The Maps of the Week

This week ProPublica released an impressive mapped visualization of the effect of climate change and oil & gas exploration in the state of Louisiana.

Southern Louisiana is losing 16 square miles a year to the Gulf of Mexico. At the heart of ProPublica's map, Losing Ground, is a series of timeline visualizations of historical aerial imagery. These timelines allow you to observe the loss of land in Louisiana by comparing present day aerial imagery with aerial imagery going back to the 1930's.

Accompanying the aerial imagery are a series of interviews of people living and working in the affected areas. These interviews are supported by audio files and photos. In combination the audio, photos, interviews and aerial imagery of Louisiana's land loss provide a powerful account of this ongoing environmental disaster.


Last year Dave MacLean, from the GIS Faculty at the Centre of Geographic Sciences of the Nova Scotia Community College (NSCC), released a map of photos taken from the International Space Station.

Our World from the ISS is an ESRI map of photos, taken from the ISS posted by @Cmdr_Hadfield and @AstroMarshburn on Twitter. The map allows you to view thumbnails of some truly amazing photos of Earth taken from the ISS.

Dave MacLean has now released a new map covering photos from the ISS Missions 40 and 41. All the photos are mapped to the locations shown in the views of the Earth depicted. The map may not break any new ground in the world of interactive cartography but it definitely wins the weekly award for the most shared map on social media.


This week I was also quite impressed by the Street View treasure hunt game The Day Google Street View Stood Still.

This Street View game uses the Web Audio API to provide audio clues to help you find a number of hidden items. In the game you are teleported to a Street View location somewhere in the world. The object of the game is to follow the audio clues to find objects nearby. The game is a kind of 'hot or cold' searching game, as you get closer to the correct destination the audio clues get louder. If you travel in the wrong direction then the sounds becomes quieter.

The Day Google Street View Stood Still has a number of levels. When you finish a level you are told how many steps you have taken and how long it took you to reach the correct destination. If you make one of the top ten quickest times you can even add your name to the high-score table.