Digital Geography Lab

#30DayMapChallenge Day 28 - Black Friday

Black Friday or Bird Friday?

We think that birdwatching is better than impulsive shopping - even in November.
Our map shows the 1512 observations in Finland that eBird users have posted over the past Black Fridays (2015-2024).

@matabatchi & Sini Ruohomäki

Together with Metsähallitus Parks and Wildlife Services we propose operationalizing the use of mobile big data for visitor monitoring and the management of outdoor recreation.

Read more from our blog post: lnkd.in/dGYn2gvW

#30DayMapChallenge Day 20 - Water: An Australian River Alphabet

Inspired by Katie Holten's Irish Tree Alphabet 🌳
Unsure of any Australian river names beginning with 'X' and 'Z'.

River centrelines: www.hydrosheds.org
River catchments: ecat.ga.gov.au/geonetwork/s...

(c) Rory Taylor

📢 GREENTRAVEL Virtual Reality Technical Report Released!

📄Read more here: blogs.helsinki.fi/digital-geog...
📖 Check the report out here: helda.helsinki.fi/items/395be1...

#UrbanResearch #VirtualReality #ActiveTravel #SmartCities #StreetGreenery

We also made a new tool!

Play around on this interactive demo webmap over all of Helsinki: tadusko.github.io/hki_shademap/

A map of Helsinki's urban core. It shows which areas are in the shade on a clear day in mid-June. Hietaranta beach and Töölönlahti bay are highlighted with photos, since they are have some of the sunniest spots on the map.

#30daymapchallenge 17: A new tool
Helsinki enjoyed a grand total of 12 minutes of sunshine in November (1.–13.11). No better time to remember that yes, the sun does still exists.

This map shows Helsinki's shadiest / sunniest places. New tool? #GRASSGIS solar modelling.

By @tadusko.bsky.social

#30DayMapChallenge Day 10 - Air: Common Swift (Apus Apus) sightings in Finland in 2025 from eBird (+one Taylor Swift (Private Jet))

#30DayMapChallenge Day 4 - My Data

The 2025 citybike season in Helsinki has come to an end last week. As an avid user of the bike sharing system, Robert Klein has plotted his more than 350 trips of this year's season on a map.

#bikesharing #cycling #mobility

#30DayMapChallenge Day 1 - Points

Creating a #centroid is not as trivial as you might think!

If you are dealing with regional population data, the locational difference between a regular geometric centroid and a population-weighted centroid can be vast!

Map by @waeiski.bsky.social

#GIS #QGIS

Project planner to The Digital Geography Lab Project planner to The Digital Geography Lab

📢 Come join us!! We are looking for a project planner to coordinate our new UrbanISE VR Proof of Concept, funded by @erc.europa.eu and based at the @helsinki.fi.

🏙️ Work at the forefront of applied Virtual Reality research in cities!

📝 Read more and apply here: jobs.helsinki.fi/job/Helsinki...

Our collaboration with Metsähallitus is moving ahead even more efficiently and with greater impact as we have signed MoU with Metsähallitus Parks & Wildlife Finland to deepen our research cooperation and streamline the two-way sharing of data and knowledge.

blogs.helsinki.fi/digital-geog...

What are digital footprints and how can they be useful for managers of nature recreation areas? In this video, researchers from the Digital Geography Lab, University of Helsinki, explain how digital… Mobile Big Data For Understanding People in Nature

Do you ever use your mobile phone when spending time outdoors?
The answer is probably yes. In that case, you leave digital footprints about your visit. 🦶

How are these data useful for the sustainable management of nature areas?

👉 Watch our video for that and more! www.youtube.com/watch?v=_U5G...

In our new @ijgis.bsky.social paper, @ollejarv.bsky.social and I analysed 9M geolocated tweets from the Greater Region of Luxembourg within the #BORDERSPACE project at the @digigeolab.bsky.social, funded by the Research Council of Finland and @koneensaatio.fi.

Our lab is growing! We're super happy to introduce Anna Saarinen, who joins DGL to support coordination and management of the Geoportti Research Infrastructure!! 🌟

Learn more about Anna here 👉 👉 blogs.helsinki.fi/digital-geog....

Welcome Anna! We're very excited to be working with you 💚

Hei #sinitaivas tarvitsemme osanottajia tulevaan työpajaamme!

Jos aluekehitys, aluepolitiikka ja muuttoliikkeet kiinnostavat etenkin kun kyseessä on #Suomi ja tarkemmin itäiset ja pohjoiset osat, niin mukaan vaan!

#Finland #Finnish #Region #Europe #EU

English: A map of Europe and its NUTS 2 regions with Eastern and Northern Finland highlighted. At the bottom there are the logos of Mobi-Twin research project and the European Union. Suomeksi: Kartta Euroopasta NUTS 2 -alueineen ja Itä- ja Pohjois-Suomen alue on korostettuna. Alareunassa on Mobi-Twin -tutkimushankkeen ja Euroopan Unionin logot.

Hei sinä Itä- tai Pohjois-Suomalainen!

Kiinnostaako sinua kotiseutusi aluekehitys ja tulevaisuus? Tule mukaan työpajaamme!

🗓️ Syyskuun 12. päivä 2025
⏰ Kello 11:00 – 12:30

Osallistumistiedot blogissamme:

blogs.helsinki.fi/digital-geog...

#Savo #Lappi #Kainuu #Alue #Tulevaisuus #Mikkeli

What a cool conference #ERSA2025 was! Many sessions from @mobi-twin-project.bsky.social project, lots of new people, interesting research, and great food!

It was my first time at #ERSA and hopefully one of many to come!

Olle explaining how to delineate functional border regions using mobile big data and kernel density estimation.

Wrapping up the second day of #ERSA2025 we have @ollejarv.bsky.social from @digigeolab.bsky.social presenting his work on using #BigData describing #mobility of people to assess #CrossBorder integration in #Europe.

Summer in Helsinki always brings smiles to our faces, as do the scholars that visit and collaborate with us 😊 We're thrilled to introduce Francesc Comalada, a PhD Researcher who visits us this autumn from the Catalan Institute of Water Research!

Learn more here 👉 blogs.helsinki.fi/digital-geog...

Cartographic Visualization in GIS 2025 Course information

Check out the course! 🌍 cartogis.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
#mooc #maps #opensource

Our open course on #cartography and #GIS was run for the second year. Kamyar reflects back on this year and the course principles: how we focus not (only) on building technical capabilities, but on maps as means of visual storytelling:
Read more here! blogs.helsinki.fi/digital-geog...

📢 New Paper Out! Led by our very own Kerli Müürisepp 👉 “Spatial Integration or Isolation? Capturing the Rhythms of Daily Lives Across Neighbourhoods in Helsinki Using Mobile Phone Data” in Population, Space and Place!

📄 Read the open access article here: doi.org/10.1002/psp....!

We are very happy to congratulate our very own @ollejarv.bsky.social for receiving the Research Council of Finland Award on his work on #CrossBorder #Mobility #Transnationalism #Segregation and #NatureRecreation using #BigData such as #SocialMedia and #MobilePhone data.

Robert Klein presented his cool work on exposure to greenery during everyday travel at #LBS20205

Photo by Davi Gressler

Milad starting his presentation.

Milad presenting his results.

Location Based Services conference #LBS2025 continues with @miladmzdh.bsky.social presenting his work on characterizing the attractiveness of regions in Europe.

Tuomas presents his findings on the structural changes in regional student mobility in Europe.

Rounding the day off was @waeiski.bsky.social who presented his work on regional student mobility and how Covid-19 has affected the regional structure of the flow network at #LBS2025.

Photo by Oleksandr Karasov.

Davi explaining the 15 minute city concept.

Davi presenting his results

Our visiting researcher Davi Gressler presents his work on assessing realized 15-minute trips in US cities and comparing that to trips that were longer but could have been made in 15 minutes using SafeGraph data.

#15MinuteCity #Segregation

Tatu presents his work on using Flickr for geographical analyses and whether it is actually a good idea after all.

Tatu showing how the popularity of Flickr has diminished but research using Flickr data has increased.

Next up is @tadusko.bsky.social presenting his work on the rise and fall of Flickr and use of its data in geographical analyses at #LBS2025 conference.

Oleksandr describing the context of his study at Location Based Services conference.

Oleksandr showing preliminary results from the first month of data collection.

Next up at #LBS2025 is our alumni member @karasov.bsky.social presenting his work on exploring cultural ecosystem services in #Ukraine using #PPGIS data collected from #Telegram.

Leyi explaining the methodology related to assessing semantic similarity of points-of-interest.

Our amazing Leyi Xu presents her work on place modeling using Place2Vec to capture euclidean and semantic aspects of POI information at #LBS2025