Gallery: Researcher finds 30 new ways to see Estonia
Have you ever wondered where the majority of road accidents take place in Estonia? Or how about places that contain blue, black, or white in their names? Or what would happen if you flooded Estonia up to 100 meters? If so, University of Tartu senior researcher Evelyn Uuemaa has some answers for you.
Last month, Uuemaa, a geographer and Senior Researcher in Geoinformatics at the University of Tartu, challenged herself to take part in #30DayMapChallenge on Twitter to create 30 maps in 30 days.
Throughout the month she created maps of Estonia using open source data, meaning data which can be found online, and then posted each one on the social media sharing platform.
Uuemaa said she wanted to take part in the challenge because making maps is her favourite part of her work.
"Map-making is the part of my job that I enjoy the most. Unfortunately lately most of my work time goes on other assignments. However, #30DayMapChallenge was a great opportunity to do what I love and try out new tools and methods that I can hopefully also pass to my students," she said on Twitter.
She said one of the most challenging parts was finding the time to make maps, finding usable data, and then having to process it. "I made most of the maps at the expense of my sleeping hours but I had lots of fun in doing these maps, so it was not tiring. Sometimes it was also complicated to find suitable data but Estonia is already pretty good in terms of open data," she said.
"I set myself a goal to use only open source software as I have been considering switching my teaching to open-source based but haven't had time to test the possibilities. So I learned that everything is doable in open source QGIS and even better than commercial software"
Other maps include what would happen if you flooded Estonia up to 100 meters, where every road in the country is, deforestation, and where cultural heritage objects can be found in Estonia.
View all of Uuemaa's maps in the gallery above.
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Editor: Helen Wright