Poop to Power

Recruitment and Retention

Fewer Students Are Going To College. Here's Why That Matters is a nice and concise summary of the issues that we are dealing with in Higher Ed right now. My take-away: adults are the key and we (= Westfield State) are not doing a good job making things easy and effective for them.

Dust and the Trade Winds

This is a great example of the Trade Winds blowing dust, hurricanes, etc. from Africa to the Americas: A Dusty Journey

Historic Topographic Maps

The USGS topographic maps have been available via ArcGIS Online for while now - see Historical Topographic Maps on ArcGIS Online for more information. Here are some more recent resources:

• USGS Historical Topographic Map Explorer (= an app based on the Living Atlas).
• Bring Historical Topographic Maps Back to Life in Web Maps
• Using Historical USGS Topographic Maps in ArcGIS Pro

2019 Natural Disasters Costs

Tropical cyclones causing billions in losses dominate nat cat picture of 2019 by Munich RE is a concise overview of the 2019 natural disasters and their associated costs.

Mineral Extraction

Great and sobering article by Sovacool et al. (Science 9 January 2020) about sustainable energy, the associated mineral extraction/processing, and resultant ethical conundrum (see one of their figures below). Key examples / case studies that the article did not mention: Venezuela and Bolivia.

Drones vs Laser!

Eker et al. (2019) Monitoring of Snow Cover Ablation Using Very High Spatial Resolution Remote Sensing Datasets is a great paper comparing super-detailed snow cover mapping using drones and terrestrial laser scanning and includes detailed methods and processing information.