The map captures the loss of life associated with each natural disaster. This GIS-generated map allows us to effectively visualize the population centers that face the most imminent danger from a range of hazards, including earthquakes, cyclones, droughts, landslides, floods, and volcanic eruptions.
These types of maps are used for more than just helping us navigate to get somewhere. They display statistics.
The Gangotri glacier and others around it are found in favorable sites for snow and ice accumulation. Although it is retreating, this glaciers remains clearly active. The main glacier flows from the middle bottom of the image to the north, and is identified by its grey color with irregular texture. Smaller, snow-covered white and partially blue glaciers are visible flowing south from the top of the image. These start at higher altitude than the part of the Gangotri glacier that is visible here. The abrupt end of the Gangotri glacier at a lake-like feature near the middle of the screen is the famous Gaumukh, the source of the Ganges river.
These observations wouldn't have been made if it weren't for aerial photographs because maps can not show us this information.
Map scale is the relationship between distance on a map and distance in the real world. There are several ways to specify map scale. Often we find the scale of a map expressed in words like, "one inch equals one mile".
This is important because many maps are incorrect because the creators of those maps don't use the same scaling for the whole map which leads to an inaccurate representation of a place.