Farmland Lost in the Town of Duxbury, Massachusetts

        I.            This study is being done in order to see how much farmland is being lost due to various reasons in the town of Duxbury, Massachusetts. By looking at the amount of different types of potential farmland in the town and the amount of those farms that have been lost we can see patterns and trends to help us try and save this crucial land. This study is important because farmland is important for food production and are important to the biodiversity of the surrounding environment. We will be looking at impervious surfaces such as roads and parking lots that are causing loss of this farmland. Farmland is a resource that needs to be preserved for future generations to be able to flourish. Tables 1 & 2 show total amount of farmland and farmland lost, respectively. Figure 3 is a map showing actual spots where farmland has been lost due to development of roads, parking lots and other impervious surfaces.    

Overall, 1,349,900 km squared of farmland has been lost due to development in Duxbury. While this study took impervious features into account, I think it could be taken one step further by adding information about exactly what kind of impervious features are causing the loss of farmland. By navigating around this precious farmland I am sure there is a way to continue necessary development while preserving the farmland that is so important to the town of Duxbury and the surrounding towns as well.  

Dorm Buildings at Bridgewater State University

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This interactive map was made using an application on my phone. The purpose of the mobile application is to be able to apply data from real life data collected in the field to online maps showing current situations. It is useful when transferring data collected in the field to our online map quickly. Our map gives insight on dorm buildings on the BSU campus. Students looking for images and some brief information of these dorms may find the map useful. Table 1 shows the data we collected for our map points. 
Table 1: 

Environmental Justice in the Town of Somerville, Massachusetts

        I.            The goal of this project is to determine the impact of toxic sites on the town of Somerville, Massachusetts. By setting up 2000 meter buffer zones around known toxic sites we can measure the percentage of the town that may be affected by them. Measuring the boundaries and area of environmental justice zones in the town allows us to see how bad Somerville’s toxicity may be.           Table 1: 

 Table 2:                                                                                                                                                     

           After analyzing the data and creating a map to visualize it the results of this study are able to be interpreted. The total area of Somerville is about 10.718 square kilometers. Just about fifty-five percent of that land in Somerville is made up of Environmental Justice populations. When toxic sites were added into the map with 2000 meter buffers, it covered the entirety of Somerville. In other words, the toxic buffers covered one-hundred percent of the town’s land area.                                         Figure 1:    

 So            Somerville has a very high rate of toxicity in both environmental justice and non-environmental justice areas. We can see this to be true in figure one and both of the tables. A layer showing types of industry and businesses in the area could lead to insight on why there are so many toxic points on the map. Factors that might influence toxicity in Somerville could be wind direction that could help toxic material travel, precipitation levels which might spread toxic materials as well as a look at population details to see if it fits the environmental justice population’s criteria. 

 

                                                                                         

Deforestation in Brazil

Figure 1: Map showing deforestation and areas at-risk for deforestation in Rondonia, Brazil.

This map may be used by development planners when trying to determine the potential impacts of putting a road here in the Amazon. Roads are directly correlated to loss of rainforest in Brazil and all over South America. Roads branch off into more roads and lead to deforestation due to both legal and illegal practices. This map shows how putting a road here could lead to deforestation right around the planned road. In order to save the rainforest and slow deforestation roads such as this one should not be placed because it clearly leads to mass amounts of deforestation.