Statement of Purpose (applied to the University of Maryland: Master of Professional Studies in Geospatial Information Sciences Program)
Satoshi Miyazawa
My purpose for undertaking graduate education is twofold.
First is to seek more chance to engage in projects for Global Resilience Development.
Second is to learn methodologies for Literacy Education and Data-Driven-Communication Development.
I spent most of my undergraduate semesters learning skills for programming and GIS analysis mainly under Prof. Fukui and Prof. Yan in Keio University SFC. Making meanings from a large amount of data was my core pleasure during I was a freshman. With my lab members, we assessed potential of generating electricity for civilian use in whole Japan combining data of insolation with land use data during my sophomore year. In my junior year, I also assessed risk of avalanche in major a mountainous district in Japan by setting up criteria using DEM and vegetation data and assessed validity by comparing with point data of avalanche stroke.
And then, I experienced the historic disaster: 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami.
2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami caused a historic disaster to Japan. Not only the natural hazard itself was historic, but also the disaster pointed out a lot of critical problems as a developed nation.
Under that catastrophe, the volunteered GIS and Remote Sensing took a great contribution for disaster relief. A number of action from various societies have made such as sinsai.info(http://www.sinsai.info/) from Ushahidi, all311(http://all311.ecom-plat.jp/) from National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention, Japan Sendai Earthquake Data Portal(http://cegrp.cga.harvard.edu/japan/) from Harvard Center for Geographic Analysis, and Emergency Mapping Team(http://www.drs.dpri.kyoto-u.ac.jp/emt/en/). As one of my colleagues is from Kesennuma city, which suffered not only by tsunami, but also a large area of fire, with my lab members in my college, we started our action using GIS in April. We assessed the damage first by counting numbers and area of each houses that suffered inundation by using aerial photo which is shot and published by Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism(MLIT) and user-oriented data such as refuge report from volunteer. Thought aerial photos from MLIT are usually costs much, those have shot in March 2011 was published openly to incite every contribution for disaster relief. During the bustling days from unforgettable event, I deeply realized the importance of volunteered GIS and user-oriented data for developing resilience.
On the other hand, I witnessed a confusion of Japan about crisis response at the same time. Historically, in Japan, permission to publish critical information was restricted within selected national organization in order to maintain certainty of published reports and to avoid unwilling disorder. As a consequence, scientific society such as Meteorological Society of Japan had decided not to publish their domestic simulation result(Masuda. K http://d.hatena.ne.jp/masudako/20110715/1310732819/ in Japanese). I felt sorry for the lack of refinement of the adequate a relationship of mutual trust in the process of decision making.
At the same time, under disorder in March, There is no maps or visualization of data during press conferences of Cabinet Secretariat. In my opinion, not only the absence of Maps, but also insufficient communication was problematic Limited media of communication cause people who can comprehend limited. I think the society of GIS and society of data scientist, include myself, are responsible for improvement of communications in decision-making and education of literacy that decision-making and discussion in crisis must be under source validated.
I am sure that last 2011 is my life changing year as a Japanese student who is considering a mission for upcoming society. Soon after the disaster, I veered my field to engage toward damage estimation and support for disaster relief. In the following weeks, I decided my career as purchasing productivity and higher education for Geoinformatics.
The first thing we do for disaster relief is to assess the area of damaged houses. We chose Kesennuma city that suffered heavily not only by tsunami, but also a large area of fire on March 11 as our study area and counting numbers and area of damaged houses. As reviewing the result, we decided to offer a reconstruction plan include large-scale transfer of housing area for higher ground to the mayor of Kesennuma city. I individually take role of assessment of wind plan potential in Kesennuma city under the experience in sophomore year. The presentation was held in March at Kesennuma city and our plan was adapted partially in a reconstruction plan from Kesennuma city itself. Our projects continues and we are currently organizing maps that visualizing the plans in order to assess practicality and incite communication of residents in Kesennuma city.
(Our project website: http://kesennuma.sfc.keio.ac.jp/pjkesen/english/)
At the same time, I designed and conducted original research into assessment of tsunami damage mitigation effect of coastal forest under the guidance of Prof. Yan as my graduation thesis. By comparing ASTER VNIR images and aerial images, I categorized the damage on coastal forests and assessed the protection role against tsunami. Validation of the study was conducted by three times field survey in Tohoku Region in Japan. While the result seems to fit hypothesis, I gave a presentation of interim result at Kagoshima University during annual meeting of the Geographic Information System Association Japan (http://www.gisa-japan.org/eng/index.html).
Contribution to GIS education is also one of my main interests. Keio University SFC(Shonan Fujisawa Campus) offer a undergraduate student a part-time assistantship named “student assistant” for each lectures. One student in a semester who granted good degree in each lecture can be a assistant and get paid by supporting assignments whom students who took the lecture should complete. Especially As for a seminar, student assistants may organize syllabus of their projects in class. I have volunteered for three lectures(Theory of Earth System Design by Prof. Fukui, Spatial Analysis by Prof. Yan, and Data Analysis by Prof. Furutani) and two seminars(Prof. Fukui’s Lab and Prof. Yan’s Lab) and organize projects for each semesters.
By combining my experiences and awareness of issues, I am eager to develop my skills and experiences in order to make a contribution for Global Resilience Development and Literacy Education and Data-Driven-Communication Development.
I am planning to enter a Ph.D program in my further career. In order to build my own regimen, in University of Maryland, which is the leader of GIScience and Earth Observation, I want to sharpen my awareness of issues by engaging global projects with seminal contributions to development of cutting-edge education with the most intensive diligence.
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