UC ANR group wins extension award

Several UC Cooperative Extension and UC scientists have been awarded the Western Extension Directors Association Award of Excellence for work to address the outbreak of sudden oak death in California. Led by Yana Valachovic, the group developed extension programming that achieved outstanding accomplishments, results and impacts in addressing this important issue. We were recognized for: 

• understanding the issue and situation; 
• working with stakeholders;
• having a research base and an extension focus;
• evidencing multidisciplinary and collaborative components;
• incorporating innovative approaches;
• achieving impacts; and
• developing scholarly products. 

The people involved in the group award are: Yana Valachovic, Steve Swain, Matteo Garbelotto, Janice Alexander, Lisa Bell, Bendan Twieg, Dave Rizzo, Steve Tjosvold, David Lewis, Doug McCreary, Katie Palmieri, Kerri Frangioso, Jim MacDonald, Ellie Rilla, Maggi Kelly, Rick Standiford, Chris Lee, Doug Schmidt, Brice McPherson, and Richard Dodd. 

OakMapper Mobile Updated (v2.4) - available now at the App Store

OakMapper Mobile has been updated (version 2.4) to take take advantage of the latest iOS interface design and requirements. It is available for download at the Apple App Store. Existing OakMapper Mobile users are encouraged to update to the latest version.

In the last 6 months, the site receives over 1,100 visitors, resulting in over 1,450 sessions this period, which is consistent with the same period last year. Visitors come mostly from the US; and within the US states, California dominates. There are 14 new registered users from the community. Participation from the community includes 4 new SOD submissions (721 total), 1 new comment about SOD, 6 new questions/feedback, and 2 new votes on whether they have seen the reported SOD cases.

Our paper published in the Annals of the Association of American Geographers has been cited 17 times according to Google Scholar.

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Connors, J. P., S. Lei & M. Kelly (2012): Citizen Science in the Age of Neogeography: Utilizing Volunteered Geographic Information for Environmental Monitoring, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 102(6): 1267-1289

New 2012-2013 SOD Confirmations Added to OakMapper!

New 2013 SOD Blitz and 2012-13 UC Davis DataNew confirmed cases of Sudden Oak Death (SOD) (P. ramorum) have been added to OakMapper, a project that tracks the spread of Sudden Oak Death from data collected by citizens and organizations. All official SOD cases are collected and confirmed by the California Department of Food and Agriculture or the University of California. Community SOD cases are submitted by citizens via the OakMapper website and iPhone application. 442 new points collected between 2012-2013 have been added to OakMapper bringing the total number of confirmed SOD locations to 3246. The new data consists of laboratory confirmed cases collected by the annual SOD Blitz campaign of 2013 from the Forest Pathology and Mycology Lab run by Dr. Matteo Garbelotto and also laboratory confirmed cases collected by the UC Davis Rizzo Lab run by Dr. David Rizzo.

Click on the image left to view a close-up of the new confirmed SOD data (in green) from SOD Blitz and UC Davis. 

Explore the new data online here.

OakMapper.org

New SOD map from Google Maps Engine

Here is my attempt at a map from Google Maps Engine!

Thanks Karin Tuxen-Bettman for the help!

Hey OakMappers! Updated OakMapper available for iPhones and iPads

The new OakMapper logo

We are excited to announce the new version (2.3) of the OakMapper iPhone/iPad App, available to download now for free at the iTunes App Store [link].

In this version of the OakMapper App, the original browse and search functionalities have been retooled to improve the user interface design and user interaction. A new user can sign up for a new OakMapper account directly using the App. Users who has logged into their account can manage their profile, change their password, and submit a SOD point. The submission process has been re-engineered to achieve a better and more intuitive submission workflow. Users can also take a picture of a suspected SOD infected tree and upload it right from their iOS devices.

To explore all the new features of the OakMapper iPhone/iPad App, please install OakMapper from the iTunes App Store [link] now. Please feel free to share this App with your friends. If you like the OakMapper app, please rate the app and leave your comments in the App store. If you should have any questions, please email us at oakmapper@gmail.com.

Enjoy!

OakMapper
Shufei Lei, Web/Mobile App Developer
Maggi Kelly, Principal Investigator
www.oakmapper.org

New 2012 SOD Confirmations Added to OakMapper!

New SOD Blitz 2012 Data

New confirmed cases of Sudden Oak Death (SOD) (P. ramorum) have been added to OakMapper, a project that tracks the spread of Sudden Oak Death from data collected by citizens and organizations. All official SOD cases are collected and confirmed by the California Department of Food and Agriculture or the University of California. Community SOD cases are submitted by citizens via the OakMapper website and iPhone application. 613 new points collected in 2012 have been added to OakMapper bringing the total number of confirmed SOD locations to 2804. The new data consists of laboratory confirmed cases collected by the annual SOD Blitz campaign of 2012 from the Forest Pathology and Mycology Lab run by Dr. Matteo Garbelotto. 

Click on the image in the upper left to view a close-up of the new confirmed SOD data (in green) from the SOD Blitz 2012. 

Explore the new data online here.

OakMapper.org

What is "success" with post-disaster crowdsourcing?

At a recent workshop I gave on webGIS, after giving an overview of some of the recent uses of crowdsourced and VGI in disasters (fire in San Diego, earthquake in Christchurch, Ushahidi everywhere...), I was asked about success of these projects. Who used the data? How? (and who funded these websites, but that is another story.) And I had only the vaguest of answers. Here is a thoughful critique on this subject by Paul Currion on MobileActive.org. He examines the use of the Ushahidi project in Haiti. Paul is an aid worker who has been working on the use of ICTs in large-scale emergencies for the last 10 years.  He asks whether crowdsourcing adds significant value to responding to humanitarian emergencies, arguing that merely increasing the quantity of information in the wake of a large-scale emergency may be counterproductive. Why? because aid workers need clear answers, not a fire-hose of information. Information from the crowd needs to be curated, organized, targeted for response. He makes the point that since crowdsourced data is going have to be sorted through, and can be biased, and can be temporary, aid agencies are going to have to carry out exactly the same needs assessments that they would done without the crowdsourced information.

Where and when do crowdsourced data add value to a situation or project? How can we effectively deal with the bias in the data that comes naturally? We deal with this all the time in my smaller web-related projects: oakmapper and snamp for example. What is the future role of the web for adaptive forest management for example? How do these new collaborative and extensive tools help us make important decisions about natural resources management in often contentious contexts? More to think about.

New 2011 SOD Confirmations Added to OakMapper!

New SOD Blitz 2011 Data

New confirmed cases of Sudden Oak Death (SOD) (P. ramorum) have been added to OakMapper, a project that tracks the spread of Sudden Oak Death from data collected by citizens and organizations. All official SOD cases are collected and confirmed by the California Department of Food and Agriculture or the University of California. Community SOD cases are submitted by citizens via the OakMapper website and iPhone application. 621 new points collected in 2011 have been added to OakMapper bringing the total number of confirmed SOD locations to 2191. The new data consists of laboratory confirmed cases collected by the annual SOD Blitz campaign of 2011 from the Forest Pathology and Mycology Lab run by Dr. Matteo Garbelotto. 

Click on the image below to view a close-up of the new confirmed SOD data (in green) from the SOD Blitz 2011. 

Explore the new data online here.

OakMapper.org

SOD: still spreading in the bay area

A nice article in SF Chron on Matteo's citizen science approach to mapping new SOD spread.

The article states: The deadly pathogen known as sudden oak death is spreading throughout the Bay Area, infecting more trees in more places than have ever been seen before, according to scientists tracking the disease. The Forest Pathology and Mycology Laboratory at UC Berkeley used 10,000 tree and plant samples collected by 500 citizens between April and June this year to document a dramatic increase in the infection rate from Napa to the Carmel Valley and virtually everywhere in between.

Read more.

New SOD Confirmations Added to OakMapper!

New confirmed cases of Sudden Oak Death (SOD) (P. ramorum) have been added to OakMapper, a project that tracks the spread of Sudden Oak Death from data collected by citizens and organizations. All official SOD cases are collected and confirmed by the California Department of Food and Agriculture or the University of California. Community SOD cases are submitted by citizens via the OakMapper website and iPhone application. 415 new points collected between 2008 and 2011 have been added to OakMapper bringing the total number of confirmed SOD locations to 1570. The new data consists of laboratory confirmed cases collected by the annual SOD Blitz campaigns of 2008-2010 from the Forest Pathology and Mycology Lab run by Dr. Matteo Garbelotto and also data collected by the California Department of Food and Agriculture between 2008 and 2011.

Click on the images below to view close-ups of the new confirmed SOD data (in green) from the SOD Blitz and California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA).

New SOD Blitz 08-10 Data

New CDFA 08-11 Data

Explore the new data online here

OakMapper.org