The new 29th report by the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution explores the environmental challenges faced by the UK as a result of demographic change. The cover of the report features my population cartogram of the United Kingdom surrounded by the commissions royal blue (see larger image of the cover map here). The report also happens to be the last work of this Royal Commission, which together with several other Defra bodies will be abolished later this year in its 31st year of existence.
Yesterday’s (16/02) official launch of this report in London was accompanied by a vigorous debate about the key findings, with much of the discussion being closely related to the demographic trends in the United Kingdom and which implications these have. Continue reading
Yearly Archives: 2011
Broken Hearts
Here are two maps that I created in collaboration with the Department of Cardiovascular Science at the University of Sheffield using data published by the British Heart Foundation (see http://www.heartstats.org/ for more statistics). The maps is coloured by age-standardised cardiovascular heart disease death rates per 100,000 people (split into male and female deaths). Both maps are shaded using the quintiles, thus differ in the absolute rate shown here. This reveals a picture of the prevailing health inequalities in the United Kingdom, with a quite striking North-South divide on the one hand, and an existing division within the Capital as well (East London being most affected in the South East of England). Both maps are drawn on an equal population cartogram giving each person the same amount of space on the map: Continue reading
Winter 2010/11 and the Arctic Oscillation
Visualisations of a World in Crisis
A Picture of Open Access
The Open Access Week is promoting Open Access as a new norm in scholarship and research. It goes into its 5th year in 2011. The community claims that
Open Access (OA) has the potential to maximize research investments, increase the exposure and use of published research, facilitate the ability to conduct research across available literature, and enhance the overall advancement of scholarship. Research funding agencies, academic institutions, researchers and scientists, teachers, students, and members of the general public are supporting a move towards Open Access in increasing numbers every year. Open Access Week is a key opportunity for all members of the community to take action to keep this momentum moving forward.
Following up the Open Access Africa 2010 conference in Nairobi/Kenya Rania Baleela and Pablo de Castro MartÃn have created a presentation the global development of Open Access (and draw a special focus on the situation in African countries). They used a number of worldmapper maps to make their case. In addition I created a new map for them that shows the number of activities by country along the SPARC-organised 4th edition of the Open Access Week (Oct 18-24th, 2010). This is the newly created map on the OA 2010 activities (the full presentation can be accessed online in the e-archive of the University of Madrid, Pablo has also written a brief report about OA Africa at the BioMed Central Blog):
