SpatialEcology

Hola! Another day and half to go before vacation begins. Before I can go, I've three meetings today and one tomorrow morning. Bummer! In our Emergency GIS Team meeting this afternoon we will officially kick off our pilot project for site address field verification. I am a little nervous on how this will go. Hopefully it will go faster than I anticipate. If you have ever attempted such a huge task please let me know about it.

"Spatial ecology is the study of the interrelationship between organisms and their environment, with particular emphasis on the spatial nature of these interactions. Spatial analysis commonly requires the use of large, complex databases using software that is not specifically designed for ecological applications. The purpose of this site is to help bridge the gap between software, data, and the sophisticated spatial analyses that are needed in modern ecological research." One really cool thing about this site is Hawth's Analysis Tools. "Hawth's Analysis Tools is an extension for ESRI's ArcGIS (specifically ArcMap). It is designed to perform spatial analysis and functions that cannot be conveniently accomplished with out-of-the-box ArcGIS. Most of these analysis tools have been written within the context of the ecological applications I am involved in (movement analysis, resource selection, predator prey interactions and trophic cascades). However, they have been created in such a way as to be as broadly applicable as possible such that I hope people from many disciplines will find use in this set of tools. There are three types of tools in this kit. First, there are simple tools that automate mundane tasks (e.g. deleting many fields at once from a table). These will likely be useful to anyone. Second, there are tools that are designed to be part of an analysis workflow. For instance, random point (or stratified random point) generation, minimum convex polygon delineation, summarizing raster layers in various ways, etc. These too are likely to be useful to many people. Finally, there are tools that target specific, ecology related analyses (for instance, various movement model applications). These will likely only be of interest to ecologists. Hawth's Tools is FREE. You are free to distribute it and install it anywhere you choose." How cool is that? Valuable tools that are FREE! Check it out at http://www.spatialecology.com/index.php. 3 Days!!!