Investigating World Development with a GIS

Transcription

1 Investigating World Development with a GIS Economic and human development is not consistent across the world. Some countries have developed more quickly than others and we call these countries MEDCs (More Economically Developed Countries). These countries are usually richer and the population has a better standard of living. Countries which have developed more slowly are known as LEDCs (Less Economically Developed Countries). These countries are usually poorer and the population has a lower standard of living. In order to identify if a country is an MEDC or an LEDC we can look at a number of development indicators. Today we are going to investigate three development indicators: Gross Domestic Product (GDP) The total amount of money produced in a country each year, we would expect this to be higher in an MEDC and lower in an LEDC. Life Expectancy The average number of years a person is expected to live, we would expect people living in MEDCs to live longer than people in LEDCs. Infant mortality Infant mortality rate is the number of children under 1 year old that die each year, this is measured per 1000 live births. We would expect this to be lower in an MEDC and higher in an LEDC. In this activity we are going to use an online Geographical Information System (GIS) to investigate the above development indicators for different countries. A GIS is a powerful computer programme that allows us to visualise geographic data, conduct analysis and answer questions. GIS is used by a number of different people for a number of different reasons; Making maps Determining and preparing evacuation routes prior to a natural disaster. Distributing aid after a natural disaster. Mapping archaeological finds. Determining where to build a new supermarket / housing development. Comparing satellite imagery with map data. Mapping the distribution of animals across the world. Mapping disease to look at patterns and causes. Mapping crime so police forces know where to station their officers. and many more!

2 Introduction to an online GIS The online GIS we are going to use is called ArcGIS Explorer Online. Open this application now by visiting in a web browser. You may have to wait a few minutes for the page to load. 1. You will be presented with a window which should look as follows: This page shows lots of maps that other people have created, but today we are going to create our own map. 2. Click the new map button on the top right hand side of the window to create a new map. 3. ArcGIS Explorer Online has a number of different functions, it can be used to add points of interest make measurements and mark areas of interest. Take a moment to familiarise yourself with the map. You can zoom in and out by using the wheel in the centre of your mouse. You can pan around the map by clicking and dragging the map. Try and find the following locations by panning and zooming: Your school Your house Australia

3 4. The first thing we are going to do is change the background map of our project (also known as the base map). At the moment the base map is set to topographic map but this can be changed easily by clicking on the base map icon. This is the third icon from the left on the top toolbar. ESRI provide their users with a wide range of free base maps which can be used in different projects. Click the base map icon now and change the base map by clicking one of the base map options. Familiarise yourself with the different base map options available: Imagery (Satellite imagery) Imagery with Labels (Satellite Imagery with labels) Streets (Street names) Topographic (default) Terrain with Labels (a map with additional height data and labels) Light Gray Canvas (Quite self-explanatory!) National Geographic (provided by National Geographic) Oceans (detailed ocean data) OpenStreetMap (Crowd sourced collected by the general public) Bing Maps Aerial (Aerial photography, provided by Bing) Bing Maps Hybrid (Aerial photography with labels, provided by Bing) Bing Maps Road (Road map with labels, provided by Bing) 5. Once you have explored the different base map options. Choose Topographic and set this as the base map for the project.

4 Arc GIS Explorer Online provides a wide range of tools which can be used to manipulate data in different ways. A number of tools can be found on the grey toolbar at the top of the map window and on the black toolbar on the left hand side of the page. We will use some of these tools later on, so take a minute to familiarise yourself with them: Top toolbar: Left toolbar: Save Queries Print Base Map Add Content Measure Edit Features Select Features Zoom to Rectangle Change Symbol Map contents Layers Add features Bookmarks Investigating Gross Domestic Product (GDP) At the moment our map is completely blank, so we are now going to add some data and investigate our first development indicator. We are going to add a layer to our map which will show Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for each individual country across the world. 6. Click the add content icon from the top toolbar; this is the fourth icon from the left hand side.

5 7. You will be presented with a drop down menu and a search box. Type in World Bank GDP and click add from the first result from the list (the layer is called World Bank Gross Domestic Product ) this will add the layer to the map. 8. You may have to click the add content icon again to get rid of the add content menu. Zoom out so you can see the whole world. 9. This layer is going to show us the changes in GDP for each country between 1990 and 2009, press the play button from the menu at the bottom of your screen to watch these changes over time. Make sure you let it play through to the end.

6 One benefit of a GIS is that is can store additional information about the data we are looking at. Click the bottom icon from the black toolbar now to show the map legend. This will show the map key which tells us what each colour corresponds to. The countries on the map that are coloured darkest red have the highest GDP. This means they produce between 8 trillion and 14.4 trillion US dollars per year. The lightest yellow countries on the map have the lowest GDP and only produce between 28.4 million and 100 billion US dollars per year. 10. Click on different countries to find out additional information about them. On a piece of paper write down short answers to the following questions. Question 1 a) Which country has the highest GDP? b) What is the GDP for that country? c) Based on this information do you think this country is an MEDC or an LEDC? 11. Based on the colours of the map, click on a country that you think has a low GDP. Question 2 a) What is this country called? b) What is the GDP for that country? c) Based on this information do you think this country is an MEDC or an LEDC? Investigating Life Expectancy 12. We are going to add another layer to our map now to look at our second development indicator life expectancy. As you did before, click the add content icon from the top grey toolbar. Type World Bank age and population into the search box and add the first one in the list to the map (see above investigating GDP section if you have forgotten.)

7 13. You may have to click the add content button again to get rid of the add content menu. This dataset has a number of different sub datasets within in. We are interested in the total life expectancy, so we are going to visualise this one now. 14. Click on the layers icon, which is the second icon down from the top of the black toolbar. This will reveal the different layers we have on our map. You will see the base map, the GDP layer we added earlier, and the World Bank age and population layer which contains the life expectancy data.

8 15. You can turn these layers on and off by ticking and unticking the tick boxes next to each layer name. Turn off the GDP layer we used earlier and make sure the base map and the World Bank age and population layers are turned on. 16. Click the arrow next to the World Bank age and population layer to reveal its sub layers. You will see a number of sub layers, but we are going to look at the life expectancy total layer first. 17. Untick all the tick boxes, except Age Population at the top, Life Expectancy and Country at the bottom. This will turn off all the other layers so we can view the life expectancy data easily. 18. We now need to configure the pop-ups for this layer, so we can ask questions about this data set. Click the Configure Pop-ups button now and click add underneath the Life Expectancy Total layer.

9 19. If you click the map legend icon now, you can see that the palest orange countries are the ones with the lowest life expectancy and the darkest orange countries are the ones with the highest life expectancy. 20. Investigate the life expectancy of different countries by clicking on them and reading the pop-ups. Question 3 a) Which country has the lowest average life expectancy? What is the life expectancy in that country? b) Give the name of a country with a high average life expectancy, what is the life expectancy in this country? c) Is there a certain continent that has a lower life expectancy than the rest of the world? What is it? 21. Click the layers icon from the black toolbar (second icon from the top) from here to can turn the visibility of the World Bank Age and Population layer on and off to compare it with the GDP layer we added earlier. Question 4 a) Do you think there is a relationship between life expectancy and GDP (how much money a country produces)? What is it? Investigating Infant Mortality We are now going to look our last development indicator infant mortality rate remember this is the number of infants that die before they are one year old each year, and this is recorded per 1000 live births. 22. Click the add content button from the top grey toolbar, and search for infant mortality rate last reporting year there should only be one result and you need to add this data set to your map. 23. This dataset provides us with a summary of the infant mortality rate for each country. You can see the map legend by click the map legend icon from the black toolbar; this will tell you what each country on the map represents. The countries coloured darkest blue have the lowest infant mortality rate and the countries coloured pale yellow have the highest infant mortality rate.

10 Question 5 b) Which continent has the highest infant mortality rate? c) Why do you think this continent has such a high infant mortality rate? Summary Today we have visualised three different development indicators Gross Domestic Product, Life Expectancy, and Infant Mortality rate. As mentioned earlier, we can use these development indicators to measure how developed a country is and whether we can class it as an MEDC or an LEDC (More / Less Economically Developed Country). 24. In pairs, write a short paragraph about one country you think can be classed as an MEDC. Justify your answer and try and back it up with statistics from the map you have created. 25. Write a short paragraph about one country you think can be classed as an LEDC. Justify your answer and try and back it up with statistics from the map you have created. We have been using A Geographic Information System to visualise our data today. If you would like to visit this site again just go to There are thousands of datasets to look at!