FYI, if you have experienced frustration on the quality of agricultural land use datasets out there (I know – who hasn’t), here is a place you can contribute your input:

Agriculture-Branch of the Geo-Wiki Project
http://agriculture.geo-wiki.org

The Geo-Wiki Project is a global network of volunteers who wish to help improve the quality of global land cover maps. Since large differences occur between existing global land cover maps, current ecosystem and land-use science lacks crucial accurate data (e.g. to determine the potential of additional agricultural land available to grow crops in Africa). Volunteers are asked to review hotspot maps of global land cover disagreement and determine, based on what they actually see in Google Earth and their local knowledge, if the land cover maps are correct or incorrect. Their input is recorded in a database, along with uploaded photos, to be used in the future for the creation of a new and improved global land cover map.

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Here is a usable global boundary file for download with South Sudan
included, the Abyei disputed area is also mapped.
Cheers
Kai

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via geospatialworld.net

From the text: "Geospatial technology, with its potential to address the complete life cycle of agriculture, is fast finding acceptance in agriculture to fulfill its responsibilities in addressing food security and as a fundamental instrument for sustainable development and poverty reduction, especially in developing nations. In the process, one of the oldest economic practices of human civilization is getting a makeover."

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FYI, there is a new initiative by United Nations called GGIM, Global Geospatial Information Management, "... to create a formal mechanism under UN auspices where key issues and potential action can be discussed, and by involving member states as the key players."

Website recently launched at http://ggim.un.org/

The UN Programme on Global Geospatial Information Management (GGIM) aims at playing a leading role in setting the agenda for the development of global geospatial information and to promote its use to address key global challenges. It provides a forum to liaise and coordinate among Member States, and between Member States and international organizations.

There will be their first UN Forum on GGIM in Seoul, South Korea, in October 2011. Concept note and agenda can be found here (you can find many familiar names in the list of speakers!).

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---

Your word for today is: map

map, n.¹

Pronunciation: Brit. /map/, U.S. /mæp/

Forms: 15–16 mappe, 15–17 mapp, 15– map, 16 mape.

Etymology:Either < post-classical Latin mappa map (from c1120 in British sources; in classical Latin ‘towel, napkin’, a word of Punic origin according to Quintilian), or shortened < mappemonde n. or mappa mundi n. Compare Old French mape, mappe map of the world (c1160 or later, rare; not recorded in Anglo-Norman), Italian mappa (14th cent.), Spanish mapa (1582–5), Portuguese mapa (16th cent.), and also forms s.v. mappemonde n.

Post-classical Latin mappa is attested from the late 4th cent. as a term used by land surveyors, though its exact interpretation is not clear. (The usual word for a surveyor's map in classical Latin and post-classical Latin is forma.) The transition in sense from ‘cloth’ to ‘map’ is probably due to the fact that early maps were sometimes drawn on cloth.

 

Compare German Mappe map (15th cent.; this sense became obsolete in 18th cent.; the modern sense ‘portfolio’ developed from the intermediary 18th-cent. ‘cover for a map’).

 

In sense 10 probably after classical Latin mappa piece of cloth, napkin.

 I. A chart, plan, diagram, etc.

 1.

 a.

A drawing or other representation of the earth's surface or a part of it made on a flat surface, showing the distribution of physical or geographical features (and often also including socio-economic, political, agricultural, meteorological, etc., information), with each point in the representation corresponding to an actual geographical position according to a fixed scale or projection; a similar representation of the positions of stars in the sky, the surface of a planet, or the like. Also: a plan of the form or layout of something, as a route, a building, etc.

Freq. used as the second element in compounds, as contour, relief, road, street, weather map, etc. (see the first element). In later use a hydrographical map is more usually called a chart (formerly card); cf. chart

n.¹

1b, card n.²3b.

a1527 R. Thorne in R. Hakluyt Divers Voy. (1582) sig. B4^v,A little Mappe or Carde of the worlde.

c1547 Inventory in BL Harl. MS 1419 f. 133,Item. a litle Mappe of Englande parte of Scotlande Ierlande and brytayne of parchement sette in a frame.

?a1560 L. Digges Geom. Pract.: Pantometria (1571) i. xxxv. sig. L iij,Diuide the circle at the myddes of your map into 32 partes, pulling out straight lines fro the centre to the vttermost bounds of the charte.

1593 G. Harvey Pierces Supererogation 73The great Mapp of Mercator.

1608 Shakespeare King Lear i. i. 38Meane time we will expresse our darker purposes, The map there; know we haue diuided In three, our kingdome.

1625 N. Carpenter Geogr. Delineated i. vii. 166A Geographicall Mappe is a plaine Table, wherein the Lineaments of the Terrestriall Spheare are expressed.

1700 A. de la Pryme Diary (1869) 316A larg map having every field, ing, close, mested, croft, cavel, intack, etc., in the whole parish in it.

1760 Johnson Idler 23 Feb. 57A Rivulet not marked in the Maps.

1812 in A. Hollar tr. W. Schivelbusch Railway Journey (1980) i. 6 (heading)Map of the railways in the Newcastle on Tyne Coal Field in 1812.

1867 W. W. Smyth Treat. Coal & Coal-mining 44On examination of a geological map it will be seen that [etc.].

1897 B. Stoker Dracula xix. 257‘This is the spot,’ said the Professor as he turned his lamp on a small map of the house.

1911 H. Quick Yellowstone Nights 149The others began studying their maps to clear up this geographic anomaly.

1973 P. Campbell 35 Years on Job 117On the map the squiggly little yellow road for some reason looked as if it was all downhill, but it wasn't.

1998 N.Y. Times 5 Apr. 60/2The Dave & Busters restaurant in the Ontario Mills Mall‥is a 60,000-square-foot restaurant-arcade—an experience in sensory overload so huge that first-timers require a map.

†b. fig. A tract of country spread out to view like a map. in map: within view. Cf. map v.1c. Obs. rare.

1607 J. Norden Surveyors Dialogue i. 15Is not the Field it selfe a goodly Map for the Lord to looke vpon, better than a painted paper?

1785 W. Cowper Task i. 321A spacious map Of hill and valley interpos'd between.

1795 W. MacRitchie Diary 1 July (1897) 32The whole country of Lancashire, with its rivers, towns and villages, &c., lying in extensive map below us.

†2. A tabulated arrangement of data; = table n.14a. Obs. rare.

1626 D. Featley Parallel To Rdr. sig. Aiij,Errors‥which, collected into a small map, they exhibite.

 3.

 a.

A diagram or collection of data showing the spatial distribution of something or the relative positions of its components. Freq. with distinguishing word.

1797

A. Barnard Let. 12 Sept. in S. Afr. a Cent. Ago (1901) iv. 85It occurred to me before leaving England that it might be useful to carry with me to Africa a map of a sheep and an ox, as I thought it likely that the Dutch butchers might cut their meat up awkwardly.

1833 Rep. Brit. Assoc. Advancem. Sci. 1831–2 320Fraunhofer counted about 590 of these lines; and in a fine map of the spectrum which he has published, he has inserted the strongest of them.

1881 Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) 171 653The research‥on a method of photography by which the least refrangible end of the solar spectrum could be mapped has reached such a stage that it seems desirable that I should‥present a map of the solar spectrum between wave lengths 7600 and 10,750.

1950 W. L. Bragg Rev. Recent Adv. in X-ray Anal. ii. 41 (caption)Electron density map of the phthalocyanine molecule (left) and key to the structure (right).

1973 Nature 21–8 Dec. 509/1The ability to record activity in many cells at once would allow the construction of a detailed map of the functional connections within a ganglion.

1987 Sci. Amer. Mar. 28/1The construction of a three-dimensional atomic ‘map’ of the virus.

 b. Genetics. A representation of the relative order and distance apart of the genes of a chromosome. Also: the nucleotide sequence of all or part of a chromosome or genome.

1915 T. H. Morgan et al. Mechanism Mendelian Heredity iii. 64In the construction of the chromosome maps shown in the frontispiece the distance taken as a unit is that within which 1 per cent. of crossing over will occur.

1935 Genetics 20 317 (heading)Cytological and crossover maps.

1939 Jrnl. Genetics 39 335There is now evidence for the existence of seven sex-linked genes, and for these he has furnished a tentative map.

1954 Adv. Genetics 6 1 (heading)Map construction in Neurospora Crassa.

1970 E. J. Ambrose & D. M. Easty Cell Biol. x. 338 (caption)Linear genetic map of Drosophila showing the four linkage groups corresponding to the four chromosomes.

1994 Time 7 Feb. 7/2Although your illustration of the gene map showing the known locations of mutations included neurofibromatosis Type 2, you left out the gene for neurofibromatosis Type 1.

 c. Physiol. Originally: (a representation of) a sensory area of the cerebral cortex in which neighbouring cells respond to stimulation of neighbouring portions of the peripheral sensory epithelium. More generally: within the central nervous system, a representation of sensory or motor information in which some parameter of a stimulus or movement varies systematically with physical location in the brain.

1945 Proc. Royal Soc. 1944–5 B. 132 351It has been possible to construct a map of the visual cortex on which the cortical area related to each segment of the retina can be shown.

1957 Jrnl. Neurophysiol. 20 288The composite map of somatic sensory area I‥was constructed from partial maps obtained in five experiments. The cortex was explored in 1 mm. steps.

1960 McGraw-Hill Encycl. Sci. & Technol. XIV. 335/2The cortex contains a ‘map’ or projection area, each point of which represents a point on the retina and therefore a point in visual space as seen by each eye.

1987 Sci. Amer. June 62/3The striate cortex registers a systematic map of the visual field.

1994 Hearing Res. 81 146/2A map of auditory space is still present at near-threshold levels in the S[uper] C[olliculus] of animals that have been monaurally deafened.

1998 Jrnl. Compar. Neurol. 401 411This study investigated whether the topographic differences in the functional properties of the tectal motor map of goldfish are related to particular patterns of connections with downstream structures.

 4. Math. A correspondence by which each element of a given set has associated with it one (or occas. more than one) element of a second set; = mapping n.2a.

1949 Ann. Math. 50 956The symbolism f: (X′, A′) ⊂ (X, A) is read: f is the inclusion map of (X′, A′) into (X, A).

1966 Sze-Tsen Hu Introd. Gen. Topol. ii. 27Continuous functions will be called mappings or maps.

1966 Sze-Tsen Hu Introd. Gen. Topol. ii. 28A map f:X→Y from a space X into a space Y.

1971 G. Glauberman in M. B. Powell & G. Higman Finite Simple Groups i. 8The main tool in investigating this property is the transfer homomorphism of G into S/S′. Unfortunately, we do not have time to define this map.

1988 D. Welsh Codes & Cryptogr. ii. 16Although we have defined a code as a map, we often identify it with the collection of codewords.

 II. Extended uses.†5. fig.

 a. A representation in abridged form; a summary or condensed account of a state of things; an epitome, a summation. Obs.

a1586 Sir P. Sidney Astrophel & Stella (1591) 3,I‥thinke that all the mappe of my state I display. When trembling voice brings foorth, that I do Stella loue.

1597 T. Middleton Wisdome of Solomon Paraphrased xv. xii. sig. T,My soule, saith he, is but a mappe of shoes, No substance, but a shadow for to please.

1607 S. Rowlands Famous Hist. Guy of Warwicke 59Who in her Face a Map of sorrow wears, A countenance compos'd all mournful, sad.

a1631 J. Donne To Mr. T. W. iv, in Poet. Wks. (1987) 182My verse, the strict Map of my misery, shall live to see that, for whose want I dye.

1647 J. Saltmarsh Sparkles of Glory (1847) 2So as man is all created excellency in the map or abridgment.

 b. An embodiment or incarnation of a quality, characteristic, etc.; the very picture or image of something. Obs.

a1591 H. Smith Sinfull Mans Search (1592) sig. A6,What were man if hee were once left to himselfe? a map of miserie.

1606 G. Chapman Monsieur D'Olive in Plays (1873) I. 200Farewell the true mappe of a gull.

1620 Swetnam, Woman-hater ii. sig. C4,The hope of Sicill, Map of true Nobilitie, Patterne of Wisdome, Grace and Grauitie.

1698 J. Fryer New Acct. E.-India & Persia 83They are the absolute map of sordidness, fareing hardly, and professing fairly.

 6. fig. A conceptualization or mental representation of the structure, extent, or layout of an area of experience, field of study, ideology, etc.

1781 W. Cowper Retirem. 148Opening the map of God's extensive plan, We find a little isle, this life of man.

1791 E. Burke Let. to R. Burke in Corr. (1844) III. 227,I don't know the map of their situation.

1855 A. Bain Senses & Intellect ii. i. 386By getting a blow on the ribs we come to connect feelings in the chest with the place on our map of the body.

1899 W. E. H. Lecky (title)The map of life.

1911 J. M. Barrie Peter & Wendy i. 8Catch them trying to draw a map of a child's mind, which is not only confused, but keeps going round all the time.

1986 Brit. Jrnl. Aesthetics Autumn 335Diverse philosophical or artistic points of view within one's everyday map of discursive references.

1991 Theology Jan.–Feb. 58Those for whom the map of feminist theology is less familiar.

 7. A shape or pattern resembling a map in form or outline.

1822 J. M. Good Study Med. IV. 571Motley dandriff. Scaliness in diffuse maps of irregular outline, and diverse colours.

1865 Dickens Our Mutual Friend II. iii. xv. 131Wrinkling his face into a very map of curves and corners.

1968 C. Causley Underneath Water 5We couldn't make any more of each other Than the map of stains on the bedroom wall.

1978 F. Muir in F. Muir & D. Norden Take my Word for It 24When your back is turned, [he] leaves a 9″ x 5″ damp map of Corsica sinking slowly into the carpet.

1998 A. Patchett Magician's Assistant 270The map of scars on his cheek was red from the cold.

 8. In various fig. phrases. (Now occas. with premodifying adjective or noun.)

 a. off the map: out of existence; obsolete or of no account; in or into a remote or insignificant position. Freq. to wipe (also knock, etc.) off the map. Cf. off-the-map n. at off adv., prep., n.¹, and adj.Compounds.

1870 Overland Monthly Nov. 467/2Europe would combine to wipe Mexico off the map of the world.

1904 W. H. Smith Promoters ii. 54When she [sc. Carthage] wouldn't let up, the only thing left was to wipe her off the map.

1911 R. D. Saunders Col. Todhunter vii. 99A good set-to is the best way‥to put a stop to quarrelin'. It just wipes the whole thing off the map.

1928 Weekly Dispatch 13 May 2/6Cochineal insects, except for making tinctures to colour jellies, are practically off the map today.

1942 R.A.F. Jrnl. 30 May 19We'll knock that‥place off the map.

1957 W. S. Churchill Hist. Eng.-speaking Peoples III. ix. iii. 227They wiped off the map the proud old French provinces and parcelled out the country into the eighty-six departments that still exist.

1973 E. Lemarchand Let or Hindrance xi. 131We're a bit off the map up here.

1986 M. Foot Loyalists & Loners 154Even his closest friends were wiped off the political map in the process.

 b. on the map: (a) in or into existence; (b) (the usual sense) in an important or prominent position, in vogue; of some account or importance. Chiefly in to put (back) on the map.

1913 C. E. Mulford Coming of Cassidy viii. 122Cowan had just put Buckskin on th' map by buildin' th' first shack.

1916 Munsey's Mag. June 146/2‘The Fortune Hunter’, the play that put Winchell Smith on the dramatists' map.

1919 P. G. Wodehouse Damsel in Distress vii. 93What I mean to say is, you are on the map. You have a sporting chance.

1924 W. M. Raine Troubled Waters xix. 205Didn't know you knew I was on the map. You're sure honouring me.

1934 B.B.C. Year-bk. 74Weekly Chamber Concerts‥further helped to put the Hall ‘on the map’.

a1944 F. Clune Red Heart (1946) ii. 16The war has put the Red Heart on the map.

1973 Times 24 Apr. (São Paulo Suppl.) p. i/7The exhibition was so successful that in one weekend São Paulo put Brazil firmly on to the export map.

1991 Traveller Winter 30/1But for the political and military skirmishing going on in Kashmir, the Gulmarg would already be firmly on the map as the major heli-skiing centre in the Himalayas.

 c. Chiefly N. Amer. all over the map: widely distributed, in many different places; (also) varying widely and erratically.

1981 P. C. Newman Canad. Establishment II. ix. 348Knowlton is a contented man, joint-venturing all over the map, buying a piece of the Regina Pats hockey team, travelling to Europe.

1991 Spy (N.Y.) Oct. 43/1Lisa lacked focus. She was all over the map.

1995 Sight & Sound Nov. 19/2From the first, the film acted as a Rorschach blot, and the critical reception was all over the map.

1998 N.Y. Times 14 June 7/1Even therapists with the best credentials can be all over the map.

 9. colloq. A person's face.

1899 A. H. Lewis Sandburrs 9,I sees d' map of a skirt—a goil, I means, on a drop curtain at a swell t'eatre once.

1902 G. V. Hobart It's up to You iv. 78It was Benedict Murgatoyd—the lad with the map like a cow!

1908 K. McGaffey Sorrows of Show Girl 200Hauling off wifey hangs one on Alla's map.

1922 P. G. Wodehouse Clicking of Cuthbert ix. 205The portrait‥was that of a man in the early thirties.‥ ‘What a map!’ exclaimed the young man.

1935 P. G. Wodehouse Luck of Bodkins xv. 178It's mostly a case of having a map that photographs well.

1936 ‘J. Curtis’ Gilt Kid xiv. 144What d'you want to sit there staring at me for? I'm not a bloody oil-painting. You ought to know my map by now.

1971 J. Curtis Banjo 255No mistaking that map.

1996 D. F. Wallace Infinite Jest 280That look on your map there mean something there, Randy?

†III. Other senses.

 10. Perh.: a protective covering, a cloth. Obs. rare.

1608 E. Topsell Hist. Serpents 220But some then will demaund, where had Pope Alexander‥that map or net at Rome wherin (it is said) the napkin of our Sauiour Christ is preserued.

Compounds

 C1. General attrib.

 map-board n.

1947 D. M. Davin Gorse blooms Pale 192The G.I. and the A.D.C. vaulted from their perch in the back of the jeep and then bent over it again to get their *map-boards.

1978 J. Carroll Mortal Friends I. ii. 12He had spent the first week of his tour on the field drilling his men at his map board calculating distances and elevations.

1992 M. Ondaatje Eng. Patient iii. 99He brushed the dust off the mapboard the wires lay on.

 map case n.

1916 H. G. Wells Mr. Britling i. v. 181He‥turned over the map in the *map-case beside him, and tried to find his position.

1948 W. S. Churchill Second World War I. ii. xxii. 365A few feet behind me, as I sat in my old chair, was the wooden map-case I had had fixed in 1911, and inside it still remained the chart of the North Sea.

1990 Which? Bks. Apr. 3/2 (caption)The Good Walks Guide is lightweight and will fit handily into your map case.

 map-drawing n.

1838 Biblical Repertory Apr. 10/2Hence the use of outline maps, and of black-board exercises in *map-drawing.

1857 J. Ruskin Arrows of Chace (1880) I. 42Precision of touch should be cultivated by map-drawing in his geography class.

1943 J. S. Huxley Evol. Ethics i. 6This business of map-drawing.

1993 Coloradoan (Fort Collins) 4 Aug. a2/4Izetbegovic‥began withdrawing from the negotiations after they reached the map-drawing stage.

†map-graver n. Obs. rare

1662 J. Evelyn Sculptura sig. b5^v,Chart, and *Map-gravers.

 map-maker n.

1598 J. Florio Worlde of Wordes,Disegnante, a *map or modle maker.

1639 T. Fuller Hist. Holy Warre iv. ii. 168Map-makers, rather then they will have their maps naked and bald, do periwig them with false hair, and fill up the vacuum‥with imaginary places.

1775 B. Romans Conc. Nat. Hist. E. & W. Florida App. 77Our wise map-makers‥have corrupted it into Ponio bay.

1811 L. Aikin Juvenile Corr. 114Instruments of this kind‥are exported to all the civilized countries of the world, for the use of mathematicians, astronomers, navigators, map-makers, etc.

1984 A. C. Duxbury & A. Duxbury Introd. World's Oceans i. 10The task of any mapmaker‥is to produce the most accurate‥picture.

 map-making n.

1846 A. Jamieson (title)A manual of *map-making and mechanical geography.

1879 Sir A. R. Clarke in Encycl. Brit. X. 203Notwithstanding the facility of construction, the stereographic projection is not much used in map-making.

1952 F. J. Monkhouse Maps & Diagrams ii. 63Since the earliest days of map-making, the depiction of relief has been one of the major problems of cartographers, for it involves the representation of three dimensions upon a plane surface.

1990 A. Beevor Inside Brit. Army (1991) xxiv. 390They begin on the basic skills of the main Intelligence Corps trade.‥ They learn map-making, presentation and briefing.

†map-monger n. Obs. rare

1639 T. Fuller Hist. Holy Warre v. xiv. 253A great *map-monger‥undertook to travel over England by help of his maps.

 map-mounter n.

1819 Post Office London Directory 305*Map-mounter and Dissecter.

1858 P. L. Simmonds Dict. Trade Products,Map-mounter, a workman who backs maps with canvas, varnishes and fixes them on rollers [etc.].

1880 G. N. Lamphere U.S. Govt. 138/2Force and Pay of the Coast and Geodetic Survey Service:‥1 map mounter.

 map paper n.

1942 H. A. Maddox Dict. Stationery (ed. 2) 68*Map paper, a specially made smooth cartridge or strong printing paper—opaque, strong and free from atmospheric influence.

1963 R. R. A. Higham Handbk. Papermaking vii. 202Chart and map papers. The best grades are produced from rag pulps, although sulphite and sulphate mixtures are also used.

1992 Art Newspaper (Internat. ed.) May 21/7The gallery's other space at Knokke will be showing twenty of his small-scale drawings: pastels on map paper and india ink on musical scores.

 map-seller n.

1710 London Gaz. No. 4685/4,Sold by C. Browne, Print and *Map-seller.

1999 Birmingham Post (Nexis) 13 Mar. 47The next generation of map sellers such as Nicolas Visscher and Frederick de Wit were smaller businesses who avoided producing formal atlases in preference for atlases assembled to the specifications of the particular client.

 map work n.

1889 O. Wilde Pen, Pencil & Poison in Fortn. Rev. Jan. 45Little more than topography, a kind of pictorial *map-work.

1938 E. Raisz Gen. Cartogr. xv. 172Transparent tracing papers are made of straw and cornstalk base and are used in map work for sketching, for copying, and for tissue overlays.

1986 G. Chesbro Veil (1987) ii. 4Thick, unruly brown hair was creased by a scar that radiated to his right temple from the lacy mapwork of nerveless, ruined tissue that covered his right cheek.

 C2.

 map butterfly

n. (a) any butterfly of the nymphalid genus Cyrestis, the members of which occur in Old World rainforests and have pale forewings crossed with narrow dark lines; (b) a small Eurasian nymphalid butterfly, Araschnia levana, the wings of which have dark undersides crossed with narrow white veins.

1894 E. H. Aitken Naturalist on Prowl 50The delicately devised *Map Butterfly, Cyrestis thyodamas.

1987 C. A. Clarke Human Genetics & Med. (ed. 3) iv. 22In the Map butterfly, Araschnia levana, temperature or length of daylight can produce very distinct spring and summer forms.

1993 J. Feltwell Illustr. Encycl. Butterflies 141/2Map butterflies are mostly found in Asia, but this [sc. Cyrestis camillus] is the only representative of its genus in Africa.

 map fire n. Mil. artillery fire in which maps are used to determine the setting of the guns.

1922 Encycl. Brit. XXX. 252/2The precision with which ‘*map fire’ could be carried out.

 map-flapping n. Mil. rare the process of transmitting the outline of a map or other drawing by flag signals.

1886 H. G. Willink in Longman's Mag. Feb. 404 (heading)*Map-flapping.

 map lichen n. a lichen whose thallus has markings resembling a map; esp. Rhizocarpon geographicum.

1796 P. A. Nemnich Allgemeines Polyglotten-Lex.,*Map lichen. Lichen geographicus.

1888 F. A. Lees Flora W. Yorks. 655Lecidea geographica (L.). Map Lichen. On sub-alpine rocks, but chiefly those of the older formations.

1969 Beaver (Winnipeg) Summer 13/1The rocks are bright with green and orange map lichen.

1993 K. S. Robinson Green Mars 164On flat rocks he found the crustose lichens: button lichen, stud lichen, shield lichen, candellaria, apple-green map lichen [etc.].

 map light n. a light used to illuminate a map.

1963 Times 13 Mar. 10Standard equipment includes two-speed screen wipers and washers—operated from the steering wheel—anti-dazzle mirror, reversing lights, *map light and a heating and ventilation system.

1995 National (Canad. Bar Assoc.) Mar. (Autovision) 10/1The most significant interior differences [are] the addition of map lights and intermittent wipers as standard equipment on V6s.

 map-measurer n. an instrument for measuring distances on a map, usually with a small rotating wheel at the tip.

a1877 E. H. Knight Pract. Dict. Mech. II. 1389/2*Map-measurer, an instrument with a little wheel of known circumference, which is made to roll along a line and indicate its length, the number of revolutions being counted, and the fraction, if any, observed by reference to the pointer and graduated perimeter.

1970 Nature 7 Nov. 560/1A map-measurer of the ‘drawing’ type was used to measure the length of the pencil lines.

1985 Survival Weaponry Dec. 9/2Binoculars, map-measurers‥if you need a stocking-filler.

 map meter n. rare = map-measurer n.

1867 Parkes' Catal. Instruments 30Opisometer or *Map Meter.

 map-net n. (a) a network of lines representing meridians and parallels on which a map or plan can be represented; = graticule n.1; (b) a net used to contain a map or maps.

1932 J. W. Cameron Maps & Map-work iii. 30A map projection is any definite system of drawing meridians and parallels, the network of lines thus formed being called a *map-net or graticule.

1954 J. M. M. Fisher & R. M. Lockley Sea-birds p. xvi,One of these is on a mapnet invented by the late Professor C. B. Fawcett and is used with his permission and that of the Royal Geographical Society.

1997 Pop. Sci. Oct. (back cover) (advt.)The convenience of a center console that combines storage for CDs or cassettes with a coin holder, map net and writing surface.

 map pocket n. (in a garment, vehicle, etc.) a pocket used for storing a map or maps.

1958 J. Lodwick Bid Soldiers Shoot iii. vii. 222In the *map pocket of my denims.

1972 Country Life 15 June 1577/2Map pockets are fitted to each door.

1998 T. Clancy Rainbow Six vii. 154He'd already stashed his pistol in the map pocket of the left-side copilot's door.

 map projection n. a geometrical or cartographic method of representing on a flat surface all or part of the earth's surface.

1890 Cent. Dict. at Projection,A *map-projection in which the space between two meridians and two parallels is represented by a trapezoid.

1905 C. F. Close Text Bk. Topogr. & Geogr. Surv. xi. 92The term projection, though sanctioned by long usage, is an unfortunate one. The great majority of useful map projections are not obtained in any geometrical way. A map projection is to be treated as the representation on a plane, by any law, of the terrestrial meridians and parallels.

1995 Wired Jan. 40/2For this atlas, Feigenbaum created a new map projection.

 map reference n. a set of numbers or letters specifying a location as represented on a map.

a1944 K. Douglas Alamein to Zem Zem (1946) ii. 16Just talk as you like over the air—except for giving *map-references of course.

1969 M. Pugh Last Place Left iii. 18,I‥then gave him some of the facts and the map references.

1995 Guardian 30 June i. 13/2The bothies' map references have become so well known that the dozen most accessible, like Corrour and Shenavall in Sutherland, are now virtually mountain service stations.

 map-roller n. rare something on to which a map can be rolled.

1851 C. Cist Sketches & Statistics Cincinnati 245Shade and *map-rollers, turning in ivory, done in a superior style.

 map square n. rare one of an array of squares formed by grid lines drawn on a map to facilitate the use of coordinate references.

1917 ‘Contact’ Airman's Outings 272,I looked overboard to make certain of the *map square.

 map turtle n. any of several small, North American freshwater turtles of the genus Graptemys (family Emydidae), which have bold patterns on the head and shell; esp. G. geographica of the central United States and the Great Lakes.

1879 W. H. Smith Catal. Reptilia & Amphibia Michigan p. vii,Graptemys geographica.‥ *Map turtle.

1953 H. S. Zim & H. M. Smith Reptiles & Amphibians i. 34Map turtles are aquatic turtles often found in large numbers in ponds, swamps, and quiet streams.

1992 Canad. Geographic Mar.–Apr. 23Rare members of the turtle family, such as the map turtle and the spiny softshell turtle.

 map unit n. Genetics (in a linkage map) the distance separating two linked genes corresponding to a recombination frequency of one per cent; also called centimorgan.

[1915 T. H. Morgan et al. Mechanism Mendelian Heredity iii. 64In the construction of the chromosome maps shown in the frontispiece the distance taken as a unit is that within which 1 per cent. of crossing over will occur.]

1968 R. C. King Dict. Genetics,*Map unit, a number that corresponds to a recombination frequency of 1 per cent.

1982 Jrnl. Virol. 42 488Early RNA‥selected by hybridization to adenoviral DNA fragments spanning the region from 14.7 to 31.5 map units.

1991 D. J. Weatherall New Genetics & Clin. Practice (ed. 3) ii. 7The distance separating two loci that show recombination in 1 out of 100 gametes is called a map unit, or centimorgan.

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Dear colleagues,

Bioversity International has published a “Training Manual on Spatial Analysis of Plant Diversity and Distribution”. The manual has been developed because of an increasing number of requests of national partners for capacity building on the spatial analysis of biodiversity. It is intended for scientists and students who work with biodiversity data and are interested in developing or improving their skills to carry out spatial analysis. It has been designed to serve as a self-teaching manual, but may also be used for training courses and contains nearly 500 Mb of data that accompany specially designed exercises, based on real studies.

The analyses described in the manual help answer common questions related to plant diversity and distribution (e.g. prioritization of areas for conservation, modeling of potential impacts of climate change on plant distribution, gap analysis for priority collection of plant diversity). Exercises are developed for species presence, and morphological or molecular characterization data. They are explained by sets of step-by-step instructions, using the free and publically available software DIVA-GIS and Maxent. Although the focus is on plants of interest for improving livelihoods, many of the analyses described can also be applied to animals and other organisms.

For the moment only an English version is available, a Spanish version is in preparation.

I would be interested to receive your comments.

Maarten

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Hi all,

It’s not a secret that we’ve been wanting to have a new/cool/21^st-century-ish logo for CSI for a while. It’s not that the old one is wrong, we just felt that it’s time to update our look. Our desire has been especially more escalated recently while planning for upcoming events and e-Atlas and so on.

So, *surprise* - we just launched a 7-day logo designing contest through a crowdsourcing company called 99designs (http://99designs.com).

·         Contest: New logo wanted for CGIAR CSI

·         Link: http://99designs.com/logo-design/contests/logo-wanted-cgiar-csi-69892/brief

·         Prize: $295 (minus some fee)

With the level of prize, we’re targeting young creative graphics designers out there. However, that doesn’t stop you or one of your colleagues to become a winner! In fact, given the complexity of design concept (I just hope someone can creatively/cleverly figure how to combine images of agriculture – crop, forest, livestock, fish – and spatial aspects), our colleagues may have comparative advantages. Who knows. Also, if you happened to know a talented logo designer in your ring, feel free to forward this message and encourage them.

After the 7-day period, we’ll ask each center’s representative to be a judge and vote for the best one. Sounds exciting? Wish us a good luck finding an exciting logo soon!

Cheers,

Jawoo

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Hello fellow agricultural geographers, geographical agronomists, modelers, crime scene investigators, etc,

as it seems that GRASS is finally running satisfyingly under Windows, something I've wanted to do for a couple of years but didn't want to get into due to the need to have Linux running to fully use the potential of GRASS now seems finally possible. The idea would be to use GRASS 7 and future versions for our training efforts with NARS and other collaborators that can't afford to use ESRI products. In our training courses here with scientists and technicians from all over the world interest in GIS is always very high. We have been using free alternatives like DIVA, GEODA and GVSIG, which work quite well for some things but don't cover all needed functions and it would be better to have everything under one platform. GRASS on the other hand is basically capable of everything that ARCGIS can do with maybe a steeper learning curve and not as user friendly. It would give us the opportunity to properly train people and give them a free powerful tool to incorporate GIS in daily work in institutions. Having said that would it make sense to the CSI community to do this as a joint effort and maybe a product towards our annual meeting? CIMMYT eg would look at modules, functions and data sets relevant to breeders, conservation agric in English and Spanish.
Let me know what you think?

cheers

Kai

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See the full gallery on Posterous

In September, ESRI organized the Global Land and Poverty Summit 2010 in Washington, DC, focusing on "...how to use geographic technology to help solve diverse problems faced by the poor and to create low-cost, practical solutions for healthy, sustainable societies.”

As announced at the earlier AAGW 2010, CGIAR-CSI led an agriculture-themed session called "Dirt Poor: Seeking Solutions to Poverty from the Ground Up", together with USDA-ERS. We collectively made three presentations that largely encompassed recent research highlights:

• Prioritizing, Targeting and Monitoring Science, Technology and Policy Options For Poor Smallholders Examples from the CGIAR - Chris Legg (GLCI), Lieven Claessens (CIP), Mario Herrero (ILRI), Philip Thornton (ILRI), and Stanley Wood* (IFPRI)
• Payments for Wildlife Conservation (PWC) and Poverty in East African Rangelands - Philip Osano* (ILRI), Jan de Leeuw (ILRI), Mohammed Said (ILRI), Shem Kifugo (ILRI), Dickson Kaelo (Basecamp Foundation), Norbert Henniger (World Resource Institute), Katherine Homewood (University College London)
• Seeing is Believing: Very High Resolution for Smallholders in West Africa - Pierre Sibiry Traore* (ICRISAT)

Overall the session was very well received, and we impressively (as usual) showcased our colleagues' hard work on this area. You can take a look at (or download) the presentations at https://hc.box.net/shared/86szh19luc

Sincere thanks (and big cheers) to everyone for attending/contributing/supporting the event!

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Source: Map Analysis by Joseph K. Berry (http://www.innovativegis.com/basis/MapAnalysis/Topic11/Topic11.htm#Surface_area)

Does anybody have/know a publicly-available global raster dataset of land surface area with terrain considered (see the attached illustration describing the surface area)?

All I want is, very simply (?), for each grid cell (at 5’ or higher resolution) what’s the land surface area (in ha, for example). Can’t believe nobody has done/published it yet (hey, we’re in the age of 30 m DEM..), but I couldn’t find one – other than some theoretical backgrounds here and there, and the TIN stuff in ArcGIS (Thanks, Kai!).

For mapping crop land globally, we conveniently ignored the existence of slope/terrain (duh..) and simply calculated the grid cell area = f(latitude) – waterbody (or sometimes even included waterbody), assuming most crops are grown in flat surface,, in the grand scheme of things. Besides, I’ve been hearing that we don’t gain much by including terrain in the function (“Don’t sweat the small stuff!”). However, even if that’s true - as we’re getting more serious about socioeconomic variables beyond crop production, I think we really need to be more accurate calculating the grid cell area (and this potentially propagates through all sorts of indicators we’re estimating cell by cell). And,

So,, anyone?

If I don’t hear from anyone within next couple of weeks, I might just go ahead and scratch my own itch again – but thought worth asking.  : )

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The World Port Index (Pub 150) contains the location and physical characteristics of, and the facilities and services offered by major ports and terminals world-wide (approximately 3700 entries), in a tabular format. Entries are organized geographically, in accordance with the diagrams located in the front of the publication.

The World Port Index publication can be downloaded in the following formats:

• Adobe PDF document file
• Windows executable file (automatically installs Adobe PDF document file) 
• Microsoft Access database 
• ESRI ArcGIS shapefile

Specific World Port Index entries can be retrieved from the on-line database using the query form below. 

http://www.nga.mil/NGAPortal/MSI.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=msi_portal_page_62&pubCode=0015

Kai Sonder (PhD; Head Gis Unit, CIMMYT)

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BigThink (http://bigthink.com) is a NY-based online knowledge forum, famous for posting interviews with many high-profile experts from a wide range of fields (think of it as TED in interview format; my favorite is the one with Jason Fried: http://bigthink.com/ideas/18522) and timely bits of radical ideas (follow @bigthink).

They have a special discussion topic going on now, and it’s about “Women and Power”. As one of the posts on the website, today they posted a global dataset (country-level) of the “Global Index of Women’s Power”.

From the post (http://bigthink.com/ideas/24565):

In consultation with leading universities and research groups, Big Think has created a composite country-by-country index by equally combining data from three recent international studies dealing with women's power:

·         The World Economic Forum’s “The Global Gender Gap Report,” an index which measures national gender gaps using economic, political, education and health criteria.

·         The Economist Intelligence Unit’s “Women’s Economic Opportunity Index,” which measures women’s economic opportunity and their ability to participate equally in the workforce.

·         The United Nations Development Programme’s Gender-Related Development Index (GDI) and Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM), which rank countries based on gender-specific criteria like adult literacy, life expectancy and estimated income.

The numerical Power Quotient, which averages the results of these studies, is on a scale from zero to 100—with 100 being the best possible numerical score for female empowerment, and zero the worst. Yemen, the country where women have the least power according to the survey, received a score of 24.02 on our scale. Meanwhile Norway, which got a score of 88.75, was found to be the country where women have the most relative power.

Along with the Google Visualization implementation, they also posted a raw data in CSV format (but they forgot to put country code; could somebody please attach ISO code column and share around for your lazy colleages? :p): http://assets.bigthink.com.s3.amazonaws.com/Big%20Think%20Women%20Global%20Index.csv

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Natural

Managed

FYI, yesterday’s Nature has a cover story on the Global threats to human water security and river biodiversity by C. J. Vörösmarty (CCNY) et al (doi:10.1038/nature09440). Following that, this story has been posted practically everywhere on the media by now, including BBC.

On their project website (http://www.riverthreat.net), you can find/download their published data and maps (0.5-deg, global) of four water “threats” as well as 23 (!) drivers in PNG, ESRI ASCII, NetCDF, and KML.

·         Main article: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v467/n7315/full/nature09440.html (login required)

·         Methodology: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v467/n7315/extref/nature09440-s1.pdf (freely accessible)

·         Data and maps: http://www.riverthreat.net/data.html

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As was announced at the earlier Africa Agriculture GIS Week 2010, the Global Land and Poverty Summit will be held in Washington, DC, next week (28 Sep 2010). The summit, organized by ESRI, focuses on how to use geographic technology to help solve diverse problems faced by the poor.

We (CGIAR-CSI) are organizing a breakout session “Agriculture – Dirt Poor: Seeking solutions to poverty from the ground up” in the afternoon, led by Stanley Wood (CSI Global Coordinator; IFPRI/HarvestChoice). See more about the session at: http://www.landandpoverty.com/agenda/breakout-2.html

The Agriculture session will highlight on-the-ground success stories from the CGIAR and its partners that demonstrate the impact of land-based improvements in the well-being of poor farm households and the quality of the natural resources on which future rural livelihoods depend. It will emphasize the growing reliance on geo-referenced information and location-specific analysis to improve the targeting, design, monitoring, and evaluation of agricultural interventions. Scheduled presentations in the session include:

·         Stanley Wood (IFPRI): Overview of GIS/RS data/methods used in the CGIAR system

·         Sibiry Traore (ICRISAT): Seeing is Believing - West Africa (SIBWA) http://www.agcommons.org/?p=1268

·         Philip Oshano (ILRI): Payment for ecosystem services for removing enclosures on rangeland

If you’re planning to attend – great, let’s all catch up. If not – no worries; we’ll give you updates on the summit and the presentations afterward.

Cheers,
Jawoo

PS. On twitter? Follow the hashtag #glpsummit

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See the full gallery on Posterous

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Post from Andy Nelson (a.nelson@cgiar.org):

I’ve made a start on a dataset that relates to the poverty / agriculture question and which should help us to get a little closer to a commonly agreed methodology for linking poverty numbers to agricultural production/consumption for the MP proposals and many other applications. I’d like to get things moving here and am happy to receive offers of collaboration/data/advice/condolences.

Following on from previous work by Stan et al in the PAGE report and David Raitzer in SE Asia, I have made an updated Value of Production grid at 10km resolution which represents the summed value (in USD) of production for around 120 crops per hectare.

1. I used the 10km resolution Monfreda crop yield and area data for 175 crops (no livestock or timber products) to compute production in tonnes per 10 x 10 km pixel for the year 2000. http://www.geog.mcgill.ca/landuse/pub/Data/175crops2000/
2. I then took the FAO national level production data for 2005 – matched them to the Monfreda layers as closely as I could and thus corrected the Monfreda data to get a 10km resolution production map for 2005 for 159 crops.  There were 16 crops where I could not find a match between FAO and Monfreda. http://faostat.fao.org/site/567/DesktopDefault.aspx?PageID=567
3. Then I took the FAO internationally comparable prices for the top 20 agricultural commodities per country. This includes livestock. These prices are described as follows “International commodity prices are used, to calculate the total value of each commodity produced by each country and subsequently used in the ranking of commodities and countries. They are applied in order to avoid the use of exchange rates for obtaining continental and world aggregates, and also to improve and facilitate international comparative analysis of productivity at the national level.” 
   The cross tabulation of prices against countries results in lots of gaps since we only have 20 prices per country.  To resolve this, I summarized the data into 22 UN regions and computed the median price for each region based on the available country prices.  If there were no countries in that region with price data for a given commodity I further aggregated to 5 UN super regions (continents) and computed median prices again.  If there were no countries in these super regions with prices, I simply computed a global median price. These regional, super regional and world median prices were used to fill the gaps in the commodity / country cross tabulation, using the finest level of available price data. http://faostat.fao.org/site/339/default.aspx
   The prices are very constant across countries in a region so I feel that this is a reasonable method. However, I would much prefer real price data for all crops.  I used median prices to limit the effect of outliers on the regional price (eg. Camel meat is 1400USD per tonne everywhere except Kuwat where it is over 5000USD per tonne).
4. These 2005 international prices were multiplied by the 2005 production to give USD value of production per crop per 10km x 10km pixel. This was done for 122 crops.  Not all crops appear in the FAO price data.  Note that we have price data for most livestock products (23 in total) but do not have raster maps of livestock production to multiply them with.  Does ILRI have such data that we could plug into this?
5. We now have 10km x 10km maps of yield, area, production and USD value for 122 crops globally. These can be summed to give a total value of crop production (VofP) per pixel, even though we miss the livestock and timber products. They can also be used to compute the % contribution of each crop to the total value.

See maps below for total crop VofP per hectare (2005) and % of VofP from rice ? Again, there are no livestock or timber products here, just crops.

Possible next steps

• Locate better price data to avoid filling in gaps for crops that fall outside the top 20 in each country. Does anyone know if FAO has more data than they present on the FAOSTAT website?
• Locate spatial livestock production data and add to the analysis. FAO has national livestock production data.  If there are no global production maps, can we instead distribute the FAO production based on livestock farming systems?
• Locate spatial timber production data and tabular timber value data(?)
• Any other commodities to add?

I think that this method is straightforward and plausible.  We only need to improve the input data or fill in gaps to make a more comprehensive map of V of P. The following points are more problematic.

• Link this data to poverty.  How to assign a share of the production value to the rural poor in each pixel? The crudest method is to multiply the total value by the poverty rate and then divide by number of poor to give USD of production per year per person in poverty per pixel.  It would be far better to break out the value based on knowledge of farm size distribution / crops typically cultivated by the poor etc. etc. in each country.  
• The output of this should get us much closer to an idea of the contribution or importance of each crop to the poor in each country/farming system/aez.
• What about consumption data?  This current method only accounts for production and the rural poor. We may need a totally different approach for consumption and the urban poor. Any thoughts?
• What about costs? We only look at the production value. We should try to subtract the land rent, input costs, labour costs etc.  Does anyone have any data that we can bring to bear on this?
• What about fat/protein/calories per commodity per capita? Can this be usefully mapped? This seems straightforward. Do we have the data ?

And, here are two attachments:

• analysis_steps.xls (27 KB) 
  Details on the input data and where I think improvements can be made
• poverty_and_crops.xls (956 KB) 
  The results so far in terms of value of production by the poor (production per pixel x poverty rate per pixel) and poverty weighted value of production by the poor (production per pixel x % of the global poor per pixel).  The results are summarized as graphs per continent showing the crop value, ranked from most valuable to least valuable.

Look forward to your comments.

 

Andy Nelson

IRRI

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Yeah, still can't get enough of AAGW 2010.. If you have your own stack, please feel free to share with others. Cheers!

***

AAGW10

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/aagw10/

WhereCamp/BarCampNairobi

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/barcampnairobi

Stan’s Picasa

http://picasaweb.google.com/SRWontheroad/AfricaGISWeekNairobi

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