and Dublin

paul.alexander — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 04:24:44 CST

Paul Alexander
Univeristy College Dublin.

"Climate Change and Dublin" - Adapted from Talks at local Schools / Residency meetings, Dublin 15.
___________________________________________________________________________

Global Climate Change is undoubtedly one of the most (if not the most) talked about, contested, and most challenging issue of our time.

It encroaches on every facet of live as we know

It is in our politics - Our most recent example being the COP-15 meetings
It is in our media - Rarely a day goes by without news of a weather event deemed to be "out-of-the-ordinary" by news reports
It is in our popular culture - I can wager that 1 in 2 of you reading this will have at some point seen the movie "The Day After Tomorrow" and/or "An inconvenient Truth"

The term "Climate Change" almost instantly sparks questions, and simultaneously, debates on the answers, when really there is nothing wrong with the term itself, nor is there anything wrong with the even less popular term "Global Warming".

The Climate does change: it changes all the time: every second, every minute, every hour, every day, every month, every year, century and millennium the climate is constantly in flux: it is ever changing, it is simply a matter of "what scale?" over (/) "what time?".
From microscale / short time (minor precipitation increases/decreases over a day) to macroscale / long time (Global changes in temperature increase/decrease over thousands of millenium)

What Causes natural Change

Our planet is intimately linked with the Sun, life has thrived and diminished based on the amount of solar radiation we receive from it. This is the first thing to note in relation to this issue: that our planet goes through cycles of warm and cool periods controlled primarily by access to solar radiation, but has little to do with the amount of solar radiation emitted by the sun - rather it has to do with the Earth's tilt and the Earth's orbit.

Everyone is aware of this: In Ireland we have distinct climatic seasons, four of them in fact.

Summer, winter, spring and autumn represent orbitially related climatic changes induced by a change in our access to solar radiation -only marginal in scale and marginal in time. Seasons are far less distinct around the equalatorial zones.

Changing Climate

Changes in our orbit were identified by an Astronomer Milutin Milankovitch. He developed mathematical formulas upon which orbital variations are based, thus they became known as "Milankovitch-Cycles" or "M-Cycles" for short.

Picture a perfect circle, at the dead centre sits a large dot representing the sun, on the line of the circle itself, a smaller dot, representing earth - the line itself, represents our orbit around the sun. In this configuration, every side of earth gets some access to solar radiation depending on its location in orbit throughout our orbital cycle (one year).

Now we re-draw the configuration: All the initial elements are there, the sun, the earth and the orbit, but instead of placing the sun in the centre of the circle, we move it to the left-centre. So, for 1 season, one side of earth is going to get scorched, for 2 seasons, the status quo is maintained, and for the last season, things are going to get colder. A lot colder.

Now we re-draw the configuration again: Again all the initial elements are there, but this time we don't draw a perfect circle, we draw say, an elliptical shape (just imagine getting a squishy ball and pressing it flat down onto a table) - now everything is pretty messy, but for simplicity let’s say this orbital pattern means we get winter like conditions for 3/4 of the year, and about 1/4 of the year relief.

This underpins everything on earth as we know, Ice Age to Inter-Ice Age and back again, i.e. from 'cold spells', to 'warm spells', and back again.

Ireland's Changing Climate

The last 'cold spell' began in and around 30,000 years before present (BP) in Ireland's neighbourhood, this climatic shift caused the Arctic ice to descend from the North Pole Southwards, towards what is now Europe. By 20,000 BP Ireland was almost totally covered by a thick ice sheet stretching south-west from Scotland, changing the green colour that covered much of Ireland into a sheet of white.

This is significant, returning to the present for a moment: In the rare days we get sunny spells, (or more likely when you travel abroad to areas closer to the equator for a sunny holiday), you might notice a change in your clothing choice. Perhaps its now larger instinct but in sunny days, we tend not to opt for darker colours such as black, grey or brown, but rather lighter ones such as blue, pink and white. There is a reason for this (besides the Irish need to be fashion kill abroad) - Darker colours absorb more solar radiation, you literally feel warmer in a black top than a white top on a sunny day: this property of a material is known as albedo or simply "the reflectivity of a body". Its measured in percentages but if scientist talk about it, they usually use numbers from .01 (Very low reflectivity) to 1.0 (Highest reflectivity), but for our sakes 50% (.5 to the scientists) means about half of sunlight is reflected.

Fresh snow sits around at 90% albedo, meaning sunlight is largely reflected off its surface (ski-goers reading should be able to verify this; most will wear glasses to counteract the glare experienced while on the snow). If the sunlight is reflected like this, then it is unable to heat the surface - like passing your hand quickly through a naked flame.

This triggers what is known as a "positive feedback":

Less solar radiation means colder climate > colder climate leads to snowfall > snow leads to even less sunlight > which means less heating > which means more snow etc.

So we can see how ice ages endured long after the orbit returned to a similar regime that is in motion today. Back to Ireland 20,000 BP: Over the next 2000 years (18,000 BP) snow accumulation and expansion peaked, the expansion of the ice slowed, reached equilibrium and then eventually began to retreat.

By 15,000 BP only Ulster was still buried under the retreating ice sheet. Although the rising sea levels had begun to flood the lower lands, a land bridge still connected the south-eastern tip of Ireland to south-western England. Trapped between this land bridge (and the ice sheet still lingering in the north) the Irish Sea began to fill forming a vast freshwater lake. It was at this time that the first plant life returned to reclaim the rocky wilderness that Britain and Ireland had been reduced to under the harsh colder climate.

First rugged grasses coated the land and, around 13,000 years ago, the first trees (hardy Junipers) began to grow.
Many animals, including the Giant Deer, crossed into Ireland across the land bridge and since then, homo-sapiens have flourished and grown.

So whats the fuss about?

Hopefully the above has imparted that really there is nothing about the term "Climate Change" that should immediately cause contestation, nor "Global warming" (if there's global cooling, there has to be global warming) but where there is conflict is on Recent Climate Change and Recent Global warming.

I'm not writing to try sway readers; how you reach a decision is your own business and none of mine. What I will say here as a researcher, as a scientist and as a climatologist, there have been observed changes. The why of this is where people differ.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an organisation of over 1,500 scientists from around the world. They come from every walk of life; climatologists, economists, political analysis’s, planners, policy makers, engineers to name a few, and under the direction of their governing bodies, they study the big why question.

Now, its no secret that many scientists working together is a volatile collaboration even if they are all in the same discipline - so imagine this many and all from different disciplines - all with different training, different theories and different methods, different governments and different languages.

What changed people's minds?

Every 5 or so years they release progress reports, we know them as "assessment reports" and they are freely available for any of you to view (http://www.ipcc.ch/) be warned, they go into meticulous detail (some are a 7000 page read). Heads of house-holds reading might agree that co-ordinating even a small family unit into picking a movie at the cinema can be a chore, so in 2007 when the IPCC, the family unit times 300 or 400, announced that they had reached a scientific consensus, even those of us in the academic world not involved felt the sharp peak of our curiosity. What did we find?

In 2007 The IPCC released its 4th assessment report which stated that there was a 'scientific consensus' that much of the recent observed changes in our climate can be attributed to global warming and that humans are responsible.

Like anyone, else those of us not involved (after getting over this jaw dropping assertion) carried on with our own research - its a bit paradoxical, but when you want to make it big in academics, you try disprove a big theory to be forever immortalised as the one who took on 1500 scientists and came out on top.

Research to that end has been, on the whole, fruitless.

If the fact that so many scientists agreed on this wasn't enough, every research endeavour to the contrary found
"it all was, as is" (if you would like to discuss this further I'm always happy to meet up.)

This leads us to explaining the whole concept of how a global increase in temperatures can change climate, and rest assured its very complex (if the world is heating globally why is it winters have on average been getting colder in Ireland for example?) but thankfully - not an issue here. Here as is suggested, we are discussing Climate Change and Dublin.

So what is Climate Change then?

Well we've touched on it already, its simply a shift from one gear to the next and back, from one regime of climatic conditions (Such as Temperature, Precipitation, Wind and Storm patterns) to a different one.

Much of my own career so far has tried to at every opportunity avoid the why argument when it comes to talking or writing in non-academic literature; again whether or not you believe in human activities driving global warming is pretty irrellevant from my corner: For this moment all that needs to be stated is that I along with many other fine academics in Ireland look at whats happening.

Whats happening is an observed, documented and often violent, change in our climate.

So why Dublin?

If you study population statistics for Ireland, you'll note that much of our population lives in and around our cities. Dublin is the capitol city of Ireland. Its houses our population, our politics, our culture and a lot of tax payer investment.

Not only this, but Dublin is sitting right on the coast line, meaning that everything in Dublin is potentially very vulnerable to Climatatic Changes.

(Last update: 02/02/10)

Historical context

ricardoo3 — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 16:46:32 CST

People in Group: Claire, David, David, Niall, Sheila, Sophie

REPORT ON WORK ALREADY COMPLETED: 2002 Flooding Reports read, summary completed (13/2)
THINGS TO DO... Visit Ringsend Library for sources, Study earlier flood events.
IDEAS...

REPORT ON WORK ALREADY COMPLETED: 2002 Flooding Reports read, summary completed (13/2)

THINGS TO DO... Visit Ringsend Library for sources, Study earlier flood events.

IDEAS...

Dublin Flooding Event, February 2002

Timeline:

On 1st February 2002, an exceptionally high tide occurred at Dublin, which resulted in significant flooding throughout parts of the city and Fingal. It was a period of spring tide conditions associated with the full moon at that time. The highest tide predicted for Dublin Port around that period was on Thursday 31st January at 13:12 hours and was predicted to be 4.46m LAT, the actual tide was 4.69m LAT. The next highest tide was predicted for 14:00 hours on the 1st February, at a level 0f 4.44m LAT, the actual highest level that occurred was 5.46m LAT at 14:30 hours. The 5.46m level was the highest recorded since 1923.

It was a low pressure system, which fell to a low of just 930mbar which was the driver for the high surge levels experienced at Dublin. The continuous low pressure system in the Atlantic generated conditions which propagated into the Irish Sea in the form of a surge wave. This combined with strong winds, which around the 1st February were up to gale force from south to south westerly, increased the sea level significantly.

Data has been obtained for the Marine Institute M2 buoy, which is located in the Irish Sea just off the Dublin Bay. Data on 1st February 2002 indicates that from 07:00 hours to 15:00 hours significant wave heights were in excess of 3.5m and reached up to 4.4m on a number of occasions. The February 2002 event had a return period of 750 years. However, assuring a 4mm/yr increase in water level due to sea level rise, the water level of February 2002 would have a return period of 130 years in 2050 and 30 years in 2100.

Impact:

The flooding in Ringsend occurred on both sides of the river upstream of Ringsend Bridge. Residential and commercial properties were flooded. The river wall was overtopped in a number of locations.

The areas affected on the right bank were properties between Fitzwilliam Quay and Irishtown, known locally as Stella Gardens. The topography of the area facilitated the floodwaters to travel through Stella Gardens and onto Irishtown Road. The areas affected on the left hand bank, were the streets and some properties between South Lotts Road and Barrow Street.

The river overtopped the right bank at Fitzwilliam Quay almost directly in front of the Cosgrave Apartment development. Here the trash mark was recorded at 1.6m above the floor level.

The floodwater spilled onto the footpath and roadway. As the water level rose, the floodwater flowed southwards towards the junction between Fitzwilliam Quay and Dermot O’ Hurley Avenue.

Dermot O’ Hurley Avenue falls eastward towards Irishtown. The roadway is bounded by a low retaining wall at the top along the South channel. This retaining wall ‘directed’ the floodwater down Dermot O’ Hurley Avenue and into the lower area of the housing estate.

The flood water passed down the steps and very quickly began submerging the lower areas on Veronica Terrace.

The housing estate consists of a series of terraces, the units facing the river are two-storey and the units between Aikenhead Terrace back to Rosary Terrace are single storey dwellings. Approximately 184 houses were flooded in this area.
The floodwater made its way as far as Irishtown Road, then crossed the road and entered the housing enclave of St. Brendan’s Cottages on the East side of Irishtown Road.
The basement car park of the new development Somerfield on Irishtown Road recorded a flood depth of 2.0m. Approximately 30 houses were flooded in this area.

On Irishtown Road approximately 10 commercial units were flooded.
The local ESB sub-station was also flooded, cutting off the power supply to the entire area.
Dublin City Council workers witnessed a river wall collapse on the Stella Garden side, of 45 m when flood waters lowered.
It is estimated that the flood waters started pouring into Stella Gardens area around 12:50pm and continued until around 3:10pm a total of around 140 minutes.
The total quantity of water flooding this area was around 11 million gallons.
The flooding caused extensive damage to property where many houses had to be completely gutted. Furniture and heating systems were also destroyed in many houses.
477 houses damaged in Stella Gardens and South Lotts Area. 293 houses were surveyed for damages and 68 were found not to have insurance, causing major financial hardship

Response/Action:

It is reported that Dublin City Council received the 1st phone call regarding the flooding at 13:08 hours and the Fire Brigade received a distress call at 13:09 hours.
The onset of flooding was rapid which hampered initial efforts. Many effected residents reported that the areas were flooded within 20 minutes and there was not enough time to deploy sandbags or even for some people to evacuate their homes. Many people remained trapped within their houses for a number of hours and required assistance from the emergency services.
The Army arrived later that evening with floodlights and 3 small pumps, 2 two inch and 1 three inch.
At 9pm, the Irishtown Road was passable again and all road waters were gone from St. Brendan’s cottages.
By the Saturday morning, floodwaters had greatly subsided. The Cleansing Department vanguard arrived at 6am to start the tidying up of Irishtown Road.
The local health board established an emergency payment system for those effected and a free G.P. service was also provided for several days. The Defence Forces provided hot meals for 200 people until 10th February

Project images/videos

ricardoo3 — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 10:09:37 CST





	Images taken by Michelle Killeen. 28/01/10
Add photos here if you run out of space then add more boxes

Survey work

ricardoo3 — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 08:01:53 CST

There is no abstract available for this page revision.

Download Google Earth layers and lessons

ricardoo3 — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 04:15:35 CDT

Here are my favouite layers and lesson ideas that you can use in conjunction with Google Earth. You may need to save the kml layer to your desktop before opening it from Google Earth. Please help us develop this section by discussing teaching experiences using the layers and lessons, as well as adding your own ideas.

The Weather Watch as students realise they can look at weather maps covering anywhere in the world! Attachment: Europe Attachment: Global but infrared Attachment: The weather channel satellites on GE	Geographic Super Layer This SuperLayer allows access to the thousands of images contributed to Geograph of the UK and Ireland. The intent is to have a picture for every quarter mile of land. Attachment : Geographic Super Layer
Earthquakes With this download you can watch real time earthquakes from around the globe and measure their size and magnitude. Add to that learning material developed by Noel Jenkins based around students developing a safer San Francisco City using Google Earth, Google Maps, video and the internet. A really worthwhile effort. Attachment: USGS Real Time Earthquake Viewer Link to Noel Jenkins Earthquake Lesson	Volcanoes come alive! Well you can't have one without the other so here is the volcano layer. Info is supplied by the Global Volcanism Programme (sounds scary!) and they include details and a photo for each one. Attachment 1: Volcanoes
World Population Density Gerardo, my Google Earth friend in Argentina, created this amazing KMZ file you can download. It shows world population distribution, from small pockets of population in the Australian Outback to the large metro areas along the Eastern seaboard of America, learn where humans are making their mark on the world. Download Attachment: World Population Density	Global Paleogeographic Views Valery Hronusov created this fascinating animation of planet Earth's geological history. See how the continents were shaped into their current state with this geological animation exploring 600 million years worth of changes. Use the time slider at the top of the Google Earth client to see the continents morph and shift over time. Download Attachment: Global Paleogeographic Views

Previous Blog entries

ricardoo3 — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 12:47:33 CDT

14/03/08
GOING PRO!
Good news today. Received two free copies of Google Earth Pro worth $800 in light of the work I am doing in promoting GE. This means I can record movies on GE to show my work on this site. It also means a whole lot of other stuff but that is for another day.

10/03/08
The earlier problems regarding my website access through schools have been fixed. The NCTE were surprisingly helpful and my thanks goes to them. Tomorrow I will attempt my first case study of virtual fieldwork using the pupils from St. Michael's Special Needs School in Dublin (my school). The full lesson can be viewed on the virtual fieldwork page here. It is aimed at primary level and the subject is 'creating a virtual tour of Brazil'.

My GPS arrived at the weekend so advanced virtual fieldwork is on the way. Keep an eye out for that over Easter.

29/02/08
CONTOL FREAKS!
First contact with NCTE today. An informal phone call as I
realised while showing a colleague my site that none of the attachments can be download by schools. The dangers of being bored by a Google Earth file are too great it appears. They were nice on the phone mind you and I await a call from the superior on Monday but this does not exactly enamour teachers to create content in Ireland. While waiting for the NTCE to decide how they will deal with the 'real' world you can read what Jerome Morrissey, director of the NCTE had to say on the matter last year. From what I gather he is resigned in a positive way to web 2.0 in schools but still believes they can control the content by selecting relevant material. At the end of the day this is impossible. They are proud of the fact they have sanctioned 27 million websites, but what about the 7 billion web-pages they intend to control? Even if this was possible they are still intent on blocking priceless shareware sites. What they need to look at are ways of blocking key word searches on sites such as youtube as they do at present on search engines. Blocked sites can be annoying but restrictions are lifted within 24 hours, so at least the control is not totally restrictive as I am finding at present.

27/02/08

AD FREE!
Well tonight was a good night for the site. I got rid of the ads thanks to wikipaint recognising ad free in education. I have added some more to the GE layer and word pages and got an email from Amazon saying the GPS is in the post. Watch this space!
25/02/08

At present I am in a process of communication with The National Centre for Technology in Education (NCTE) to try and change their short-term attitudes to web 2.0 and sites such as youtube and google videos. Why do they not realise the value media-sharing sites and web 2.0 can give in engaging children with other communities around the world and in providing up to date and hugely relevant lesson material for educators? I for one cannot post virtual fieldwork properly without the use of youtube to en-bed video on GE. Instead we must use teachertube that Jamie points out is slow and contains a constant stream of inappropriate advertising. Are they saying children cannot access just as much junk elsewhere by blocking certain web 2.0 sites. We have waited long enough to get broadband into schools so why can't we access it before it all goes out of date and we are left behind on ICT matters even more.
Watch this space!

Combining GE in Word/Publisher

ricardoo3 — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 14:15:42 CDT

This page will outline how Google Earth can be utilised in Microsoft word/publisher so that teachers can create and enhance lesson handouts while pupils can bring a whole new dimension to their geography investigations and projects. I have included some of my own work using various techniques that can be downloaded by clicking on the examples below. A basic 6 step tutorial can be found below with a guide to the attachments. A video tutorial is in the pipeline on this subject soon.

Attachment 1	Attachment 2
Attachment 3	Attachment 4

TOP TIP: I recommend Microsoft Publisher as it makes it alot easier to move multiple images around a page. Word can be incredible frustrating when trying to do this.

There are 2 ways to get a Google Earth image onto a Word/Publisher document.
1. In GE go to file, save, save picture. OR to save cropping and editing the picture in word you can use the snipping
tool (windows vista users only) to select the area you want to save as a jpeg. This tool is basically an advanced version of the screen-shot function and will save you loads of time.
2. Now you have the GE earth image saved as a jpeg it is time to import it into word. insert, picture, from file.
3. Make sure you have picture and drawing tools turned on (go to tools and tick)
4. To get word to recognise the picture so that you can move it around and edit it easily turn the picture 90 degrees then back again using the picture tools.
5. resize, crop and change contrast if necessary.
6. Use the drawing tool to combine images to text boxes, photos and scanned images all adding to the visual appeal of the document.
Okay that is basically it. Good luck and don't be afraid to post your results here!
TOP TIP: Have just realised that using Microsoft Publisher allows you to move pictures around more easily. They go where you want them to go. The tools are the same as word so I would highly recommend it.

Attachment 1: This is probably my most ambitious attempt at google earth in word. I first scanned a map, then coloured each section using paint. Then I added the map using the (add) image overlay tab in GE. You then have to position the map over the desired area, in this case Dublin before selecting the transparency of the overlay using the bar on the middle left of GE. All in all this took forever, but like anything the next attempt will be much quicker.

Attachment 2: Here I have combined various maps of Dundalk from 1650 to 1940's to show how the original town has expanded. The axis of the first street layout has been clearly marked on the image taken from Google Earth meaning viewers are able to compare a wide range of past and present data.

Attachment 3: This work was carried out for a project on the Wide Streets Commissioners for Dr. Brady during my second year. I used the drawing tools in Word to highlight the proposed plans of the commissioners and then compared how there work is viewed today using Google Earth some 250 years later.

Attachment 4: Marino in Dublin was the first Garden Suburb in Ireland. For this plate I used my own photos and showed the locations on Google Earth with a short commentary.

Please complete the survey

ricardoo3 — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 15:24:40 CDT