Observation density

Educators
4

maps can really be beautiful and interesting. below are some screenshots of a map i put together quickly in ArcGIS Online. the first screenshot is just the standard AGOL topo basemap. the second is an Earth at Night layer from NASA’s Visible Earth, which can help visualize population centers (and wealth). the last is a GBIF occurrences layer on top of the Earth at Night layer. (i used GBIF instead of iNat because it should include iNat + other sources, and because i like the way GBIF’s density maps display better than any of iNat’s observation maps if you’re going to be looking worldwide.)

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there are lots of interesting questions that can be asked just based on comparisons between these 3 screenshots. here were the first few that came to my mind:

  1. why do those Scandinavian countries have relatively so many observations vs. Russia, just next door? (look at how clear that boundary is.) is there a linguistic break there? or some social break? or is it purely political?
  2. look at Taiwan vs China. both are Chinese-speaking countries, but why are Taiwan’s observations so much more dense? i figured that if you just looked at iNat data, there would be a difference because China’s Great Firewall blocks Google Maps, which greatly hinders iNaturalist’s functionality in that country, but maybe the Great Firewall also blocks other apps, too? but maybe the tech factors really take a backseat to other factors like politics, education, economy?
  3. looking at observations, you can sort of see where the US-Mexico border would be (whereas there is no such obvious break between Canada and the US). is that due to language or politics? or is it just that because there’s a giant desert there? (deserts in other parts of the world also seem to have a low density of observations.)
  4. the dark spot in North Korea is interesting when compared with South Korea, but it’s not the only one. look at South Sudan and Turkmenistan. there might be others, too.

oh… also, you may want to check out the series of World Tour discussions and blog posts that loarie has been spearheading. people talk about how iNat is being used in different countries. sometimes you get interesting reminders of geopolitics, such as something related to Crimea here: https://www.inaturalist.org/blog/26633-ukraine-inaturalist-world-tour.