America the Beautiful by Robyn Austin The image shown above is found in a blog of Robyn Austin entitled “On the Light Side: Flirting with Natural Disasters” is a map-like illustration of the natural disasters and that is common in different regions of US. The author labeled the map figuratively. “On fire” pertains to the wildfire prone areas. The “hurricane terror area” defines the states or region where hurricanes hit. “Murder Mountains” describes the volcanoes with disastrous volcanic activities prominent to the islands of Hawaii. “Nightmare Tornado Zone” refers to the central plain region where tornadoes are usually formed. “Flipping ground also moves” found along the coastline of California (with shaking lines) tells about the earthquake that is likely to hit. “Snow-covered moonscape” describes the land surface and heavy snow fall along the northeastern part during winter. “Bears only” pertains to the bear attacks usual in the area of Alaska. Meanwhile, the labels “Year-round depression”, “F this”, “Mystery belt”, and “Air made of hot soup” are the labels which I am not certain of. The map used cartoon illustrations as labels which makes the map more entertaining to see. It is not like the usual maps we see which are digitally created using a map-making software. The target audience is more likely the young children because of its graphics and illustration. This map is also suitable for the tourists and local residents because it may serve as source of information about imminent threats in their area. What is most likely to be the problem in the presenting the map is that the scope of the disasters is not well-defined or what states are most likely to experience a specified disaster.
Top disasters that threaten business By EKU online
When establishing a business, it is very important to know what disasters are likely to hit on the location so that there will be planned preemptive measures when a disaster hit. An earthquake resistant building has to be built if the business site is prone to earthquakes. It is important to know if the building site is near or within the danger zone of a volcano and so on. The map shows the top natural disasters that threaten businesses and where they are most likely to hit. It is focused on the possible economic loss caused by different natural disasters. The data used for creating the map was created by Eastern Kentucky University’s Online Master’s in Safety, Security and Emergency Management based on US economic loss in 2013 and 2014 US disaster forecast. The map is very interesting because it is very detailed. Aside from showing the top 5 states with presidential major disaster declarations (namely Texas, California, Oklahoma, New York, and Florida) by using a choropleth map, it also used icons to show what different natural disasters that are most likely to hit the different states. The icons used are easy to interpret if what disaster was being symbolized (i.e. vortex for tornado, flame for wildfire, big waves for tsunamis, snowflake for blizzard, seismic waves for earthquakes, “R” and “F” for river floods and flash floods respectively, and cloud with strong wind for hurricanes). This map is perfect for business people that plan to start or expand their business/es in different states or regions in US. It seems that the objectives are achieved since there are no any missing details needed to be presented and all the details presented has roles on the map.
The map shows the major earthquakes that happened in 2017. It came from an online article entitled “Scientists say there could be twice as many earthquakes in 2018 – so where is most at risk?” on The Telegraph online site. The objectives of making the map were not achieved. If someone will look at this map, its audience will be clueless if what is the concept or message. Obviously, the map lacks some elements such as the title. However, there is a legend but it is just named as “legend”. Who would have thought that the legend represents the magnitude of the major earthquakes in 2017? What do those circles and colors represent? What if its target audience misinterpreted the map? Putting a description would be somehow helpful to understand the concept of the map. The author used graduated symbol is for the legend. The sizes and fill colors of the circles are based on the classes of magnitudes. It is undeniably easy to understand because of its symbology. The map would be more aesthetically pleasing if there is only single hue used then the different classes of magnitude would be based on the hue intensity. In creating a map, the map elements are very important. They contain the necessary details which helps its audience fully understand the concept and the story behind it. Map-makers should always consider that map elements are part of the whole map and the audience should be clueless about the map they will create. Source: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/maps-and-graphics/Mapped-Where-a-natural-disaster-is-most-likely-to-strike/
Where a natural disaster most likely to strike
This map is found in an online article entitled “MAPPED: Where in the world natural disasters are most likely to STRIKE”, written by Kat Romero in 2016. The data used in the map came from 2015 World Risk Report and was compiled by the United Nations University for Environment and Human Security. They assigned 173 countries with a risk percentage, based on the chances of experiencing an earthquake, storms, floods, droughts and sea level rises. The map author used a choropleth map. There was a statement written on the lower-left side of the map saying “This map shows risk by country”. Each country was colored depending on the level of threat seen on the legend. The author did not use a single hue which is not ideal in making choropleth maps. It would have been better if the author used a single hue because the color intensity of yellow, orange, and red could be somehow misleading. I noticed that the names of the continents were only written. It would have been better if countries were specifically labeled or named so that the audience would immediately know if what countries face a high level of threat. The borders of some were not well-defined which makes some of the insular countries indeterminable (i.e. Canada and USA, Russia and Mongolia, some African countries and most European countries). In addition, it would have also been better if there were also symbols used to specify what natural disasters are likely to happen because it varies in all countries because of different geological activities and climatic conditions. The map is still very interesting because it is a summary of the risk percentage of all the combined different natural disasters. The map is very informative and suitable for those who love to travel around the world. They can use this map in order for them to know how high the threat level of natural disaster is in the country they will visit.
Who suffers most from extreme weather events? By ANN/DataLEADS The map shows the top 10 countries which suffers most from extreme weather events. According to Global Climate Risk Index by Think-tank Germanwatch, these countries are (according to rank) 1) Honduras, 2) Myanmar, 3) Haiti, 4) Nicaragua, 5) Philippines, 6) Bangladesh, 7) Pakistan, 8) Vietnam, 9) Guatemala, and 10) Thailand. The caption written on top describes the purpose of the map. Among the 10 countries mentioned, six of them are from Asia and four came from South East Asia. DataLEADS used yellow hue with only one level of color intensity to highlight all the top 10 countries. The numbers 1-10 are used for the rankings which are written beside the name of each country. It makes me confused to see the main concept of this map. If the main focus is just to show the different Asian countries that suffer the most from extreme weather events, it would have been better use a map of Asia then highlight the countries of Myanmar, Philippines, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Vietnam, and Thailand then label their respective ranks. The caption should also be omitted because aside from being too wordy, it also occupies a lot of space. It would be also nicer to see if the map would be zoomed out so that the island and archipelagic countries would be seen clearer.