Submitted by Van Butsic on
After nearly a century of prohibition, cannabis is currently legal for medical or recreational uses in nearly half the United States, up to twenty states will vote on further liberalization of cannabis in the next year, and production of cannabis within the United States is worth tens of billions of dollars. Despite the seismic changes in cannabis’s legal status and obvious economic value, research into the social and ecological aspects of cannabis production is still in its infancy.
One of the missing pieces of cannabis research is the potenial environmental impact cannabis production may have on the landscape. In order to address these potential problems, a first step is to document 1) how much cannabis is being produced 2) where cannabis is being produced 3) what agricultural methods are being used. This project will focus on using a mix of GIS technologies to map cannabis production in Humboldt and Mendocino Counties in Northern California. This map will provide a base from which environmental impacts can start to be understood.
Students will work with GIS software to map, catagorize, and analize cannabis grows in Humboldt and Mendocino Counties in Northern California. Students will be responsible for learning GIS software, organizing data in electronic databases, and potentially helping with GIS analysis and cartography
Students must be well organiized and self starters. Much of the work will not be direclty supervised, adn therefore students will need to have the discipline to work on their own.
Knowledge of GIS software is a plus, but is not required. If needed we can teach students how to use the needed software.