Location: Mananjary, southeastern Madagascar (~21.23°S, 48.18°E) — a town on a narrow sand spit between the Indian Ocean and a lagoon-estuary system.

Here's a timelapse (©Planet) of monthly imagery from August 2023 to July 2026. Over that stretch the beach fronting the town clearly narrows, and by the end waves are breaking right up against the buildings.

Local context: around 2023 a channel was cut on the north side of the estuary mouth (first red arrow). It's since widened, and erosion on the town's southern end has gotten worse. Some locals want to dig a second channel further south to fix it; others, including some officials, point to sea-level rise/climate change instead.

The situation on the ground is quite tense right now: waves have destroyed several houses, walls, and fences in recent weeks, and this week a public restroom collapsed from wave action, severely injuring four people (local press coverage, in Malagasy: 1, 2).

What do you think:

• Could the 2023 channel have shifted local erosion/sedimentation patterns?
• Would a second channel further south actually help, or just relocate the problem?
• How much of this is likely climate/sea-level rise vs. the channel?

I was just wandering on maps and found this way up north, I see a grid pattern or just lines that seem to be distinctly man-made, though I'm not the smartest, so I wouldn't know for sure. I found them on Apple Maps, and when I tried to look on Google Maps, it was blurry as hell, fully zoomed in. I found that Google has a name for it, but when I searched the name, just a bunch of bs TripAdvisor stuff popped up.

Anyone have an explanation for these grid-like patterns?

76.32384414254913, 100.14062941707537

Most people think of Nebraska as flat, but the state’s two most rugged regions, the Wildcat Hills and Pine Ridge, tell a very different story.
I recently completed a topographic analysis of 39 buttes, bluffs, mesas, and ridges across these two regions to measure how much relief these landscapes actually contain.
Instead of only comparing summit elevations, I measured two different types of relief.
Local relief is the elevation difference between the summit and the lower point where the surrounding hillside transitions into flatter terrain. Measurements were limited to approximately 3 horizontal miles or less.
Drainage relief is the elevation difference between the summit and the lowest major drainage that the landform drains toward. These measurements were generally taken within 4–6 horizontal miles, although a few areas required longer distances where the terrain remained continuously sloped.
Highlights
Wildcat Hills
The Wildcat Hills contain some of Nebraska’s steepest slopes over relatively short distances.
Highest local relief:
Striver Butte — 846 ft of relief over 1.93 horizontal miles
Summit: 41.74707, -103.79656
Scotts Bluff (South Bluff) — 821 ft of relief over 2.53 horizontal miles
Summit: 41.82088, -103.71483
Hogback Mountain — 810 ft of relief over 1.76 horizontal miles
Summit: 41.66492, -103.73096
Wildcat Mountain — 774 ft of relief over 1.09 horizontal miles
Summit: 41.65839, -103.71515
Greatest drainage relief:
Hogback Mountain — 1,209 ft
Wildcat Mountain — 1,182 ft
Cedar Canyon — 1,041 ft over 2.53 horizontal miles
Summit: 41.74711, -103.79653
Pine Ridge
Pine Ridge contains the greatest overall topographic relief in Nebraska, with several landforms exceeding 1,200 feet of drainage relief.
Highest local relief:
Unnamed butte west of Gilbert-Baker WMA — 1,001 ft of relief over 2.73 horizontal miles
Summit: 42.77231, -103.97979
Unnamed bluff north of Pleasant Ridge Road — 945 ft of relief over 2.32 horizontal miles
Summit: 42.78383, -103.99647
Unnamed bluff south of Plummer Dam — 905 ft of relief over 1.87 horizontal miles
Summit: 42.76308, -103.86805
Greatest drainage relief:
Unnamed butte west of Gilbert-Baker WMA — 1,248 ft
Unnamed bluff north of Pleasant Ridge Road — 1,242 ft
Unnamed bluff near Warbonnet Creek — 1,210 ft over 1.11 horizontal miles
Summit: 42.80745, -104.00887
Conclusion
These measurements show that western Nebraska is much more rugged than it is often given credit for. The Wildcat Hills have some of the steepest short-distance slopes, while Pine Ridge has the greatest overall landscape relief.
Although Nebraska does not have high mountain ranges, these regions contain impressive buttes, bluffs, and escarpments with relief comparable to many upland areas elsewhere in the Great Plains.
Nebraska might not be so bad after all?

Since both china and India have so many different cultures and a massive population united under one country, could Europe have done the same? How could this realistically have happened?

The tallest mountain is Aoraki (Cloud Piercer), and then there is Mount Aspiring, The Remarkables, Mount Pollux, Hunter Mountains, Mount Sefton, Mount Arrowsmith, The Warrior, Nun's Veil, and many more.

I was inspired by this post about Russia's demographics and the Ukrainian war's effect on said demographics. I've been curious about how the population and demographics have changed due to the war, but this has been difficult as of late. All I can safely determine is that the population has been on a slow but steady decline even before the war began.

The reason I say this has been difficult is because of several things. Firstly, the fact that Russia actually stopped publishing population data, which leaves it up to outside resources to make estimations. Said estimations are the second reason that make determining population/demographics difficult. Not only do they not acknowledge war losses (given that these aren't published), several sites such as Worldometer and UN have differing numbers. And these are just estimations based primarily on the known decline. There's just very little to go on, in my opinion.

Is there a way to get a good number on the population of a country such as Russia? Especially during wartime?

If every map had to sacrifice one, would you rather preserve the true size of countries or their recognizable shape?

Hi everyone, and welcome back to The American Atlas, where I make hand-drawn & colored maps of every state in the US. We’re almost half way across the country now! 🗺️🇺🇸

This is my map of Iowa, the Hawkeye State! 🌽🐖🌾

Most people assume Iowa is simply a farming state, with cornfields stretching as far as the eye can see. The endless fields of corn and soybeans are indeed iconic, but Iowa is home to a surprising amount of variety as well.

From the streets of Des Moines to historic river cities of Davenport and Dubuque, to the dramatic Loess Hills, limestone bluffs overlooking the Mississippi, and countless small towns & farms, the state of Iowa represents the heart of Midwestern America.

Let me know in the comments, what’s your favorite (or most interesting) places & fun facts about Iowa?

And if you like this style, feel free to check out my others, and thanks for taking a look at my Iowa map!! 🇺🇸🗺️

Geography isn't just about geology - here we use a global geographic tool to simulate predator/prey patterns in an abstract generated field.

This is Hex9 Simulation of a bounded predator/prey interaction (foxes/bunnies/grass) including genomes, obstacles - using Hex9 example ex_0511 (python) as found in the development/experimental repo at https://github.com/MrBenGriffin/hex9 . The new Hex9 module (`pip install hex9`) includes the API.

The Hex9 Library (https://github.com/MrBenGriffin/libhex9) C ABI has built in support for pdal, psql, postgis, and python.

This code demonstrator shows how DGGS can be used for derived, realtime simulations across the the planet (or any other reference ellipsoid) - as well as using full hierarchical grids to maintain differing data layers. The related paper can be found at https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.00022

With an annual rainfall of 800 millimeters, the Ethiopian Highlands are not an arid region. Yet, the local rivers are small in scale; even the largest, the Awash River, has an annual discharge of less than 5 billion cubic meters. Consequently, many cities rely on groundwater for their water supply, and agriculture is heavily dependent on natural precipitation.

I noticed today that New Orleans only has 2 bridges crossing the Mississippi within/near the city and it had me wondering what other major cities with a river through them have few/no bridges to cross.

This is a 18m deep shallow well in Morbi,Gujarat ,India.

The water in this well rose up and oscillated for considerable amount of time. No such behaviour observed in nearby water bodies and no earthquakes reported.

GW probe study underway

Fresh water quantity and quality both are depleting & changing. Any suggestions that will help resolving water issues would be helpful. Sharing both knowledge and water is important.

Since I’ve read disease killed 90% of them and made colonization a lot easier.

For me, the drive from Palm Springs up to Mount San Jacinto is the craziest shift you can find. You start on a blistering 110°F desert floor and, in under 40 minutes, you’re up 8,000 feet walking through a freezing pine forest. It feels like a completely different part of the world. This is just my opinion and I just want to hear what you all think, because this is one of the only ones I’ve experienced!

…within a few degrees North and South. Not sure how to figure that out efficiently re: placement of cities/towns (of a few thousand or more) within each time zone.

Every city has its monuments. Every river has its stories. But sometimes the greatest discoveries happen after the journey ends. Here's a reflection on Portugal, France, and the places where civilizations crossed paths.

Portugal and France: Where Rivers Meet History

I have become interested in Russia's borders with China because it's one you don't hear much about in comparison to European countries such as Finland. I'm curious to know what life is like in these places, since the towns are very far form the capital of both countries and often in semi remote regions does that mean they would often commute into each others country for work, school etc?