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Wrapping up a successful and exciting year 2023!

It’s time to wrap up the year 2023 – and what a year it has been for Digital Geography Lab! We’ve kick-started new research, but have also picked the fruits of many long-term projects.

The year has been a blast with many joyful and productive moments together!

New big projects started!

Our lab has been running, or participating in, altogether 12 projects. Tuuli Toivonen’s new ERC Consolidator grant project GREENTRAVEL started early this year and now the team is full and in full speed. Also new H2020 project MOBITWIN has just been kicked off, with Olle Järv leading a work package. At the end of the year, we are finalizing projects MAPHEL by Tuomo Hiippala and H2020 project URBANAGE where Christoph Fink has made a lion’s share. Olle’s  BORDERSPACE and Tuuli’s MOBICON projects and the Urban AirQuality 2.0 consortium continued in full force, while Johanna Eklund‘s Sustainable conservation outcomes for protected areas was more on hold during her maternity leave.

We also received new funding! We are now part of a big national Location Innovation Hub. Tuuli is part of MSCA Doctoral network VIMAS, which is just recruiting 10 PhD candidates across the northern Europe to explore the questions of outdoor recreation and tourism. Olle received positive funding decision also as part of the WinWin4Worklife consortium which is set study questions of remote work arrangements from 2024 onwards. Related to the new projects, we have three positions currently open.

Continue reading “Wrapping up a successful and exciting year 2023!”

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BorderRegion_KDE – A tool to capture cross-border regions from mobility

Authors: Michaela Söderholm & Olle Järv

One of the objectives of the BORDERSPACE project is to empirically capture functional border regions, and transnational spaces in general, from the perspective of people – their mobility and social interactions across country borders. Our first studies showed how novel big data sources can reveal cross-border mobilities of people (Järv et al. 2023), and how that enables to map functional cross-border regions (Aagesen et al. 2023).

To scale up our approach and focus on all functional border regions in Europe, we needed a tool to automate multiple border region calculations. Thus, we developed BorderRegion_KDE – a program to automatically calculate a geographical Kernel Density Estimation (KDE) polygons derived from cross-border mobility, and visualize them.

Read more from our story map (HERE or click the map, below).

Interested in our project?

Read more from our project page: BORDERSPACE and get in contact! The project focuses on studying cross-border mobilities and interactions, transnational people, and functional transnational spaces. The novelty of the project stems from the use of novel big data sources to provide valuable insights for cross-border research and practice. The project is carried out at the Digital Geography Lab — an interdisciplinary research team focusing on spatial Big Data analytics for fair and sustainable societies at the University of Helsinki.

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Friendship matters: Facebook connections explain forced migration patterns of Ukrainians in Europe

The full-scale Russia’s invasion caused unprecedented migration of Ukrainians, fleeing from active warfare events in the Northern, Eastern, and Southern Ukraine. Unlike the more ‘local’ Russo-Ukrainian war that started in 2014, which caused predominantly internal displacement of citizens, the full-scale invasion on 24 February 2014 resulted in more extensive migration abroad, first and foremost – to the EU countries. In our Internet era, this massive influx of asylum-seekers, refugees and other externally displaced persons (the exact status of such Ukrainian citizens varies from country to country) could not go unnoticed online.

Matti Moisala carried out and defended his MSc study “Mobility of Ukrainians to Europe in 2022 and the effect of social connectedness on destination choice” in our Digital Geography Lab. Matti’s work contributed to the BORDERSPACE project and was supervised by Olle Järv, Oleksandr Karasov, and Tuuli Toivonen. The hypothesis of the study was that the destination choice of Ukrainians depends on their previous social network in the European states, indicated by the Facebook social connectedness index and that Twitter data reflects the actual distribution of Ukrainians among countries.

The social connectedness index describes the relative probability of Facebook friendship links between different geographical areas. While intentionally unavailable for some temporarily occupied regions of Ukraine or connections between Ukraine and Russia, the social connectedness index provides a promising proxy of the strength of social relationships among communities worldwide. According to Figure 1, pre-invasion social connectedness was the strongest with Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary, and three Baltic states: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Ukraine is least socially connected with the UK, France, the Netherlands, Iceland, Norway, Romania, and Turkey.

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THREE positions open in Digital Geography Lab!

Our wonderful research lab has THREE competitive research positions open! The application time for all positions close in early January 2024. See the links below for details!

Doctoral Researcher in analyzing nature visit typologies using big data

The successful candidate will join the interdisciplinary research group Digital Geography Lab (DGL) at the department of Geosciences and Geography at the University of Helsinki and the EU HORIZON-MSCA-Doctoral Network VIMAS (Visitor monitoring and management in protected and recreational areas: new challenges, novel solutions for the Anthropocene). The VIMAS network is simultaneously employing 10 doctoral researchers in research institutes across the Northern Europe and the EU HORIZON-MSCA-Doctoral Network mechanism offers particularly attractive salary level and benefits. The work is related also to the MOBICON project by Professor Tuuli Toivonen.

Postdoctoral Researcher in the field of remote working and multilocal living

The successful candidate will join the interdisciplinary research group Digital Geography Lab (DGL) and work in two different, yet related Horizon Europe projects together with Academy Research Fellow Olle Järv. The first part (10 months) focuses on remote working arrangements in the upcoming project WinWin4WorkLife – “Healthy, inclusive and sustainable remote work futures as a Win-Win for employees and employers in urban, rural and cross-border areas”. The second part (8 months) focuses on multilocal living and freedom of movement across borders in the EU in the MOBI-TWIN project – “Twin transition and changing patterns of spatial mobility: a regional approach”.

Postdoctoral Researcher in human mobility analytics in the field of regional and urban geography

The successful candidate will join the interdisciplinary research group Digital Geography Lab (DGL) and work in two different, yet related Horizon Europe projects together with Academy Research Fellow Olle Järv. The first part (14 months) focuses on regional-level mobility flow analytics in the MOBI-TWIN project – “Twin transition and changing patterns of spatial mobility: a regional approach” and the second part (14 months) focuses on individual-level mobility analytics in the upcoming project WinWin4WorkLife – “Healthy, inclusive and sustainable remote work futures as a Win-Win for employees and employers in urban, rural and cross-border areas”.

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The Digital Geography Lab is an interdisciplinary research team focusing on spatial Big Data analytics for fair and sustainable societies at the University of Helsinki.

 

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DGL’s map gallery for #30DayMapChallenge 2023

November came and went, and with it the fifth annual map challenge. The concept is simple: every day has a theme, which is interpreted more or less freely and refined into beautiful cartographic visualizations.

The Digital Geography Lab partook this year with a whopping 29 contributions by 10 lab members. These maps are a globetrotting travel through five continents and cover a range of themes, datasets, and methods from population and dogs to – gummy bear cartography?? Mapmaking was spearheaded by our PhD student Matti Hästbacka, who posted the maps X and Mastodon and created half of them!

See our map gallery for this year is below. Also check out our maps for the year 2022.

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Kerli’s Lectio Praecursoria

Capturing segregation through space and time: New insights from the activity space approach and big data

Lectio Praecursoria in the public examination of Kerli Müürisepp’s doctoral dissertation on 25 November 2023

Photo by Christoph Fink

The city of the twenty-first century is a site of diversity, connection, and opportunity.

Cities have never been as diverse as today in ethnic, socio-economic and demographic terms, nor with regard to attitudes, lifestyles and activities.

Much of that diversity is the outcome of the increasing mobility and migration of people, both within and across countries. The United Nations has estimated that over 280 million people live outside of their home country – this is more than half of the population of the European Union.

In Finland, the share of foreign-background people is still rather modest compared to its neighbours – Estonia and Sweden – and compared to many other European countries. Yet, roughly half of Finland’s foreign population live in the Helsinki region and the share is in rise. Undoubtedly, the Helsinki Metropolitan Area, has become a site of diversity.

Often, people move to cities with the hope for attaining better education, advancing in their career, and improving their quality of life. And they rightly do so – social diversity creates the values and the benefits of the contemporary city. By bringing different groups together and fostering connections between them, the socially diverse city ought to reduce prejudice and foster social cohesion; promote creativity, innovation, and economic performance. The socially diverse city ought to ensure social mobility – that is, provide equal opportunities to advance in life for all of us, regardless of our backgrounds.

What an ideal city it is.

But, the reality is far more complicated – the city is far from being ideal, is far from providing equal opportunities for all.

Continue reading “Kerli’s Lectio Praecursoria”

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Kerli Müürisepp successfully defended her PhD thesis – Mei-Po Kwan as the opponent!

Kerli successfully defended her PhD thesis on Saturday, 25 November! What a blast the day was for the entire Digital Geography Lab!

The defence took place on Saturday, 25 November 2023, with Professor Mei-Po Kwan from the Chinese University of Hong Kong as the opponent. The defence started with Kerli’s Lectio Praecursoria, and continued with a discussion with the opponent about Kerli’s thesis, the research topic at large and included even bursts of laughter in the middle of otherwise serious academic debate.

See Kerli’s thesis here: “Capturing segregation through space and time: New insights from the activity space approach and big data”. Kerli’s work was supervised by Dr Olle Järv, Prof Tuuli Toivonen, and Prof Tiit Tammaru.

On Friday before the defense, we had the honour of hosting the opponent, Professor Mei-Po Kwan, at the University of Helsinki. She gave an exciting talk for a broad audience on-site and online, with the title “Big Data and Geospatial Technologies for Health Research“.

The busy days culminated in the cheerful Karonkka party on Saturday evening with senate square views. To rest a bit, we all had a day off on Monday.

Cheers once more & hugs to brilliant Kerli! 🥳🤗

And many thanks also to the opponent, Prof Mei-Po Kwan, for visiting us and leading the discussion with academic expertise and curiosity, in a cheerful spirit! 🤗

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Kerli Müürisepp defending on 25 November at 11!!

Kerli Müürisepp will defend her PhD thesis titled

“Capturing segregation through space and time: New insights from the activity space approach and big data”

Time: Saturday 25th November, 11 o’clock  (note the unusual start time!)
Place: Porthania P674, Yliopistonkatu 3, Helsinki

Stream: https://video.helsinki.fi/unitube/live-stream.html?room=l23

Professor Mei-Po Kwan from The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) will act as the opponent and professor Tuuli Toivonen as the custos.

The thesis is available in HELDA:  http://hdl.handle.net/10138/566813

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The Digital Geography Lab is an interdisciplinary research team focusing on spatial Big Data analytics for fair and sustainable societies at the University of Helsinki.

 

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Mei-Po Kwan visiting DGL and talking at the University of Helsinki

Prof. Mei-Po Kwan from the Chinese University of Hong Kong on Friday 24.11. (13:15 – 14:45) taking place in Porthania PIII, University of Helsinki.
You can join in person or online. Some wine will be served after the presentation 😊

Please register here to get the online link or a glass of wine onsite!

Title: Big Data and Geospatial Technologies for Health Research

Abstract: The rapid development and widespread use of advanced geospatial technologies such as GPS, remote sensing, mobile sensing, and location-aware devices in recent years have greatly facilitated the acquisition of enormous amounts of high-resolution space-time data. To build smart and healthy cities, we need to integrate these multi-source geospatial big data acquired by earth observation technologies and mobile sensing technologies to provide more accurate assessments of individual exposures to environmental or social risk factors, and to develop planning policies to improve health for all. In this presentation, I will discuss how these new developments can provide new insights into the relationships between people’s mobility, health behaviors, and the complex spatiotemporal dynamics of environmental influence Drawing upon my recent projects on individual exposures to green/blue spaces, light-at-night, and air and noise pollution, I explore how the collection, integration, and analysis of high-resolution space-time data enabled by advanced geospatial and mobile technologies (e.g., real-time mobile sensing and GPS tracking) can help identify the “truly relevant geographic context in space and time” and provide new insights into the relationships between human health, people’s daily mobility, and the complex spatiotemporal dynamics of environmental influences.

Speaker’s Bio: Professor Kwan Mei-Po is Director of the Institute of Space and Earth Information Science, Director of Institute of Future Cities, Choh-Ming Li Professor of Geography and Resource Management, and an affiliated faculty of the JC School of Public Health and Primary Care of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Prof. Kwan is a Fellow of the United Kingdom Academy of Social Sciences, Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and American Association of Geographers and a Guggenheim Fellow. She was awarded many Outstanding Academic Achievement Awards by the American Association of Geographers, including the Distinguished Scholarship Honors, the Anderson Medal of Honors in Applied Geography, the Wilbanks Prize for Transformational Research in Geography, the Stanley Brunn Award for Creativity in Geography, the Edward L. Ullman Award for Outstanding Contributions to Transportation Geography, and the Melinda Meade Award for Outstanding Contributions to Health and Medical Research. Prof. Kwan has received research grants of more than USD 62.7 million and has delivered about 380 keynote addresses and invited lectures and presentations in more than 20 countries. Her recent projects examine the health impacts of individual environmental exposure (e.g., noise, air pollution, green space), urban and mobility issues, the space-time dynamics of the COVID-19 pandemic and the perception of data privacy; and the protection of geoprivacy via the development of a Geospatial Virtual Data Enclave (GVDE).

This talk is part of the activities of the Location Innovation Hub and the Finnish University Network for Geoinformatics (FIUGINET) GeoSPA Talks series.

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The Digital Geography Lab is an interdisciplinary research team focusing on spatial Big Data analytics for fair and sustainable societies at the University of Helsinki.

 

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Väiski’s Lectio Praecursoria

Tuomas Väisänen has defended his PhD “Diversity of places and people: Using big data to understand languages and activites across geographical space” successfully on Friday the 10th of November. His opponent was associate professor Grant McKenzie from McGill University, Canada. In case you missed the event and want to read the Lectio Praecursoria, you can find it below.

Cover of Väiski's PhD

Väiski’s Lectio Praecursoria:

Cities are home to over half of the human population. 

The number of people living in cities is increasing at an unprecedented scale due to accelerating growth of urbanization, international migration, and mobility. These global megatrends are further intensified by climate change and biodiversity loss. 

Today, 56 % of the world’s population lives in cities. The United Nations estimates that by 2050, this percentage has increased to 70 %. This will place immense pressure on cities to provide housing, employment, and services for a growing number of inhabitants. 

At the same time, the cities are not only becoming more populous, but the populations living in cities are becoming more diverse.  

More people of increasingly varied cultural, ethnic, and socio-economic backgrounds are interacting in cities than ever before. Accordingly, researchers in the last 15 years have recognized that variables commonly used to describe population diversity in the past, such as countries of birth or origin, or ethnicities of the individuals, are not adequate for assessing the new patterns of diversity present in contemporary urban populations. 

Recent research has thus called for characterizing urban populations as being “super-diverse.” That is, the populations are diverse across multiple variables at the same time, such as ethnicities and countries of origin, but also religions, languages, gender, age, socio-economic and immigration statuses.  

As you might have observed from the title of my work, in my thesis I focus on exploring diversity from the perspectives of languages and activities. 

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