News Release

Tip Sheet: Papers Of Interest, 95th Annual Meeting, Association Of American Geographers

Peer-Reviewed Publication

Association of American Geographers

Sound maps, fire risk mapping, and declassified satellite images of Earth from the Cold War Era are among the research to be presented at the 95th annual meeting of the Association of American Geographers, to be held in Honolulu, Hawaii March 23-27, 1999. Reporters are welcome to attend the meeting, which will include over 2,200 papers by scholars from the U.S. and overseas.

Among the topics of interest to be presented by geographers are:

THE CORONA PROJECT: Newly declassified data from a top-secret U.S. satellite surveillance effort, the CORONA project, reveals not only the secret technological breakthroughs that allowed U.S. security to be maintained during the Cold War, but also the clandestine roots of modern earth sciences, say two geographers who have studied more than 800,000 images and other material released by the government in 1995. Keith Clarke and John Cloud of the University of California-Santa Barbara will present research funded by the National Science Foundation. CORONA, initiated in 1958, was originally designed to survey China and the Soviet Union. Almost immediately after the first successful satellite launch, government agencies realized that there were also massive civilian applications for satellite images of the Earth, in air navigation, environmental protection, and mapping.

SOUND MAPS: Maps, traditionally a highly visual medium for conveying information, will soon be available as sound maps on the Internet for the visually-impaired, with computerized audio and tactile features that will move users through landscape features, streets and buildings via their ears and fingers. Blind users who have tested the sound map prototypes obtained better and faster information than a control group using only tactile maps, according to geographer Dan Jacobson of the University of California-Santa Barbara.

PYROGEOGRAPHY: As the number of catastrophic forest fires in the U.S. increases, geographers are using satellite image data in remote fire risk mapping, which incorporates analysis of fire fuels, fire severity and fire spread patterns to predict potential fire behavior. Forest fire risk in the southwestern United States reaches its height in April, May and June. Stephen Yool of the Department of Geography at the University of Arizona says that this winter's limited rainfall may presage 1999 fires as severe as those seen in 1994, when the Rattlesnake fire in southeastern Arizona burned 26,000 acres, and the Coffeepot fire in New Mexico's San Mateo Mountains destroyed 22,000 acres.

EL NINO AND PACIFIC ILLNESS: To explore the possible relationship between ENSO-related climate events and human health, Dr. Nancy D. Lewis, a geographer and associate dean of the college of social sciences at the University of Hawaii, and doctoral candidate Liem Tran have analyzed the relationship between climate data recorded at 36 Pacific stations, the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI), a measure of ENSO conditions, and epidemiological data from 1973 to 1994. The goal of the research is to determine whether climate forecast information can be used to ameliorate public health risks. The geographers also collected health and climate data during last year's strong El Nino. Their analysis is part of a larger "ENSO Experiment" coordinated by NOAA's Office of Global Programs.

TRANSMITTERS AND RECEIVERS HELP BLIND COMMUTERS NAVIGATE CITIES: A newly-designed system of talking signs and mobile receivers has helped blind travellers in Santa Barbara, California, to navigate unfamilar buildings and transit stops, greatly increasing their spatial information, use of public transit and independence. This research by Professor Reg Golledge and graduate student James Marston builds on past research by Golledge, a blind geographer at UC-Santa Barbara who has researched several innovative technologies to aid the visually impaired.

HAWAII: The ecological threats to this island paradise, from coral reef degradation to land tenure issues to tourism, comprise the content of over 60 AAG meeting sessions. Reports on urban Honolulu, including mapping its graffiti and its thriving Chinatown, are also scheduled.

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An electronic press kit, with news releases and links to the AAG Meeting Press Room in Honolulu, researchers' home pages and e-mail, is available online at www.aag.org.

The Association of American Geographers is a scholarly, nonprofit organization founded in 1904 to advance professional studies in geography and to encourage the application of geographic research in education, government, and business. With 6,900 members in the U.S. and 60 other nations, it is headquartered in Washington, D.C.



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