New Hobby Part 2

Here's a color pencil map of West Africa I recently did based on the Times Atlas of the World.

By the time I got to the easternmost countries, the accuracy started to come off the rails. Ghana is way too narrow and I had to bend Benin to make it meet the corner of Niger. Here is a hastily done annotated version.

While gaining context it loses some of charm of the original. I might try to hand annotate it at some point.

In my previous post on this subject, I stated that I haven't done any hand drawn maps since childhood. However, I recently was cleaning up and found this watercolor painting I did in a college class. It was drawn from an atlas. I did this so long ago I don't remember the source but I think it was National Geographic. There was a page about the tectonic forces that created Pennsylvania's ridge and valley system with this map showing Blue and Second Mountain cutting through the Susquehanna River valley north of Harrisburg.

The Human Impact

Via - National Geographic
A new study published in the journal Nature Communications, based on satellite imagery and other data from 1993 and 2009 maps the human footprint in those years. The good news is that the human footprint has not grown in direct proportion to population or the economy. However, some of the most intense pressure on the planet is being felt in places with the highest diversity of plant and animal life.

The above map shows the current footprint with the least impacted areas in blue and the most impacted in yellow and red. The map below shows the change in our impact on the planet between 1993 and 2009. Some of the wealthier areas have seen improvements but many of these are also areas that are already highly impacted.

The National Geographic article discusses how we can help save our biodiversity by focusing protection efforts on species-rich areas such as the Amazon Basin that are seeing significant impact. There are also links to the Wildlife Conservation Society's interactive maps where you can see the current footprint and change for any chosen area.

In the above change map areas of increasing pressure on the environment are in red and decreasing pressure is in blue. Areas not colored have seen little change. Much the Midwestern farming areas have seen decreasing pressure while the red areas include outer suburbs and areas of resource exploitation such as natural gas fracking. Africa has seen a great increase in pressure in the semi-arid Sahel region. Europe has a bit of and east/west split with the east seeing increasing pressure.

The other interactive map includes a slider where you can compare the human impact in 1993 and 2009 as shown here in southern Brazil and Uruguay.

These maps can be explored further by clicking on them or at this link.