James Larsson
Environmental & Geographical professional with a background in Stream/Wetland Field Science and GIS programming
M.S. student at University of Maryland studying Geospatial Information Science,- Current GIS Technician/Biologist for Clean Streams on projects to:
- Support Maryland DNR's Maryland Biological Stream Survey by using GIS to identify landowners, and then contacting them, assembling Geodatabase of parcels and responses, and providing field packets for DNR scientists to use with maps of parcels, road access, and landowner responses
- Support Prince George's County Department of the Environment and Tetra Tech by collecting microplastics samples from streams, and by collecting stream benthic macroinvertebrate samples, stream channel morphology, physical habitat, and water chemistry for monitoring in support of the county's MS4 Permit. Microplastics samples were used by Tetra Tech to test reference guides they developed under EPA contract, and duplicate benthic samples were collected for research on laboratory sorting methods
- Former seasonal Natural Resources Technician (2022, 2023) for the Maryland DNR's Natural Heritage Program, surveying riparian wetlands to test MDE's new Maryland Wetland Ecological Integrity Assessment protocol for the Piedmont region and Coastal Plain blackwater streams, identifying all plant species present, soil redox and munsell color, channel instability/migration, and threats including invasive species. Also assisted staff with tasks ranging from GIS to invasive plant management and rare/threatened/endangered species surveys
- B.S. in Environmental Science and Geography from UMBC
<Interactive gallery:
All Months
This gallery is intended to highlight my experiences in field surveys and GIS projects. Every photo is from somewhere I've been to and love talking about any time I get the chance!
The slider is a custom tool I wrote in Javascript, with a custom Python script having been used to convert a folder of photos to a GeoJSON shapefile. Click and drag the slider above the map to reveal gallery items from each month! It is best viewed in Firefox or Chrome. You can view the source code on GitHub.
GIS Portfolio:
Field packet map for Clean Streams, 2024
This is one page from a field packet I created while working at Clean Streams on a contract for Maryland DNR's Maryland Biological Stream Survey.
Suitable Eclipse Viewing Locations, Spatial Analysis final project at UMD, 2024
This was my final project for the Spatial Analysis course in my M.S. GIS program. Having recently seen the Total Solar Eclipse of 2024, I had wanted to do my project on a topic related to the next solar eclipse in the US. For my analysis, I considered several different factors, including land use, land ownership, climate patterns, and light pollution, and then ranked the top 20 locations sorted from most suitable to less suitable. My conclusion was that, barring the effects of climate change, Trinity National Forest in Northern California would be the most suitable viewing location by these criteria.
Figure from GES 381 (Remote Sensing) Final Project at UMBC, 2021
In a project for my undergraduate Remote Sensing course, a partner and I used data from Landsat to explore the relationship between surface temperature and calculated NDVI and IBR indices, in both warmer and cooler years, and classified by Landuse type. Google Earth Engine was used to produce the data, and R was used to analyze and chart it. This chart displays the relationship between NDVI and Temperature in Baltimore in 2016.
Howard County Watersheds (Personal Project), 2021
This was a personal project I did between semesters at UMBC. I had wanted to teach myself how to generate watersheds from a Digital Elevation Model raster using open-source SAGA GIS software, and I decided to do so using my home county as an example.
The Shire (Fantasy-style trail map, Personal project), 2021
This was a personal project I did between semesters at UMBC. UMBC has some fields and forests towards the northeast side of campus which other students have informally named after fantasy novel settings, and none of the small trails linking them had been mapped by any online sources, so I had fun taking a couple hours to run around the woods on campus with a GPS in hand, and then when I got home I opened up QGIS on my computer and processed all of my GPS tracks into the attached fantasy-style map. This project was purely a creative endeavor, but gave me the opportunity to practice some of the skills I had been picking up in my GIS classes.