Investigating World Development with a GIS

Economic and human development is not consistent across the world. Some countries have

developed more quickly than others and we call these countries MEDCs (More Economically

Developed Countries). These countries are usually richer and the population has a better

standard of living. Countries which have developed more slowly are known as LEDCs (Less

Economically Developed Countries). These countries are usually poorer and the population

has a lower standard of living. In order to identify if a country is an MEDC or an LEDC we can

look at a number of ‘development indicators’. Today we are going to investigate three

development indicators:

Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

The total amount of money produced in a country each year, we would expect this

to be higher in an MEDC and lower in an LEDC.

Life Expectancy

The average number of years a person is expected to live, we would expect people

living in MEDCs to live longer than people in LEDCs.

Infant mortality

Infant mortality rate is the number of children under 1 year old that die each year,

this is measured per 1000 live births. We would expect this to be lower in an MEDC

and higher in an LEDC.

In this activity we are going to use an online Geographical Information System (GIS) to

investigate the above development indicators for different countries. A GIS is a powerful

computer programme that allows us to visualise geographic data, conduct analysis and

answer questions. GIS is used by a number of different people for a number of different

reasons;

Making maps

Determining and preparing evacuation routes prior to a natural disaster.

Distributing aid after a natural disaster.

Mapping archaeological finds.

Determining where to build a new supermarket / housing development.

Comparing satellite imagery with map data.

Mapping the distribution of animals across the world.

Mapping disease to look at patterns and causes.

Mapping crime so police forces know where to station their officers.

… and many more!

Introduction to an online GIS

The online GIS we are going to use is called ArcGIS Explorer Online. Open this application

now by visiting http://www.arcgis.com/explorer/ in a web browser. You may have to wait a

few minutes for the page to load.

1. You will be presented with a window which should look as follows:

This page shows lots of maps that other people have created, but today we are going to

create our own map.

2. Click the ‘new map’ button on the top right hand side of the window to create a new

map.

3. ArcGIS Explorer Online has a number of different functions, it can be used to add

points of interest make measurements and mark areas of interest. Take a moment to

familiarise yourself with the map. You can zoom in and out by using the wheel in the

centre of your mouse. You can pan around the map by clicking and dragging the map.

Try and find the following locations by panning and zooming:

Your school

Your house

Australia

4. The first thing we are going to do is change the background map of our project (also

known as the base map). At the moment the base map is set to ‘topographic map’

but this can be changed easily by clicking on the ‘base map’ icon. This is the third icon

from the left on the top toolbar.

ESRI provide their users with a wide range of free base maps which can be used in different

projects. Click the base map icon now and change the base map by clicking one of the base

map options. Familiarise yourself with the different base map options available:

Imagery (Satellite imagery)

Imagery with Labels (Satellite Imagery with labels)

Streets (Street names)

Topographic (default)

Terrain with Labels (a map with additional height data and labels)

Light Gray Canvas (Quite self-explanatory!)

National Geographic (provided by National Geographic)

Oceans (detailed ocean data)

OpenStreetMap (Crowd sourced – collected by the general public)

Bing Maps Aerial (Aerial photography, provided by Bing)

Bing Maps Hybrid (Aerial photography with labels, provided by Bing)

Bing Maps Road (Road map with labels, provided by Bing)

5. Once you have explored the different base map options. Choose ‘Topographic’ and

set this as the base map for the project.

Arc GIS Explorer Online provides a wide range of tools which can be used to manipulate data

in different ways. A number of tools can be found on the grey toolbar at the top of the map

window and on the black toolbar on the left hand side of the page. We will use some of

these tools later on, so take a minute to familiarise yourself with them:

Top toolbar: Left toolbar:

Investigating Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

At the moment our map is completely blank, so we are now going to add some data and

investigate our first ‘development indicator’. We are going to add a ‘layer’ to our map which

will show Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for each individual country across the world.

6. Click the ‘add content’ icon from the top toolbar; this is the fourth icon from the left

hand side.

Select Features

Edit Features

Zoom to Rectangle

Queries Save

Print

Base Map

Add Content

Measure Change Symbol

Bookmarks

Map contents

Layers

Add features

7. You will be presented with a drop down menu and a search box. Type in ‘World Bank

GDP’ and click ‘add’ from the first result from the list (the layer is called ‘World Bank

Gross Domestic Product’) this will add the layer to the map.

8. You may have to click the ‘add content’ icon again to get rid of the ‘add content’

menu. Zoom out so you can see the whole world.

9. This ‘layer’ is going to show us the changes in GDP for each country between 1990

and 2009, press the play button from the menu at the bottom of your screen to

watch these changes over time. Make sure you let it play through to the end.

One benefit of a GIS is that is can store

additional information about the data we are

looking at.

Click the bottom icon from the black toolbar

now to show the map legend. This will show

the map key which tells us what each colour

corresponds to.

The countries on the map that are coloured

darkest red have the highest GDP. This means

they produce between 8 trillion and 14.4 trillion US

dollars per year.

The lightest yellow countries on the map have the lowest GDP and only produce between

28.4 million and 100 billion US dollars per year.

10. Click on different countries to find out additional information about them. On a piece

of paper write down short answers to the following questions.

11. Based on the colours of the map, click on a country that you think has a low GDP.

Investigating Life Expectancy

12. We are going to add another layer to our map now to look at our second

development indicator – life expectancy. As you did before, click the ‘add content’

icon from the top grey toolbar. Type ‘World Bank age and population’ into the

search box and add the first one in the list to the map (see above ‘investigating GDP’

section if you have forgotten.)

Question 1

a) Which country has the highest GDP?

b) What is the GDP for that country?

c) Based on this information do you think this country is an MEDC or an LEDC?

Question 2

a) What is this country called?

b) What is the GDP for that country?

c) Based on this information do you think this country is an MEDC or an LEDC?

13. You may have to click the ‘add content’ button again to get rid of the ‘add content’

menu.

This dataset has a number of different sub datasets within in. We are interested in the ‘total

life expectancy’, so we are going to visualise this one now.

14. Click on the ‘layers icon’, which is the second icon down from the top of the black

toolbar. This will reveal the different ‘layers’ we have on our map. You will see the

base map, the GDP layer we added earlier, and the World Bank age and population

layer which contains the life expectancy data.

15. You can turn these layers on and off by ticking and unticking the tick boxes next to

each layer name. Turn off the ‘GDP’ layer we used earlier and make sure the base

map and the World Bank age and population layers are turned on.

16. Click the arrow next to the ‘World Bank age and population’ layer to reveal its sub

layers. You will see a number of sub layers, but we are going to look at the ‘life

expectancy total’ layer first.

17. Untick all the tick boxes, except ‘Age

Population’ at the top, ‘Life Expectancy’

and ‘Country’ at the bottom. This will

turn off all the other layers so we can

view the life expectancy data easily.

18. We now need to configure the pop-ups

for this layer, so we can ask questions

about this data set. Click the ‘Configure

Pop-ups’ button now and click ‘add’

underneath the ‘Life Expectancy Total’

layer.

19. If you click the ‘map legend’ icon now, you can see that the palest orange countries

are the ones with the lowest life expectancy and the darkest orange countries are the

ones with the highest life expectancy.

20. Investigate the life expectancy of different countries by clicking on them and reading

the pop-ups.

21. Click the ‘layers’ icon from the black toolbar (second icon from the top) from here to

can turn the visibility of the ‘World Bank Age and Population’ layer on and off to

compare it with the GDP layer we added earlier.

Investigating Infant Mortality

We are now going to look our last development indicator ‘infant mortality rate’ remember

this is the number of infants that die before they are one year old each year, and this is

recorded per 1000 live births.

22. Click the ‘add content’ button from the top grey toolbar, and search for ‘infant

mortality rate last reporting year’ there should only be one result and you need to

add this data set to your map.

23. This dataset provides us with a summary of the infant mortality rate for each country.

You can see the map legend by click the ‘map legend’ icon from the black toolbar; this

will tell you what each country on the map represents. The countries coloured

darkest blue have the lowest infant mortality rate and the countries coloured pale

yellow have the highest infant mortality rate.

Question 3

a) Which country has the lowest average life expectancy? What is the life expectancy

in that country?

b) Give the name of a country with a high average life expectancy, what is the life

expectancy in this country?

c) Is there a certain continent that has a lower life expectancy than the rest of the

world? What is it?

Question 4

a) Do you think there is a relationship between life expectancy and GDP (how much

money a country produces)? What is it?

Summary

Today we have visualised three different development indicators – Gross Domestic Product,

Life Expectancy, and Infant Mortality rate.

As mentioned earlier, we can use these development indicators to measure how developed

a country is and whether we can class it as an MEDC or an LEDC (More / Less Economically

Developed Country).

24. In pairs, write a short paragraph about one country you think can be classed as an

MEDC. Justify your answer and try and back it up with statistics from the map you

have created.

25. Write a short paragraph about one country you think can be classed as an LEDC.

Justify your answer and try and back it up with statistics from the map you have

created.

We have been using A Geographic Information System to visualise our data today. If you

would like to visit this site again just go to http://www.arcgis.com/explorer/. There are

thousands of datasets to look at!

Question 5

b) Which continent has the highest infant mortality rate?

c) Why do you think this continent has such a high infant mortality rate?