Scale and Spatial Data

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 This week was the last module of the Special Topics course! We learned about scale and spatial data. Particularly about the different effects of scale on vector and raster data. With vector data, the scale affects the detail of the data. For example, at a larger scale vector data is much less detailed than the data would be at a smaller scale. The scale of raster data affects the resolution (cell size).  A larger-scale raster (i.e. 90m cell size) is much less detailed than a smaller-scale raster (i.e. 2m cell size). The cell size will also affect the results of any spatial analysis completed, such as slope.

Part of the assignment was to determine gerrymandering, which is the manipulating of electoral boundaries to benefit a particular political party. One way to determine it is by measuring the compactness with the Polsby-Popper score (Morgan and Evans 2018). This method creates a score from 0 to 1. In the assignment, I calculated the Polsby-Popper score for the congressional districts. Below is the district with the worst score, therefore, it is the least compact and spread out. 





References:

Morgan, J.D. and Evans, J. (2018). Aggregation of Spatial Entities and Legislative Redistricting. The Geographic Information Science & Technology Body of Knowledge (3rd Quarter 2018 Edition), John P. Wilson (Ed.). DOI:10.22224/gistbok/2018.3.6


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