tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/maps-37082/articles
Maps – The Conversation
2024-02-27T16:31:31Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/224125
2024-02-27T16:31:31Z
2024-02-27T16:31:31Z
Maps shape our lives – showing us not just where we are, but who we are
<p>Maps and everyday life are now so intertwined for most people that it’s difficult to imagine a world without them. Most of us use at least one map every day. Some of us use many, especially now they have become one of the dominant interfaces of our digital society, alongside the scrolling screen, camera view and search engine.</p>
<p>We are also being mapped – subtly or overtly – through the GPS and location data traces we leave, the journeys we make, and the kinds of activities that we get up to as we go about our daily business.</p>
<p>Then there are the other, more analogue ways that maps are part of our lives: childhood pirate treasure maps and atlases that reveal a world ripe for adventure; maps on railway platforms or bike docking stations; and maps on the back of flyers posted through the door.</p>
<p>Maps also have other, less practical uses too. They are proudly hung in our homes and offices, used to decorate things like coffee mugs and mouse pads, and even create <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-36783325">fashion</a>.</p>
<p>Cartography has become one of the most successful technologies we have developed for understanding the world around us. At the same time, maps have become important cultural and artistic objects that we value greatly. They can be both useful and pragmatic, beautiful and poetic, political and powerful, meaningful as well as mundane.</p>
<h2>Shaping social and cultural life</h2>
<p>Over the last ten years, culminating in my book <a href="https://reaktionbooks.co.uk/work/all-mapped-out">All Mapped Out</a>, my work has led me to question what maps mean for people as they go about their daily lives, and in turn how maps shape their experiences.</p>
<p>Maps have received a lot of attention from researchers and industry over the years, mostly with the aim of producing the most accurate and usable map for a given purpose, or by studying how <a href="https://iai.tv/articles/maps-are-guided-by-power-not-truth-mike-duggan-auid-2703">powerful interests are reflected on maps</a>.</p>
<p>Professional cartographers, once working with pencil and paper and now with advanced geo-spatial technologies, aim to produce ever-more detailed maps for ever-more uses, while the sub-field of critical cartography has revealed that what ends up on a map <a href="https://acme-journal.org/index.php/acme/article/view/723">reflects the world views of their makers</a>.</p>
<p>But it is only relatively recently that work has <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-Handbook-of-Cartographic-Humanities/Rossetto-Lo-Presti/p/book/9781032355931">begun to explore</a> what they do to shape social and cultural life.</p>
<p>Maps and what we do with them cannot be defined universally. Ideals and ideas about maps frequently clash with the reality of how and why maps are used. By bringing together my own <a href="https://pure.royalholloway.ac.uk/en/publications/mapping-interfaces-an-ethnography-of-everyday-digital-mapping-pra">research</a> studying map users in London, and the work of others who have researched mapping practices around the world, I want to show how uses of maps are shaped by different cultures, communities, contexts and technology.</p>
<p>One way of exploring this is by looking at the impact that GPS technology has had on mapping our movements. Today, millions of people use this technology to reveal their exercise routines, which in turn supports an <a href="https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/location-analytics-market-size-worth--49-12-billion-globally-by-2030-at-13-93-cagr-verified-market-research-301877524.html">industry worth billions</a>.</p>
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<p>But self-tracking is not just about maps and measurement. These maps become meaningful as objects inscribed with personal cartography. It feels good to see where we have been; it’s a sign that we have achieved something.</p>
<p>Some people have taken this further by using fitness-tracking devices as tools for artworks, wielding the GPS functions to inscribe pictures and words on the map through their movement across the land. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/24/technology/gps-art-strava-running.html">GPS art</a>, as it has come to be known, is growing in popularity as people realise self-tracking’s potential outside purely mapping exercise for personal goals.</p>
<p>It began long before the proliferation of the smartphone and fitness-tracking apps, when in 2000 the artist <a href="http://www.gpsdrawing.com/">Jeremy Wood</a> set to work recording and mapping his movements using a handheld GPS device. This included tracing his daily travel and even recording his <a href="http://www.gpsdrawing.com/gallery/experiments/lawn/mowing.html">lawn-mowing routes through the seasons</a>. This reveals how a popular mapping technology – GPS – has many impacts beyond those it was intended for.</p>
<h2>Mapping Contexts</h2>
<p>In my work there are several overlapping themes that chart how maps have become tied to culture and society. I want to do more than identify <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/12/12-maps-that-changed-the-world/282666/">maps that have changed the world</a>, or lay out the history of <a href="https://www.uclpress.co.uk/products/108697">maps and society</a>. Instead, I want to show that all maps have the potential to change the world and shape society. It’s just a matter of where you look and whose world you are interested in.</p>
<p>With my book I hope to inspire another look at maps, first through the lens of navigation, perhaps the activity mostly strongly associated with maps, then through movement and how maps shape our perception of it.</p>
<p>I also look at the power and politics of maps that reveal whose interests are served by particular maps, and investigate the cultures of map-making today. With easy-to-use digital mapping tools now available online, alongside the proliferation of advanced mapping technologies now used by professionals, the power of map-making and the cultures that develop around maps are more diverse than ever.</p>
<p>That maps and map-makers are always changing makes studying what we do with maps an exciting area for development. It means that our understanding of maps must evolve with how they continue to shape society. </p>
<p>So it’s high time for a rethink. There remains a prevailing view that maps are neutral and objective, once paper and now digital, accurate and functional, despite the now well-used line that <a href="https://theconversation.com/drafts/223404/edit">maps are arguments made about the world</a>. Why is this? And how do we move beyond it?</p>
<p>My hope is to create a conversation – one that so far is only being had in a small corner of map studies – encouraging people to think beyond the assumptions society has about maps and how we use them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224125/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mike Duggan receives funding from the British Academy and Leverhulme Trust, the EPSRC and King's College London. He is affiliated with the Livingmaps Network </span></em></p>
Cartography has become one of the most successful technologies for understanding the world around us. But like the world itself, maps and map-making are constantly evolving.
Mike Duggan, Lecturer in Digital Culture, Socety and Economy, King's College London
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/216739
2023-11-23T01:19:08Z
2023-11-23T01:19:08Z
Our new high-resolution climate models are a breakthrough in understanding Australia’s future
<p>Australia’s climate, already marked by <a href="https://www.science.org.au/supporting-science/science-policy-and-analysis/reports-and-publications/risks-australia-three-degrees-c-warmer-world">extremes with bushfires, heatwaves, storms and coastal flooding</a>, is only set to worsen with the <a href="https://nhess.copernicus.org/articles/21/941/2021/">growing effects of climate change</a>. </p>
<p>Disasters like the <a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-black-summer-of-fire-was-not-normal-and-we-can-prove-it-172506">Black Summer bushfires</a> of 2019–20 and the 2022 eastern Australian floods are likely to become <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-27225-4">more frequent and intense</a>. </p>
<p>If carbon emissions continue at the current rate, climate change may make Australia <a href="https://theconversation.com/seriously-ugly-heres-how-australia-will-look-if-the-world-heats-by-3-c-this-century-157875">unbearable for future generations</a>. It’s a confronting outlook, and we need better tools to understand future impacts so we can adapt to them. </p>
<p>In our new research, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1029/2023EF003548">published in the journal Earth’s Future</a>, we have “downscaled” the latest global climate models to a 10-kilometre resolution across Australia. Having such a high resolution significantly enhances current global projections, with great improvements in projecting temperature, precipitation and extreme weather patterns for Australia. </p>
<p>Our new dataset is very useful. It provides scientists, policymakers and stakeholders with a valuable tool for comprehensively evaluating the potential impacts of climate change across Australia.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/every-australian-will-be-touched-by-climate-change-so-lets-start-a-national-conversation-about-how-well-cope-196934">Every Australian will be touched by climate change. So let's start a national conversation about how we'll cope</a>
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<h2>Why do we need high-resolution climate projections?</h2>
<p>Climate models are key tools for understanding future climate risks. Current global climate models have a coarse resolution of 50–200km. This makes them <a href="https://doi.org/10.1029/2018EA000426">less suitable for local adaptation</a>. Regional climate models add <a href="https://wires.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/wcc.8">locally relevant details</a>, such as mountainous, coastal and urban regions.</p>
<p>For example, a high-resolution photo of a city lets you zoom in on the small details, such as people and vehicles. Likewise, high-resolution climate projections enable climate scientists to better simulate specific details such as storms and urban heat. They also help to track weather events like tropical cyclones – a meaningful refinement to understand local impacts of climate change.</p>
<p>This is why the Australian Royal Commission has recommended that future natural disaster risks are informed by <a href="https://www.royalcommission.gov.au/natural-disasters">high-resolution climate projections</a>. </p>
<p>High-resolution models also match up much better with real-world local geographical features such as mountains. This is important, as mountains play a role in both temperature and rainfall. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558275/original/file-20231108-17-y2ej8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A chart showing a detailed map versus a blurry one" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558275/original/file-20231108-17-y2ej8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558275/original/file-20231108-17-y2ej8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558275/original/file-20231108-17-y2ej8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558275/original/file-20231108-17-y2ej8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558275/original/file-20231108-17-y2ej8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=976&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558275/original/file-20231108-17-y2ej8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=976&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558275/original/file-20231108-17-y2ej8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=976&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Here, you can see how the level of real-world detail improves in our regional, high-resolution model compared to a global one. For every global model region (also known as ‘grid cell’), our regional models produce 150 different estimates.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ralph Trancoso</span></span>
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<h2>What the new projections show for Australia</h2>
<p>To produce high-resolution projections for Australia, we tapped into the <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/cmip6-the-next-generation-of-climate-models-explained/">most up-to-date climate model dataset</a> that’s coordinated by climate scientists globally. This is known as the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project, or CMIP6 for short.</p>
<p>The full CMIP6 dataset comprises hundreds of model simulations. As climate modelling is computationally expensive, we can’t downscale them all. Instead, we evaluated them to find the models that best represent Australia’s climate but also retain nearly a full range of future climate impacts.</p>
<p>This resulted in a set of 15 downscaled models and <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/explainer-how-shared-socioeconomic-pathways-explore-future-climate-change/">three emissions scenarios</a> representing low, intermediate and high emissions trajectories in the future.</p>
<p>Ours is the largest downscaled set of projections produced for Australia to date. The range of emissions scenarios is important for studies evaluating the impacts of climate change.</p>
<p>We evaluated our high-resolution projections by comparing their historical component (that is, the period between 1980 and 2010) to records measured at weather stations around Australia over that time. We examined temperature and precipitation (rain and snow), including their distribution, annual cycles and extremes.</p>
<p>Overall, we found our downscaling produced major improvements in how accurate the projections were. This was especially true for minimum temperature, which is important for looking at the impacts of heatwaves – high night-time temperatures can lead to <a href="https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/heatwaves">heat stress</a> and <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33195962/">even deaths</a>. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560923/original/file-20231121-4588-qj18u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A high up view of an azure ocean coast right next to a highrise city with mountains in the background" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560923/original/file-20231121-4588-qj18u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560923/original/file-20231121-4588-qj18u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560923/original/file-20231121-4588-qj18u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560923/original/file-20231121-4588-qj18u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560923/original/file-20231121-4588-qj18u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560923/original/file-20231121-4588-qj18u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560923/original/file-20231121-4588-qj18u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Projections are particularly improved in coastal, urban and mountain regions – where the Australian population is concentrated.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/aerial-view-gold-coast-queensland-australia-142759546">zstock/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>We also looked at whether our models accurately represented day-to-day observations – that is, how well they matched up with actual weather recordings. The biggest difference came when looking at extremes (either very high or very low values), with a 142% improvement in representing minimum temperatures and an 87% improvement in representing winter maximum temperature. </p>
<p>Our models also worked well for precipitation. Predicting the number of days with no rain, as well as heavy rain days, is usually tricky for most models. Downscaling improved representation of dry days by 46% and extreme rain by 45%. This means we’ll have more reliable models when examining impacts from events like floods and droughts.</p>
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<em>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/faster-disaster-climate-change-fuels-flash-droughts-intense-downpours-and-storms-213242">Faster disaster: climate change fuels 'flash droughts', intense downpours and storms</a>
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<h2>How will this be useful?</h2>
<p>The new projections provide more accurate data across Australia, but particularly in the mountains and densely populated coastal areas. This is important for disaster planning, preparedness and response. For example, in South East Queensland the improvements reached an impressive 150%.</p>
<p>The new data is not only more accurate, but offers a significantly clearer picture of the climatic future for densely populated regions. We can now have future climate information for shires and towns – an important step towards adaptation.</p>
<p>Downscaled climate projections based on the previous global suite of models have been used in Australia to understand <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969720340432">future heatwaves</a>, <a href="https://www.disaster.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0035/339299/QFES-Severe-Wind-Hazard-Exec-Summary.pdf">severe wind</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.7302">drought</a> and <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0309170820306941">flood risks</a>. </p>
<p>Our new high-resolution dataset, based on the latest global models, provides scientists and stakeholders with a solid ground to support adaptation policies, inform communities, and build resilience and preparedness for future climate hazards in Australia.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216739/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ralph leads the Queensland Future Climate Science Program - a collaborative program between the University of Queensland and Queensland's Department of Environment and Science undertaking applied climate science to support climate adaptation and natural disaster preparedness. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jozef Syktus is the Director of the University of Queensland and Department of Environment and Science (DES) collaborative research program. He was a science leader of the projects contributing the CSIRO Mk3.6 climate model simulations to the CMIP5 archive and dynamical downscaling of CMIP5 for Queensland. He led the development of the UQ-DES CMIP6 downscale projections for Australia. Jozef received funding from ARC, Queensland Government and CSIRO</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Chapman is a member of the Climate Projections and Services Team at the Department of Environment and Science, Queensland Government. </span></em></p>
Global climate models don’t let us zoom in on the fine details. A new set of high-resolution climate models for Australia is solving this problem.
Ralph Trancoso, Adjunct Associate Professor in Climate Change, The University of Queensland
Jozef Syktus, Professorial Research Fellow, School of the Environment, The University of Queensland
Sarah Chapman, Visiting Research Fellow, University of Leeds
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/208711
2023-11-14T13:24:12Z
2023-11-14T13:24:12Z
Dreams of a ‘broken up’ Russia might turn into a nightmare for the West – and an opportunity for China
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559164/original/file-20231113-22-oegm61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C7%2C5130%2C3394&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Breaking up is hard to do.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/old-torn-atlas-map-of-eurasia-royalty-free-image/589011984?phrase=russian+federation+map&adppopup=true">Glasshouse Images/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Do names on a map matter? When they are in border territories, the answer is probably “yes.”</p>
<p>Earlier in 2023, China’s Ministry of Natural Resources <a href="https://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/13560">ordered that new maps must use</a> the former Chinese names of its lost territories in what is now Russia’s Far East. Vladivostok, home to <a href="https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/russia/mf-pacific.htm">Russia’s Pacific fleet headquarters</a>, became Haishenwai; <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/1/22/all-you-need-to-know-about-islands-at-heart-of-russia-japan-feud">Sakhalin Island</a> became Kuyedao. Then in late August, the ministry <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2023/09/04/china-is-redefining-its-borders-with-its-neighbors-including-russia_6122600_4.html">released a map</a> that showed the disputed Russian territory of Bolshoi Ussuriysky Island within China’s borders.</p>
<p>These map moves come amid <a href="https://www.gisreportsonline.com/r/russia-disintegrate/">growing chatter</a> <a href="https://cepa.org/article/russias-collapse-good-news-for-everyone/">and even calls</a> in Western foreign policy circles for the disintegration of the Russian Federation into a multitude of smaller states. The thinking is, being split into smaller states would blunt Russia’s challenge to the West and its ability to carry on a war in Ukraine.</p>
<p><iframe id="48DbE" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/48DbE/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>As a <a href="https://www.csi.cuny.edu/campus-directory/susan-smith-peter">scholar of Russian regional identity and history</a>, I believe the prospect of a broken-up Russia is unlikely, to say the least. But talk of Russia’s disintegration and the change in map names taps into themes worth exploring: Is there much appetite for independence in the far regions of the Russian state? And if there were to be breakaway regions in the Far East, would that be to the benefit of the West – or to China?</p>
<h2>Rise of the ‘breakup boosters’</h2>
<p>Those calling for, or predicting, the disintegration of the Russian Federation have grown in numbers since the start of the Ukraine war. In the book “<a href="https://jamestown.org/product/failed-state-a-guide-to-russias-rupture-published/">Failed State: A guide to Russia’s Rupture</a>,” political scientist Janusz Bugajski argues that the territories of the Russian Federation will in time declare independence – like during the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. This, he and others argue, would be <a href="https://cepa.org/article/russias-collapse-good-news-for-everyone/">good for everyone</a> outside Russia. A rump Russian state would have “reduced capabilities to attack neighbors,” Bugajski argues.</p>
<p>The Washington Post’s David Ignatius <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/08/08/putin-russia-ukraine-war-strategy/">has a gloomier view</a> of Russian disintegration, writing in August that it would provide “a devil’s playground” that could pose a danger to the West.</p>
<p>Either way, a growing number of analysts are of a mind that, in <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/international/4149633-what-if-russia-literally-splits-apart/">the words of Russia scholar Alexander J. Motyl</a>, it is “time to start taking the potential disintegration of Russia seriously.”</p>
<p>Having <a href="https://jordanrussiacenter.org/event-recaps/civil-society-in-19th-century-russia/#.Wtn8oNPwZOE">worked on the history of Russian regionalism</a> for two decades, I see serious obstacles to territories declaring independence. It is certainly true that centralized authority has been to the detriment – both economically and culturally – to some of the Russian Federation’s 83 regions. But there is a lack of mass public support for autonomy – that is, the ability to decide local and regional matters within a larger state – let alone full-blown independence.</p>
<p>Not all regions in Russia are the same. In some, such as <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/kazans-new-spirit-lasting-social-effects-tatarstans-sovereignty-movement">Tatarstan</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-20593383">Dagestan</a>, autonomy has a genuine mass appeal.</p>
<p>But most Russian regions that favor greater autonomy are in locations that would make it difficult for them to declare independence outright because they would still be surrounded by the Russian Federation. </p>
<p>Those in a locations more suited to independence – say, those that have borders with neighboring countries – often face other difficulties, such as being close to China.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An industrial city is seen in the background behind a fence with Chinese writing on it." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558104/original/file-20231107-267335-88jqnm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=9%2C108%2C6037%2C3916&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558104/original/file-20231107-267335-88jqnm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558104/original/file-20231107-267335-88jqnm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558104/original/file-20231107-267335-88jqnm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558104/original/file-20231107-267335-88jqnm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558104/original/file-20231107-267335-88jqnm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558104/original/file-20231107-267335-88jqnm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A view of Russia, from China.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-china-russia-border-with-the-russian-city-of-news-photo/1247976467?adppopup=true">Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In Russia’s Far East, there is concern among would-be breakaways that independence could lead to the possibility of an interventionist China either taking over or at <a href="https://asiatimes.com/2023/03/china-eyes-russias-far-east-resources-patriots-want-more/">least exerting its influence</a>.</p>
<h2>Problems of geography</h2>
<p>“Breakup boosters” – the term I use to describe those advocating for Russia’s disintegration – assume that regions in the Russian Federation all have aspirations for independence.</p>
<p>But an analysis of Russian regions by <a href="https://politics.wfu.edu/faculty-and-staff/adam-lenton/">Adam Lenton of Wake Forest University</a> found a highly variable level of support for autonomy across Russian regions.</p>
<p><iframe id="nZWcF" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/nZWcF/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>The data shows that in many of the regions that have exiled independence leaders and are talked about of being potential breakaways, the public doesn’t support that goal.</p>
<p>The data shows support for autonomy rather than independence. Autonomy would make the Russian Federation a real federation.</p>
<p>The region with by far the most support for autonomy is <a href="https://iaunrc.indiana.edu/about/our-region/countries/tatarstan.html">Tatarstan</a>, a subnational republic led by Turkic-speaking Tatar people 447 miles south of Moscow. But arguing that this should lead to independence makes little sense – it would be completely surrounded by a hostile Russian Federation. An independent foreign and defense policy in such circumstances would be almost impossible.</p>
<p>Some <a href="https://www.ispionline.it/en/publication/the-quest-for-more-autonomy-risks-and-opportunities-for-tatarstan-123570">Tatars have themselves argued</a> against independence on this ground.</p>
<p>The regions of the North Caucasus have some of the highest scores, plus a foreign border with Georgia making it potentially a better candidate for independence. But the region has a bitter experience with attempts to break away. Chechnya’s attempt at independence failed after a <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/03/12/1085861999/russias-wars-in-chechnya-offer-a-grim-warning-of-what-could-be-in-ukraine">long and bloody war</a>.</p>
<p>In Siberia, the region of Tuva has high levels of support for autonomy. But it is in China’s backyard – and this would make it geographically vulnerable.</p>
<h2>Russia’s Far East, China’s backyard</h2>
<p>Russia’s Far East includes the Amur region along the border with China and Vladivostok. These were taken from China by Russia during the mid-19th century, when <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/imperial-visions/357FDB8B13B986153598DC402F85FF17">Russian general Nikolai Murav’ev-Amurskii</a> used Russia’s greater firepower and more modern army to defeat China.</p>
<p>But the status of territories in the region remained contentious. In 1969, China and the Soviet Union fought a seven-month <a href="https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB49/index2.html">undeclared war</a> over border issues. </p>
<p>After 1991, China and Russia went through several rounds of talks and treaties to ensure that the border between them was ratified by both parties, with <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110812092950/http:/bestpravo.ru/fed2004/data03/tex14451.htm">the last treaty</a> taking place in 2004. Even so, not all groups within China accept the results.</p>
<p><a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300166651/china-and-russia/">Textbooks in China</a> still mention the loss of 1.5 million square kilometers to Russia and note that Mao Zedong, the founder of the People’s Republic of China, said he would “present the bill,” meaning that Russia would have to pay what Mao perceived as the theft of territory.</p>
<p>The fear among <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/russia-war-future-politics-vladimir-putin-federation/">some Russians</a> – and those in the West – is that China could turn Russia’s Far East into its satellite, using it as a source of raw materials such as diamonds and gold, as well as oil and gas. And with economic hegemony comes political influence.</p>
<p>China <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/21/economy/china-economy-troubles-intl-hnk/index.html">faces challenges</a> that make increasing its influence in Russia’s Far East particularly attractive now, including what experts see as a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/01/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-martin-wolf.html">structural economic crisis</a> and a <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/I/bo61544815.html">rural education gap</a>. Territorial expansion could provide economic growth while serving as a distraction from domestic issues.</p>
<p>But the breakup of the Russian Federation could also pose a security threat to China. The experience of Xinjiang serves as a warning. The region, which has been the focus of China’s <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/china-xinjiang-uyghurs-muslims-repression-genocide-human-rights">persecution of the Muslim Uyghur people</a>, had twice been a breakaway region under the protection of former Soviet leader Josef Stalin.</p>
<p>Furthermore, the Chinese Communist Party will be fearful that any unrest in areas of the Russian Federation that are close to Xinjiang might spill over.</p>
<p>Given all this, the argument from breakup boosters that no one, other than President Vladimir Putin, would lose if the Russian Federation disintegrated is, I believe, simply not sustainable.</p>
<p>And rather than hastening the disintegration of the Russian Federation, polls suggest that the war in Ukraine is having a unifying effect. Many Russians who were <a href="https://meduza.io/en/feature/2023/06/03/the-only-thing-worse-than-war-is-losing-one">originally against the war have become</a> reluctant supporters of it – in part because of propaganda that has emphasized the threat from the West to Russia’s territorial integrity. Since 2021, <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2000-05/russias-military-doctrine">Russia’s military doctrine</a> has highlighted this threat, stating that one of the main issues facing the nation was groups “aimed at violating the unity and territorial integrity of the Russian Federation.”</p>
<p>The calls in the West for the breakup of the Russian Federation might suggest to the Russian public that Putin’s territorial fears could become a reality. Moreover, dreams of a broken Russian Federation might distract those in the West from the very real problem of helping Ukraine protect its own territorial integrity.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208711/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Susan Smith-Peter receives funding from the Fulbright Program, SRCC, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I volunteer for Razom for Ukraine. </span></em></p>
Hawkish foreign policy wonks have called for a breakup of Russia. But would that fall into Beijing’s hands?
Susan Smith-Peter, Professor of Russian History, City University of New York
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/213768
2023-11-05T19:13:10Z
2023-11-05T19:13:10Z
How are global powers engaging with the Pacific? And who is most effective? These 5 maps provide a glimpse
<p>After years of neglect, there’s a reason why Pacific leaders now describe the Pacific Islands’ geopolitical landscape as “<a href="https://www.forumsec.org/2018/09/05/boe-declaration-on-regional-security/">crowded and complex</a>”. Many democratic powers have recently refocused their attention on the region, including Australia, the United States, New Zealand, France, the United Kingdom and Japan. </p>
<p>One after another, they are rolling out big-ticket initiatives to improve their reputations and relationships in the region. While some of these projects make good developmental sense – for instance, Australia’s A$4 billion <a href="https://www.aiffp.gov.au/">infrastructure financing agency for the region</a> (although <a href="https://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/pacific-aid-map-2023-key-findings-report">questions are being asked</a> about debt sustainability, given how quickly it has ramped up) – the rationale for others is <a href="https://devpolicy.org/australia-buys-digicel-pacific-pngs-mobile-monopoly-20211026/">less clear</a>. </p>
<p>But what all these initiatives have in common is that they are being formulated with a sense of urgency – as a reaction to Chinese offers of assistance. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>As the Pacific Islands Forum is holding its annual summit this week, we’ve asked experts on the Pacific to examine the great power competition in the region. How are countries like the US, Australia, China and others attempting to wield power and influence in the Pacific? And how effective has it been? This is the first story in a four-piece series.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>There’s a risk to all this urgent energy: it’s difficult to know who is doing what, and where. To help meet this challenge, our <a href="https://www.adelaide.edu.au/stretton/our-research/security-in-the-pacific-islands/statecraftiness">Statecraftiness mapping project</a> shows how all of these outside powers are seeking to engage with and influence the region. </p>
<p>Our <a href="https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/b047ee4be82e47a8a6f3e580cf688d40">StoryMap</a> shows that the US, Australia and their partners do a lot in the region. Given the depth of this engagement, they should now shift their priorities from reacting to every Chinese announcement towards a more considered approach. This could better anticipate and respond to their interests and those of Pacific Island countries. </p>
<p>There are signs they are beginning to do this: <a href="https://www.dfat.gov.au/news/media-release/joint-statement-announcement-partners-blue-pacific-initiative">the Partners in the Blue Pacific initiative</a> announced in 2022 by the US, Australia and other partners may help to improve the coordination of their assistance. </p>
<p>Based on our analysis, we make five recommendations about how these partners could further implement proactive “statecraft” in the region.</p>
<h2>1. Understand that all influence is relative</h2>
<p>In 2018, a rumour of a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/11/baseless-rumours-why-talk-of-a-chinese-military-installation-in-vanuatu-misses-the-point">potential Chinese military base in Vanuatu</a> triggered a wave of concern in Western capitals. Four years later, news of a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/20/the-deal-that-shocked-the-world-inside-the-china-solomons-security-pact">security agreement</a> between China and Solomon Islands amplified these <a href="https://www.usip.org/publications/2022/07/chinas-search-permanent-military-presence-pacific-islands">anxieties</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Scroll down the images to show military installation locations.</em></p>
<iframe src="https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/23f232279d474967bad0289e03554136?&forcemobile" width="100%" height="600px" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="" allow="geolocation"></iframe>
<hr>
<p>But despite all the discussion about a potential Chinese military presence in the region, what is often overlooked is the existing presence of Australian, American and French forces (although such militarisation is <a href="https://dpa.bellschool.anu.edu.au/experts-publications/publications/8484/wp-20231-navigating-flexible-responsive-and-respectful">contested by many islanders</a>).</p>
<p>Similarly, there are concerns the China-Solomon Islands agreement could pave the way for a Chinese police presence in the region. This, too, led to reactive policymaking. After China provided police training in Solomon Islands, Australia countered by donating rifles and police vehicles, and then China <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-11-04/china-to-gift-solomon-islands-police-tucks-vehicles/101614464">donated water cannons, motorbikes and vehicles</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>Scroll down the map to reveal policing assistance in the region.</em></p>
<iframe src="https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/5606ec7567964d82aa7a1ac85ece5b72?&forcemobile" width="100%" height="600px" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="" allow="geolocation"></iframe>
<hr>
<p>But our StoryMap shows that China’s rather nascent policing activities are nowhere near as broad-reaching as the assistance provided by Australia and New Zealand. </p>
<h2>2. Acknowledge the difference between quantity and quality</h2>
<p>As our StoryMap below shows, Australia is the only partner state with diplomatic posts in all Pacific island countries, followed closely by New Zealand. The US, Japan, France, Taiwan, India and Indonesia also have a diplomatic presence, and others are looking to open embassies.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Scroll down the timeline to show diplomatic posts in the region.</em></p>
<iframe src="https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/e8684000c4f54a248c182e721ad7aad0?&forcemobile" width="100%" height="600px" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="" allow="geolocation"></iframe>
<hr>
<p>But the number of diplomatic posts does not necessarily equate to <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/what-is-statecraft-episode-1/id1675420291?i=1000602575764">quality or effectiveness</a>. This is because individuals, not policies, are the <a href="https://theconversation.com/penny-wong-said-this-week-national-power-comes-from-our-people-are-we-ignoring-this-most-vital-resource-203145">most important determinants</a> of whether a country’s “statecraft” efforts succeed. </p>
<p>And diplomatic presence is not always reciprocated. Niue, Tuvalu, Micronesia, Cook Islands, Palau and Kiribati <a href="https://www.adelaide.edu.au/stretton/ua/media/683/ua30631-stretton-centre-paper-3-digital_0.pdf">do not have diplomatic missions in Australia</a>. Instead, they have missions in cities where international institutions are, such as New York and Geneva. This reflects how Pacific countries prioritise where they place their limited number of diplomats. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>Scroll down the timeline to show diplomatic visits.</em></p>
<iframe src="https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/13e34580ab06464aac11dfca72e87576?forceMobile" width="100%" height="600px" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="" allow="geolocation"></iframe>
<hr>
<p>High-level visits to the Pacific by foreign leaders and officials have also increased dramatically in the past 18 months. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, French President Emmanuel Macron, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, British Foreign Minister James Cleverly and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi have all made appearances. </p>
<p>But, again, the quantity of diplomatic engagement does not necessarily lead to quality relationships, which are “<a href="https://www.internationalaffairs.org.au/australianoutlook/relationships-are-the-enduring-currency-of-influence-for-the-pacific-islands/">the enduring currency of influence</a>” in the Pacific.</p>
<p>Social media, for instance, has greater reach and can impact countries’ <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/nejo.12353">diplomatic negotiations</a> and shape their influence outside formal meetings. </p>
<p>To try to understand the effectiveness of social media as a diplomatic tool, we analysed social media followings of diplomatic missions in the region. As expected, countries with close relationships tended to have high numbers of followers.</p>
<hr>
<p><iframe id="isYGU" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/isYGU/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<hr>
<p>However, social media engagement does not necessarily indicate that people agree with – or even think favourably of – a country. For example, the large following of the US embassy in Papua New Guinea could be due to <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/pacific/programs/pacificbeat/png-activists-speak-out-after-us-embassy-raises-pride-flag/102468388">recent controversies</a> involving the mission there.</p>
<p>Some diplomatic missions also pay for extended social media reach through boosted posts. We also found examples of automated bots commenting on posts. </p>
<h2>3. Focus on long-term, rather than short-term, engagement</h2>
<p>The value of long-term <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0962629823001099">engagement</a> was illustrated in the US response to the Solomon Islands-China security agreement.</p>
<p>Senior US officials immediately flew to Honiara, without having had a diplomatic presence there for 29 years. Sudden, overtly self-serving engagement is <a href="https://www.nbr.org/publication/u-s-engagement-in-micronesia-lessons-from-australia-and-new-zealand/">seldom effective</a>. </p>
<p>Soft power comes in many forms, such as media broadcasts, <a href="https://www.adelaide.edu.au/stretton/ua/media/681/ua30629-stretton-centre-paper-2-digital.pdf">scholarships</a>, church networks, sports tournaments, language training and cultural exchanges. Many of these are often overlooked by analysts, who tend to focus on more quantifiable tools of “statecraft”, such as <a href="https://pacificaidmap.lowyinstitute.org/">aid, loans</a>, infrastructure projects and security assistance. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>Scroll down and click on scholarship initiatives to show locations.</em></p>
<iframe src="https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/889d5b5e168b4c52a9da51f29c616caa?forceMobile" width="100%" height="600px" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="" allow="geolocation"></iframe>
<hr>
<p>But this misses the long-term value of soft power initiatives. These have the potential to shape the beliefs, attitudes and opinions of communities in ways that are harder to immediately identify, but often more influential. </p>
<h2>4. Distinguish between announcement and implementation</h2>
<p>In 2020, news broke that China had agreed to a A$204 million deal with Papua New Guinea to establish a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/27/chinese-fishing-plant-in-torres-strait-raises-alarm-for-australian-industry-and-islanders">fishery industrial park</a> project on Daru Island. </p>
<p>Concerned the facility would <a href="https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/china-to-build-200-million-fishery-project-on-australias-doorstep/">give China a foothold</a> only a few kilometres from its shores, Australia quickly signed a A$30 million agreement with PNG for an “<a href="https://www.abc.net.au/pacific/programs/pacificbeat/australia-and-png-sign-agreement-for-remote-daru/13337030">economic empowerment program</a>” on Daru. </p>
<p>Since 2020, there has been no substantive progress on the Chinese project. But it’s unlikely Australia’s reaction influenced this. While the pandemic may have delayed things, the more plausible explanation is that the project was an <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2021/02/why-chinas-island-city-in-papua-new-guinea-is-a-mirage/">“outlandishly ambitious” “mirage” that will “never eventuate”</a>.</p>
<p>Any development initiative on Daru Island — long a neglected region — is welcome. But the speed of Australia’s reaction exemplified how the significance of such an announcement can be misinterpreted. </p>
<h2>5. Make sure the right country gets the credit</h2>
<p>The US, Australia and its partners frequently subcontract the delivery of their programs in the Pacific to nongovernmental organisations and private contractors. Even Australian policing and justice assistance is increasingly <a href="https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/292288/4/The%20Vanuatu-Australia%20Policing%20and%20Justice%20Services%20Study_Judy%20Putt_Sinclair%20Dinnen_Department%20of%20Pacific%20Affairs_Research%20Report.pdf">coordinated by private contractors</a>. </p>
<p>But as some Pacific islanders have told us, with so much American and Australian assistance provided by other organisations, it’s <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3ct33ny">often unclear</a> where it comes from. </p>
<p>And sometimes credit goes to the wrong party. Many infrastructure projects are funded by institutions such as the Asian Development Bank. Though much of the bank’s funding comes from Australia (<a href="https://www.adb.org/publications/australia-fact-sheet">A$11.31 billion</a>) and the US (<a href="https://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/publication/27810/usa-2022.pdf">US$26.9 billion</a>), the projects themselves are often built by Chinese state-owned enterprises.</p>
<p>So, China receives the credit – and the reputational and relationship boosts that come with it.</p>
<p>More proactive statecraft can help in this regard. But whether these influence attempts succeed <a href="https://www.adelaide.edu.au/stretton/ua/media/665/statecraftiness.pdf">will be determined by Pacific countries</a> themselves. And these countries aren’t passive: they are <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09512748.2023.2253377">attempting to influence</a> their <a href="https://www.adelaide.edu.au/stretton/ua/media/683/ua30631-stretton-centre-paper-3-digital_0.pdf">partners in return</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213768/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joanne Wallis receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Australian Department of Defence. This activity is supported by the Australian Government through a grant by the Australian Department of Defence. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and are not necessarily those of the Australian Government or the Australian Department of Defence.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Henrietta McNeill receives funding from the Australian Department of Defence.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Rose is a research associate at the University of Adelaide working on a project that is funded by the Australian Department of Defense.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alan Tidwell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
In a crowded region, it’s hard to know who is doing what, and where. Effective statecraft, though, is not always measured by quantity over quality.
Joanne Wallis, Professor of International Security, University of Adelaide
Alan Tidwell, Director, Center for Australian, New Zealand and Pacific Studies, Georgetown University
Henrietta McNeill, PhD candidate, Australian National University
Michael Rose, Research Associate, University of Adelaide
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/208347
2023-07-25T20:32:27Z
2023-07-25T20:32:27Z
How Canada’s first national cycling map will benefit both riders and public planners
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534702/original/file-20230628-17-it0n73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C5%2C1280%2C841&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">With more and more Canadians cycling, it is crucial we have up-to-date information on what cycling infrastructure exists and where to find it.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Callista Ottoni)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/how-canadas-first-national-cycling-map-will-benefit-both-riders-and-public-planners" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Cycling in Canada has been <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/01441647.2021.1914900">experiencing a great boom in recent years</a> and a national map of cycling infrastructure is critical to allow Canadians to determine where they have access to safe and comfortable facilities and routes. </p>
<p>Yet, there has historically been no consistent and complete way to measure or communicate cycling infrastructure. Until now: <a href="https://www.arcgis.com/apps/mapviewer/index.html?webmap=c6d2917c4a7d4fb4a8e7a615369b68d5">Canada’s first national cycling map</a>.</p>
<p>In 2019, we developed the <a href="https://doi.org/10.24095/hpcdp.40.9.04">Canadian Bikeway Comfort and Safety Classification system (Can-BICS)</a> to classify cycling infrastructure by comfort and safety. Low comfort infrastructure is painted bike lanes, medium comfort is multi-use paths and high comfort are cycle tracks, bike-only paths, or local street bikeways. </p>
<p>We developed Can-BICS using the most current infrastructure design guides and cycling safety evidence. The same <a href="https://www.tac-atc.ca/en/publications-and-resources/geometric-design-guide-canadian-roads">design guides</a> are often used by city staff to develop cycling infrastructure.</p>
<p>The Can-BICS project not only provides a useful tool for Canadian cyclists, it also provides a clear window into the current state of Canadian cycling infrastructure.</p>
<h2>How we built a national dataset</h2>
<p>As researchers specializing in the links between the built environment and cycling, we often found ourselves piecing together datasets from different Canadian cities. Cycling infrastructure projects are typically co-ordinated by individual municipal or regional governments, with data held locally. For many projects, it’s too time consuming to compile data shared independently by multiple cities.</p>
<p>Another issue was that complete and up-to-date data are not even available for all municipalities in Canada. </p>
<p>While many larger cities may have staff dedicated to keeping their maps and databases up to date, other communities do not have the same capacity. Further complicating matters is the inconsistent use of terminology for bicycle facilities. For example, <a href="https://doi.org/10.24095/hpcdp.40.9.04">we found over 100 (often overlapping) terms</a> in use in different cities across Canada. </p>
<p>And importantly, not all bike facilities are equal in comfort and safety. A national map needs to indicate different types of facilities, as not everyone is willing to cycle alongside motor vehicles. </p>
<p>To obtain infrastructure data that was consistent across Canada, we decided to use <a href="https://openstreetmap.org">OpenStreetMap</a> (OSM) — a crowdsourced map of the world. Like a Wikipedia for maps, <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2220-9964/8/5/232">OSM is constantly being updated and improved for accuracy for commercial interests and by data enthusiasts around the world</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/23998083231159905">We developed algorithms that apply the Can-BICS classification to the OSM data</a>. Using Google Street View, we checked over two thousand reference points from OSM for classification accuracy and bias. These points were taken from five small, five medium and five large cities. We then used these algorithms to classify cycling infrastructure across Canada. </p>
<p>The result is the <a href="https://www.arcgis.com/apps/mapviewer/index.html?webmap=c6d2917c4a7d4fb4a8e7a615369b68d5">first-ever national dataset of cycling infrastructure in Canada</a>.</p>
<h2>Cycling infrastructure mapped across Canada</h2>
<p>With the national dataset in place, we identified nearly 23,000 km of cycling infrastructure meeting Can-BICS standards across Canada. </p>
<p>However, over twice this distance (49,000 km) did not meet the safety and comfort standards. These might include gravel paths, suggested cycling routes, quiet residential streets with no specific cycling supports or sharrows on busy roads. (Sharrows are bike decals painted on the road surface to indicate that cycling is allowed, but there is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijtst.2018.12.003">no evidence that they improve safety or preference for cyclists</a>.)</p>
<p>We found that in Canada, multi-use paths are the most common infrastructure type by length (16.6 per cent of all cycling infrastructure detected), followed by painted bike lanes (11 per cent). High-comfort infrastructure (cycle tracks, bike-only paths and local street bikeways) made up only 4.3 per cent of all detected cycling infrastructure.</p>
<p>Our results suggest that there is work to be done to support Canadians who are ready to make the switch to riding a bicycle. Cities aspire to meet climate goals and improve healthy transportation options for their residents. Yet, many Canadians are still without access to safe and comfortable options for cycling, especially in small- and medium-sized cities. </p>
<h2>Harnessing data</h2>
<p>The national cycling infrastructure dataset can support local, regional and federal governments in deciding where to invest in cycling infrastructure. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-get-more-women-on-bikes-better-biking-infrastructure-designed-by-women-202147">How to get more women on bikes? Better biking infrastructure, designed by women</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The <a href="https://www.arcgis.com/apps/mapviewer/index.html?webmap=c6d2917c4a7d4fb4a8e7a615369b68d5">dataset is open</a> for use by other researchers and planning practitioners interested in relating cycling infrastructure to other nationally available metrics such as census data. International researchers may be interested in our methodology to develop datasets of cycling infrastructure in their own jurisdictions. </p>
<p>We intend this dataset to become a reliable tool to facilitate comparison between cities. With the open code, it could be updated annually. This would allow users to monitor investments in high-quality cycling infrastructure over time.</p>
<p>Our work provides the first national map of cycling infrastructure available to Canadians. It allows researchers and practitioners to determine how individual infrastructure projects fit into the national landscape, determine gaps in the existing conditions and work to ensure safe and comfortable cycling is an option for all.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208347/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Meghan Winters has received funding from the Public Health Agency of Canada and Canadian Institutes of Health Research for this work. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Colin Ferster and Karen Laberee do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Cycling in Canada has been experiencing a great boom in recent years. Yet, there was no consistent and complete way to measure cycling infrastructure, until now.
Meghan Winters, Professor, Faculty of Health Sciences, Simon Fraser University
Colin Ferster, Research assistant, Faculty of Health Sciences, Simon Fraser University
Karen Laberee, Research manager, CHATR lab, Simon Fraser University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/197832
2023-02-02T17:20:53Z
2023-02-02T17:20:53Z
Welsh place names are being erased – and so are the stories they tell
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506659/original/file-20230126-14416-c3e4mq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C8%2C5964%2C3952&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Welsh name Yr Wyddfa is now used for the mountain instead of Snowdon by the national park authority. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Malgosia Janicka/Shutterstock.</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://authority.snowdonia.gov.wales/news/article/?id=14460">decision</a> to use Eryri rather than Snowdonia, and Yr Wyddfa instead of Snowdon by the national park authority last autumn reignited a longstanding debate over the protection of place names in Wales.</p>
<p>The switch to Eryri and Yr Wyddfa was made following <a href="https://www.thebmc.co.uk/snowdon-petition-to-use-welsh-name-for-snowdonia-national-park">a petition</a> calling for the park authority to use the Welsh names. But campaigners have been pushing for better protections and use of <a href="https://www.welshlanguagecommissioner.wales/policy-and-research/welsh-place-names/why-standardise-place-nameseur">Welsh place names</a> for decades. </p>
<p>One of the most significant examples of this was the campaign in favour of <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0305748808000960">bilingual road signs</a> in Wales, which started in the 1960s. Before then, there were only English-language road signs in Wales. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Black and white image of people in scarves, hats and coats carrying Welsh language signs saying 'defnyddiwch yr iaith Gymraeg'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507353/original/file-20230131-4694-12yugh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507353/original/file-20230131-4694-12yugh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=597&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507353/original/file-20230131-4694-12yugh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=597&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507353/original/file-20230131-4694-12yugh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=597&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507353/original/file-20230131-4694-12yugh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507353/original/file-20230131-4694-12yugh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507353/original/file-20230131-4694-12yugh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The first protest by Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg – Welsh Language Society took place in Aberystwyth on February 2 1963.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Geoff Charles/Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg & The National Library of Wales</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>According to protesters at the time, such signs were a way of indicating that Wales was an English and British territory. For the same campaigners, bilingual signs would signify Wales was a different country – one which had its own unique language and identity. </p>
<p>Not surprisingly perhaps, <a href="https://www.itv.com/news/wales/2022-04-29/anger-as-caravan-park-replaces-100-year-old-welsh-name-with-english-alternative">some recent examples</a> of English names being adopted in place of old Welsh place names and toponyms (names for geographical features such as hills), have been viewed with consternation by some. </p>
<p>That list is already long but it is one that grows from year to year, as English versions of place names and toponyms are coined. Porth Trecastell on Anglesey being referred to as <a href="https://discovernorthwales.com/cable-bay-anglesey/">Cable Bay</a>, or <a href="https://nation.cymru/opinion/its-llyn-bochlwyd-not-lake-australia-why-we-should-protect-our-welsh-place-names/">Llyn Bochlwyd in Eryri replaced by Lake Australia in tourist guides</a>, are just two examples. </p>
<p>This has <a href="https://www.cymdeithasenwaulleoedd.cymru/en/">led to a campaign</a> to protect, re-emphasise and, in some cases, rediscover Welsh place names.</p>
<h2>Connection</h2>
<p>The situation is exacerbated by the fact that English versions of place names being coined often bear little or no relation to the original Welsh meaning. As such, there is a danger that important elements of the cultural landscape, such as local histories and legends, are being lost.</p>
<p>For example, the original name of the farmhouse <a href="https://coflein.gov.uk/en/site/402856/"><em>Faerdre Fach</em></a> (which translates as “little Reeve’s settlement”), near Llandysul in Ceredigion, points to its role as a local administrative centre during the Middle Ages. With the change to <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03dk6wm">“Happy Donkey Hill”</a> more than a decade ago, a name meant to appeal to tourists, all sense of historical or local context was lost. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Old map featuring Welsh place names" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507080/original/file-20230130-14-a9cjhk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507080/original/file-20230130-14-a9cjhk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=288&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507080/original/file-20230130-14-a9cjhk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=288&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507080/original/file-20230130-14-a9cjhk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=288&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507080/original/file-20230130-14-a9cjhk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507080/original/file-20230130-14-a9cjhk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507080/original/file-20230130-14-a9cjhk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bank Cornicyll, the Carmarthenshire farm, as seen in the List of Historic Place Names. It is now registered as ‘Hakuna Matata’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">List of Historic Place Names/Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Similarly, <em><a href="https://historicplacenames.rcahmw.gov.uk/placenames/recordedname/d9607c69-a917-4675-880b-375de3712c1e">Banc Cornicyll</a></em>, the former name of a farm in Carmarthenshire translates as Lapwing Bank, thus giving an indication of the local landscape and fauna where the farm is located. Its <a href="https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/outrage-historic-welsh-farm-renamed-22917409">replacement name of Hakuna Matata</a> (a Swahili phrase and title of the song from The Lion King), is divorced from the cultural landscape of the area. The owner <a href="https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/owner-defends-hakuna-matata-house-22948727">last year defended the change</a>, saying it was a decision made 25 years ago and that the Swahili term has meaning. </p>
<h2>Authority</h2>
<p>Place names are also important because they indicate patterns of power within society. The right to give places and landscape features names reflects the authority of individuals, groups and institutions. This leads us to question who has the right to decide whether a Welsh name or an alternative English name is used. Which institutions and agencies act as gatekeepers for the naming of places in Wales? </p>
<p>Criticism <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-61811395">has been levelled</a> at the Ordnance Survey (OS), in this respect, for being slow to correct the misspellings of Welsh toponyms on its current maps. The OS cited historical precedent, namely that these are the names that have appeared on its maps since the late 19th century. </p>
<p>But such a defence does not recognise the <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Map_of_a_Nation/q57yDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0">problematic nature</a> of the creation of early maps in places like Wales and Scotland. Native place names were often misspelled on the basis of erroneous information received from English landowners.</p>
<p>Conversely, the farm name Hakuna Matata already appears on OS maps of Carmarthenshire. Despite differences in the contexts of these two examples, they both illustrate the significant, and arguably, arbitrary power of an institution such as the OS in the naming of places in Wales.</p>
<p>Organisations such as the <a href="https://www.cymdeithasenwaulleoedd.cymru/en/">Welsh Place-Name Society</a> and prominent individuals such as <a href="https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/bbcs-huw-edwards-wades-row-17525565">newsreader Huw Edwards</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-44481950">comedian Tudur Owen</a> have sought to draw attention to the Anglicisation of place names. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yLQ6XlG0MQ4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Comedian Tudur Owen presents an item about Welsh place names being lost on the BBC programme Wales Live in 2018.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To date, however, the Welsh government <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-39281369">has resisted</a> calls to introduce legislation which would protect place names. That said, it is examining ways of stopping people from using English alternatives for Welsh place names, stating it has an “impact on the visible presence of the language in our communities”. </p>
<p>Jeremy Miles, the minister for education and the Welsh language, further stated in November 2022 that the <a href="https://www.gov.wales/welsh-language-communities-housing-plan-html">Welsh Language Communities Housing Plan</a> would conduct research into feasible ways of stopping Welsh place names from being changed. </p>
<p>All of this points to a <a href="https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/fascinating-welsh-place-names-being-25206390">growing appetite</a> to address this issue. Whether it can be solved through legislation is open to debate, however. Many of the changes discussed in this article are taking place in the context of popular usage, by residents and visitors who, for whatever reason, choose to use English versions of Welsh place names. As such, it is a challenge that will be difficult to address, let alone resolve, in practice.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197832/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rhys Jones does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Welsh place names often reflect local legends, fauna and topography. The coining of English names to replace them has sparked an ongoing campaign to protect them.
Rhys Jones, Professor of Human Geography, Aberystwyth University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/195825
2023-01-17T14:14:49Z
2023-01-17T14:14:49Z
Angola’s peatlands trap carbon and clean the region’s water – how we mapped this newly found landscape
<p>Ask most people what they picture when thinking about natural “carbon sinks” – ecosystems that absorb and store greenhouse gases – and they’ll probably describe a forest. <a href="https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2927/examining-the-viability-of-planting-trees-to-help-mitigate-climate-change/">Reforestation</a> is a common feature of climate change plans.</p>
<p>But there’s another equally important, often overlooked type of natural carbon sink: <a href="https://peatlands.org/peat/">peatlands</a>. These are a particular type of wetland ecosystem in which dark, loamy peat soil is produced. Peatlands store <a href="https://www.iucn.org/resources/issues-brief/peatlands-and-climate-change">more carbon</a> than all the world’s forests combined. </p>
<p>And they do more than store carbon. They conserve biodiversity, purify water and reduce flooding and soil erosion. They also play an important role in agriculture – they’re good for planting <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/peat-soil">certain crops</a>, such as potatoes and carrots.</p>
<p>Despite this, even global scientific bodies have not paid much attention to peatlands until <a href="https://www.unep.org/events/symposium/peatland-pavilion-unfccc-cop26">very recently</a>. Global maps and inventories of peatlands are inconsistent, though there is more data for the northern hemisphere compared to the southern hemisphere and the tropics. High quality peatland extent data are only available for a small selection of countries and regions, including Canada, Sweden and West Siberia. </p>
<p>This gap needs to be filled urgently: discovering, quantifying and protecting new peatland deposits is necessary in an uncertain climate future that depends on intact, natural carbon sinks.</p>
<p>That’s why, for my PhD, I set out <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969721073915">to quantify</a> and map recently discovered peatland deposits in the drastically understudied Angolan Highlands. This region is hydrologically and ecologically important. One of the reasons is that it’s the primary source of water flowing into the <a href="https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1432/">Okavango Delta</a>, a UNESCO world heritage site, in <a href="https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/lifeline-desert-delta">north-west Botswana</a>. The Okavango is a flat, extensive and seasonally flooded alluvial fan that is one of very few large inland delta systems that do not drain into the ocean. Instead, it drains into the desert sands of the Kalahari Basin. </p>
<p>I worked alongside my PhD supervisors, Professor Jennifer Fitchett and Professor Stephan Woodborne, using remote sensing to estimate that there are about 1,634 km² – that’s approximately 230,000 full-sized soccer fields – of peatland in the Angolan Highlands. </p>
<p>It’s a conservative figure, since the mapped area spans just 16% of the Angolan Highlands and 4% of Angola. For comparison, the largest tropical (and African) peatland deposit, which was also <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nature21048">recently mapped</a> in the Democratic Republic of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/congo-peat-swamps-store-three-years-of-global-carbon-emissions-imminent-oil-drilling-could-release-it-187101">Congo</a> in the Congo Basin, spans 145,000 km².</p>
<iframe title="" aria-label="Locator maps" id="datawrapper-chart-GPAQw" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/GPAQw/1/" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" style="width: 0; min-width: 100% !important; border: none;" height="650" data-external="1" width="100%"></iframe>
<p>This is the first estimate of peatland coverage in Angola. And the study reveals potentially more tropical peatland deposits to discover in the highlands region and surrounding river basins.</p>
<h2>Remote mapping</h2>
<p>In 2015 the <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.org/projects/okavango/">National Geographic Okavango Wilderness Project</a> was launched to create a network of newly protected areas to conserve the length of the Okavango Catchment. It has been surveying and collecting scientific data on the river system and working with local communities; NGOs; and the governments of Angola, Namibia, and Botswana to secure permanent, sustainable protection for the greater Okavango Watershed.</p>
<p>The Okavango Delta is dependent on precipitation occurring in the highlands of central Angola, where water flows south into the Okavango River from two tributaries: the Cuito River and Cubango River. The greater Okavango Catchment encompassing these three rivers covers approximately 112,000 km² and spans three countries – Angola, Namibia, and Botswana. </p>
<p>The source waters originate from areas which experienced historical conflicts and wars, and remain unprotected by legislation. The National Geographic Okavango Wilderness Project was created because of concerns about threats to the Angolan region of the Okavango catchment, and the potential downstream consequences to the Okavango Delta.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/botswanas-okavango-delta-is-created-by-a-delicate-balance-but-for-how-much-longer-125323">Botswana's Okavango Delta is created by a delicate balance, but for how much longer?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>During groundbreaking scientific explorations, the project team identified extensive peatland deposits in the Angolan Highlands. These were the first known scientific explorations of these rivers and source lakes; new plant and animal species <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.org/projects/okavango/why/">were discovered</a>. The peatland identification was also a first. In June 2022, I was invited to be a member of the research team on the Lungu Bungu River expedition in Angola.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500011/original/file-20221209-26397-q4zzfd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500011/original/file-20221209-26397-q4zzfd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500011/original/file-20221209-26397-q4zzfd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500011/original/file-20221209-26397-q4zzfd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500011/original/file-20221209-26397-q4zzfd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500011/original/file-20221209-26397-q4zzfd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500011/original/file-20221209-26397-q4zzfd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The author at work (after Covid lockdowns) extracting peat soil on the Lungu Bungu river transect.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.jenguyton.com/bio">Jen Guyton</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For my PhD, which I started in January 2020, I planned to conduct extensive fieldwork in the Angolan Highlands to quantify the newly discovered peatlands. But by April 2020, the world was largely locked down by the COVID pandemic. It looked like I had no chance of getting to my study site. </p>
<p>Then I was introduced to <a href="https://earthengine.google.com/">Google Earth Engine</a>, a powerful cloud computing platform for Earth observation, science and analysis, and discovered that I could collect an incredible amount of geospatial data about my study site from home.</p>
<p>Peatlands have unique characteristics that distinguish them from terra firma. Geospatial scientists use multisensory approaches. Optical, radar and LiDAR satellite imagery are all employed to identify and distinguish peatland from other wetland features.</p>
<p>Peatlands have also been mapped according to their geophysical properties, including vegetation cover, topography, and the presence of standing water. I drew these categories of data for the Angola Highlands from Google Earth Engine. Then I worked through them iteratively over a number of Zoom calls with my supervisors. </p>
<p>All this data was overlaid and Google Earth Engine’s machine learning algorithms were used to produce the first <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969721073915">classification</a> map of peatlands in the Angolan Highlands. </p>
<h2>Valuable information</h2>
<p>Angola, like many other African countries, is highly vulnerable to climate change. Preserving these important peatland deposits will help facilitate carbon capture. This will allow nature to reduce greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere for free.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-we-discovered-the-worlds-largest-tropical-peatland-deep-in-the-jungles-of-congo-71138">How we discovered the world's largest tropical peatland, deep in the jungles of Congo</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The identification and mapping of these peatland deposits will also help to facilitate preservation of the Angolan Highlands region. The health and ecological functioning of these peatlands has direct implications for local communities who rely on the peatlands for water purification, fishing, cultivation and fuel.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195825/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mauro Lourenco received funding from the National Geographic Okavango Wilderness Project to conduct fieldwork in the Angolan Highlands.
Mauro Lourenco is affiliated with the Wild Bird Trust, National Geographic Okavango Wilderness Project. </span></em></p>
The Angolan Highlands are hydrologically and ecologically important - and the region’s newly mapped peatlands are valuable “carbon sinks”.
Mauro Lourenco, PhD student, University of the Witwatersrand
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/187921
2022-10-17T03:00:25Z
2022-10-17T03:00:25Z
Google Earth is an illusion: how I am using art to explore the problematic nature of western maps and the myth of ‘terra nullius’
<p>Within western society, maps are often perceived as scientific, neutral and objective tools. Map making has always been shaped by our social and cultural relationships to the land. In the last 20 years, approaches to map creation have become much more reliant on photographic and digital technologies, including Google Earth. </p>
<p>However, these technologies carry a rarely acknowledged <a href="https://mural.maynoothuniversity.ie/7310/1/map">subjective and colonial agenda</a> towards representing place.</p>
<p>My artistic exploration of western maps began during my honours year in 2020 and has since become a key part of my PhD research. Due to the pandemic, travel to Pitta Pitta Country was prohibited, therefore making it impossible for me to create photographs of Country for my project.</p>
<p>Pitta Pitta is located in western Queensland, 300 kilometres south of Mount Isa. My maternal great-grandmother Dolly Creed was stolen from Country as a young child and my family has been dislocated since. My understanding of this landscape is informed by oral history, and my relationship to it is shaped by my distance from it. </p>
<p>I grew up on Wadawurrung Country, an hour south from Naarm (Melbourne), and have lived in Victoria my whole life. Like many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, my understanding of self is scarred by the atrocities my family have experienced due to colonisation. </p>
<p>These experiences heavily inform my practice and research.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/drawing-data-i-make-art-from-the-bodily-experience-of-long-distance-running-182762">Drawing data: I make art from the bodily experience of long-distance running</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Relationships with Country</h2>
<p>In response to COVID travel restrictions, I decided to go to Pitta Pitta “virtually” via Google Earth. While looking around Pitta Pitta via the street view function, I began noticing the inaccuracy of the technology. The images hadn’t been updated since 2007, the technology glitched a lot and, most importantly, there was no acknowledgement of Indigenous Custodianship.</p>
<p>I went looking for places I recognised on Country within Google Earth to see what had been photographed. </p>
<p>On the outskirts of Boulia, a small town on Country, a Waddi tree sits. Waddi trees are rare species of Acacia endemic to central parts of Australia. This particular tree was a significant gathering place for my people. </p>
<p>Within Google Earth it had been reduced to a blob of pixels, a dark shadow smeared on a reddish landscape. I was angered that Google decided this tree was unimportant, but also began to wonder why. </p>
<p>Responding to Google’s representation of the tree, Waddi Tree from my series (Dis)connected to Country aims to demonstrate where Google Earth has erased topographical information and Indigenous Knowledges of place.</p>
<p>My research addresses this gap. Waddi Tree layers a photograph I made of the tree during my last visit to Country in 2019 onto a screenshot from its location within Google Earth. </p>
<p>Through the omission of Indigenous Knowledges of place, western maps of Australia continue the false colonial narrative of <em><a href="https://australian.museum/learn/first-nations/unsettled/recognising-invasions/terra-nullius/">terra nullius</a></em> – land belonging to no one. </p>
<p>The photographic technologies used within Google Earth don’t allow, nor represent, the significant relationships Indigenous peoples have with Country. Photographic and digital images have also become intertwined with mapping in Google Earth. This changes how we relate to place, <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/P/bo6166019.html">normalising</a> a flattened and very limited view.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/an-ode-to-my-grandmother-remaking-the-past-using-oral-histories-theatre-and-music-180575">An Ode To My Grandmother: remaking the past using oral histories, theatre and music</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Glitches in time</h2>
<p>Indigenous Knowledges of place are rooted in relationships which recognise that all forms of life have agency and are <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17547075.2018.1430996">interconnected</a>. </p>
<p>Put very simply, Country, all that it encompasses, and self are intertwined and valued equally.</p>
<p>Other images from the series seek to identify where the technology dysfunctions and breaks down within itself. I like to think of these “glitches” as tears in the technological fabric of Google Earth, and therefore the narratives the technology enforces. Pitta Pitta (Google’s Earth) and Pitta Pitta (Published Without Permission) are freeze-frames from transitions between the aerial and street view functions which emphasise this glitch. </p>
<p>My research and arts practice are informed by my family history and my <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/270847367_Aboriginal_notions_of_relationality_and_positionalism_A_reply_to_Weber">positionality</a> as a Pitta Pitta woman. </p>
<p>I acknowledge my Ancestors and my great-grandmother Dolly whose story has shaped my family in unimaginable ways. Additionally, I extend my respects to the ongoing Custodians of the Kulin Nations where I work and live. </p>
<p>Sovereignty has never been ceded and it always was, and forever will be, Aboriginal land.</p>
<p>I’ll finish with a <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/270847367_Aboriginal_notions_of_relationality_and_positionalism_A_reply_to_Weber">quote from</a> Indigenous scholar Aunty Mary Graham:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There is no Aboriginal equivalent to the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/cogito-ergo-sum">Cartesian notion</a> of ‘I think therefore I am’ but, if there were, it would be – I am located therefore I am. Place, being, belonging and connectedness all arise out of a locality in Land.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-air-we-breathe-how-i-have-been-observing-atmospheric-change-through-art-and-science-187985">The air we breathe: how I have been observing atmospheric change through art and science</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/187921/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jahkarli Romanis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Under COVID travel restrictions, I couldn’t travel to Pitta Pitta Country. Instead, I travelled to Country through Google Maps.
Jahkarli Romanis, PhD Candidate, Monash University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/189946
2022-09-08T12:31:46Z
2022-09-08T12:31:46Z
Ghost islands of the Arctic: The world’s ‘northern-most island’ isn’t the first to be erased from the map
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482580/original/file-20220902-20-ywtp99.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C9%2C2015%2C1270&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">These 'islands' are on the move.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Martin Nissen</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 2021, an expedition off the icy northern Greenland coast spotted what appeared to be a previously uncharted island. It was small and gravelly, and it was declared a contender for the title of the most northerly known land mass in the world. The discoverers named it <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/scientists-set-foot-worlds-northernmost-island-180978566/">Qeqertaq Avannarleq</a> – Greenlandic for “the northern most island.”</p>
<p>But there was a mystery afoot in the region. Just north of Cape Morris Jesup, several other small islands had been discovered over the decades, and then disappeared.</p>
<p>Some scientists theorized that these were rocky banks that had been pushed up by sea ice. </p>
<p>But when a team of Swiss and Danish surveyors traveled north to <a href="https://www.arctictoday.com/several-islands-recorded-as-the-northernmost-on-earth-are-most-likely-icebergs-and-will-disappear-again/">investigate this “ghost islands”</a> phenomenon, they discovered something else entirely. They <a href="https://www.space.dtu.dk/nyheder/nyhed?id=3767be72-335e-4f02-a277-87a39aaf5ffe">announced their findings</a> in September 2022: These elusive islands are actually large icebergs grounded at the sea bottom. They likely came from a nearby glacier, where other newly calved icebergs, covered with gravel from landslides, were ready to float off. </p>
<p>This was not the first such disappearing act in the high Arctic, or the first need to erase land from the map. Nearly a century ago, an innovative airborne expedition redrew the maps of large swaths of the Barents Sea.</p>
<h2>The view from a zeppelin in 1931</h2>
<p>The 1931 expedition emerged from American newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst’s plan for a spectacular publicity stunt. </p>
<p>Hearst proposed having <a href="https://www.airships.net/lz127-graf-zeppelin/">the Graf Zeppelin</a>, then the world’s largest airship, fly to the North Pole for a meeting with a submarine that would travel under the ice. This ran into practical difficulties and Hearst abandoned the plan, but the notion of using the Graf Zeppelin to conduct <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/209526">geographic and scientific investigations</a> of the high Arctic was taken up by an international polar science committee.</p>
<p>The airborne expedition they devised would employ pioneering technologies and make important geographical, meteorological and magnetic discoveries in the Arctic – including remapping much of the Barents Sea. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/oVP2pZX2yGo?wmode=transparent&start=185" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>The expedition was known as the Polarfahrt – “polar voyage” in German. Despite the international tensions at the time, the zeppelin carried a team of German, Soviet and U.S. scientists and explorers. </p>
<p>Among them were <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Ellsworth">Lincoln Ellsworth</a>, a wealthy American and experienced Arctic explorer who would write the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/209526">first scholarly account</a> of the Polarfahrt and its geographical discoveries. Two important Soviet scientists also participated: the brilliant meteorologist <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavel_Molchanov">Pavel Molchanov</a> and the expedition’s chief scientist, Rudolf Samoylovich, who <a href="https://hgss.copernicus.org/articles/4/35/2013/">performed magnetic measurements</a>. In charge of the meteorological operations was Ludwig Weickmann, director of the Geophysical Institute of the University of Leipzig.</p>
<p>The expedition’s chronicler was Arthur Koestler, a young journalist who would later become famous for his anti-communist novel “Darkness at Noon,” depicting totalitarianism turning on its own party loyalists.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="The giant airship in a hangar with people standing beside it looking very tiny" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482818/original/file-20220905-14-ohmst6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482818/original/file-20220905-14-ohmst6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482818/original/file-20220905-14-ohmst6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482818/original/file-20220905-14-ohmst6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482818/original/file-20220905-14-ohmst6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482818/original/file-20220905-14-ohmst6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482818/original/file-20220905-14-ohmst6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Built in 1928 and longer than two football fields, the Graf Zeppelin was normally used for ultra-luxurious commercial passenger transportation. Financing for the science mission came in part from the sale of postcards with stamps specially issued by the postal authorities of Germany and the Soviet Union.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Zeppelin_Graf_Zeppelin.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The five-day trip took them north over the Barents Sea as far as 82 degrees north latitude, and then eastward for hundreds of miles before returning southwestward.</p>
<p>Koestler provided daily reports via shortwave radio that appeared in newspapers around the world.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The experience of this swift, silent and effortless rising, or rather falling upwards into the sky, is beautiful and intoxicating,” Koestler wrote in <a href="https://ebin.pub/arrow-in-the-blue-an-autobiography-1.html">his 1952 autobiography</a>. “… it gives one the complete illusion of having escaped the bondage of the earth’s gravity.</p>
<p>"We hovered in the Arctic air for several days, moving at a leisurely average of 60 miles per hour and often stopping in mid-air to complete a photographic survey or release small weather balloons. It all had a charm and a quiet excitement comparable to a journey on the last sailing ship in an era of speed boats.”</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>‘The disadvantage of not existing’</h2>
<p>The high latitude regions the Polarfahrt passed over were incredibly remote. In the late 19th century, Austrian explorer Julius von Payer reported the discovery of Franz Josef Land, an archipelago of nearly 200 islands in the Barents Sea, but initially there had been <a href="https://english.radio.cz/julius-von-payer-teplice-born-explorer-who-discovered-franz-josef-land-8113568">doubts about Franz Josef Land’s existence</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482577/original/file-20220902-25-23tpvq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A map showing Franz Josef Land in relation to Greenland and Russia." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482577/original/file-20220902-25-23tpvq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482577/original/file-20220902-25-23tpvq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=556&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482577/original/file-20220902-25-23tpvq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=556&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482577/original/file-20220902-25-23tpvq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=556&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482577/original/file-20220902-25-23tpvq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=699&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482577/original/file-20220902-25-23tpvq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=699&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482577/original/file-20220902-25-23tpvq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=699&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Franz_Josef_Land_location-en.svg">Oona Räisänen via Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Polarfahrt confirmed the existence of Franz Josef Land, but it would reveal that the maps produced by the early explorers of the high Arctic had startling deficiencies.</p>
<p>For the expedition, the Graf Zeppelin had been outfitted with wide-angle cameras that allowed detailed photography of the surface below. The slowly moving Zeppelin was ideally suited for this purpose and could make leisurely surveys that were not possible from fixed-wing aircraft overflights.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“We spent the remainder of [July 27] making a geographical survey of Franz Josef Land,” <a href="https://ebin.pub/arrow-in-the-blue-an-autobiography-1.html">Koestler wrote</a>. </p>
<p>“Our first objective was an island called Albert Edward Land. But that was easier said than done, for Albert Edward Land had the disadvantage of not existing. It could be found on every map of the Arctic, but not in the Arctic itself …</p>
<p>"Next objective: Harmsworth Land. Funny as it sounds Harmsworth Land didn’t exist either. Where it ought to have been, there was nothing but the black polar sea and the reflection of the white Zeppelin.</p>
<p>"Heaven knows whether the explorer who put these islands on the map (I believe it was Payer) had been a victim of a mirage, mistaking some icebergs for land … At any rate, as of July 27, 1931, they have been officially erased.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The expedition would also discover six islands and redraw the coastal outlines of many others. </p>
<h2>A revolutionary way to measure the atmosphere</h2>
<p>The expedition was also remarkable for the instruments Molchanov tested aboard the Graf Zeppelin – including his newly invented “radiosondes.” His technology would revolutionize meteorological observations and led to instruments that <a href="http://iprc.soest.hawaii.edu/people/hamilton.php">atmospheric scientists like me</a> rely on today.</p>
<p>Until 1930, measuring the temperature high in the atmosphere was extremely challenging for meteorologists.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482816/original/file-20220905-21-2jk3mi.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482816/original/file-20220905-21-2jk3mi.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482816/original/file-20220905-21-2jk3mi.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482816/original/file-20220905-21-2jk3mi.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482816/original/file-20220905-21-2jk3mi.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482816/original/file-20220905-21-2jk3mi.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482816/original/file-20220905-21-2jk3mi.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pavel Molchanov and Ludwig Weickmann prepare to launch a weather balloon.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://radiosondemuseum.org">Radiosonde Museum of North America</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>They used so-called <a href="https://repository.si.edu/bitstream/handle/10088/2453/SSHT-0053_Lo_res.pdf?sequence=2">registering sondes</a> that recorded the temperature and pressure by weather balloon. A stylus would make a continuous trace on paper or some other medium, but to read it, scientists would have to find the sonde package after it dropped, and it typically drifted many miles from the launch point. This was particularly impractical in remote areas such as the Arctic.</p>
<p>Molchanov’s device could radio back the temperature and pressure at frequent intervals during the balloon flight. Today, balloon-borne radiosondes are launched <a href="https://courses.imperativemoocs.com/monitoring-the-oceans-from-space-01/week-1-oceans-and-climate/topic-1c-climate-change/global-radiosonde-network">daily at several hundred stations worldwide</a>. </p>
<p>The Polarfahrt was Molchanov’s chance for a spectacular demonstration. The Graf Zeppelin generally flew in the lowest few thousand feet of the atmosphere, but could serve as a platform to release weather balloons that could ascend much higher, acting as remotely reporting “robots” in the upper atmosphere. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A balloon is launched from below the airship" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482817/original/file-20220905-14-nvf176.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482817/original/file-20220905-14-nvf176.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482817/original/file-20220905-14-nvf176.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482817/original/file-20220905-14-nvf176.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482817/original/file-20220905-14-nvf176.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482817/original/file-20220905-14-nvf176.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482817/original/file-20220905-14-nvf176.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">To launch radiosondes from the zeppelin, weather balloons were weighted to sink at first. The weight was designed to drop off, allowing the balloon to later rise through the atmosphere.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://radiosondemuseum.org">Radiosonde Museum of North America.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Molchanov’s hydrogen-filled weather balloons provided the first observations of the stratospheric temperatures near the pole. Remarkably, he found that at heights of 10 miles the air at the pole was actually <a href="https://bulletin.cmos.ca/early-exploration-of-the-high-latitude-stratosphere-part-i-pre-world-war-ii-era/">much warmer than at the equator</a>.</p>
<h2>Fate of the protagonists</h2>
<p>The Polarfahrt was a final flourish of international scientific cooperation at the beginning of the 1930s, a period that saw a catastrophic rise of authoritarian politics and international conflict. By 1941, the U.S., Soviet Union and Germany would all be at war.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.edubilla.com/inventor/pavel-molchanov/">Molchanov</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Samoylovich">Samoylovich</a> became victims of Stalin’s secret police. As a Hungarian Jew, <a href="https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/arthur-koestler/">Koestler</a> would have his life and career shadowed by the politics of the age. He eventually found refuge in England, where he built a career as a novelist, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Yogi_and_the_Commissar">essayist</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sleepwalkers_(Koestler_book)">historian of science</a>.</p>
<p>The Graf Zeppelin continued in commercial passenger service principally on trans-Atlantic flights. But <a href="https://archive.org/details/hindenburg00moon">one of history’s most iconic tragedies</a> soon ended the era of zeppelin travel. In May 1937, the Graf Zeppelin’s younger sister airship, the Hindenburg, caught fire while trying to land in New Jersey. The Graf Zeppelin was dismantled in 1940 to provide scrap metal for the German war effort.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/189946/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kevin Hamilton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The new discovery echoes a mission in 1931, when a five-day zeppelin flight sent robots to the stratosphere and redrew the maps of the high Arctic.
Kevin Hamilton, Emeritus Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Hawaii
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/189013
2022-08-19T13:23:58Z
2022-08-19T13:23:58Z
Sewage alerts: the long history of using maps to hold water companies to account
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480104/original/file-20220819-16-b02bpa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2396%2C1196&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.sas.org.uk/map/">Surfers Against Sewage</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Southern Water was handed <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/record-90m-fine-for-southern-water-following-ea-prosecution">a record fine</a> of £90 million in July 2021 after pleading guilty to illegally discharging sewage along the rivers and coastline of Kent, Hampshire and Sussex. More than a year later, the headlines have not improved for Britain’s embattled water companies who have recently discharged more sewage close to <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-62574105">dozens of beaches</a>. </p>
<p>The Environment Agency has called on water company executives to face <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-62163182">jail</a> due to the ongoing <a href="https://environmentagency.blog.gov.uk/2022/07/18/water-company-environmental-performance-hits-new-low/">failings</a> on environmental performance. And with the onset of drought, complaints about <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/environment-secretary-meets-with-water-company-chief-executives">leaky water pipes</a> have gone from a trickle to a stream. </p>
<p>Maps by conservation organisation <a href="https://theriverstrust.org/key-issues/sewage-in-rivers">The Rivers Trust</a> and campaign group <a href="https://www.sas.org.uk/map/">Surfers Against Sewage</a> lay bare the extent of sewage dumping into rivers and the sea. They have proved to be a highly effective tool, not just to warn of the risks to bathers but also to provide evidence of environmental damage. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480071/original/file-20220819-1510-e90ge9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two annotated maps of SE England" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480071/original/file-20220819-1510-e90ge9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480071/original/file-20220819-1510-e90ge9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480071/original/file-20220819-1510-e90ge9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480071/original/file-20220819-1510-e90ge9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480071/original/file-20220819-1510-e90ge9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480071/original/file-20220819-1510-e90ge9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480071/original/file-20220819-1510-e90ge9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Recent sewage dumps in rivers (left) and along the coast (right) in south east England.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://theriverstrust.org/key-issues/sewage-in-rivers">The Rivers Trust (left) and Surfers Against Sewage (right)</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These maps <a href="https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/be1b37aeaacb49aa9be621f5e4064e4b">pull together data</a> from sensors along the sewage network that detect discharges, making it clear where the worst offenders are and encouraging users to contact their local MP requesting more rapid action on sewage discharge. They are easy to share on social media and on <a href="https://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/20666637.interactive-map-shows-sewage-released-near-dorset-beaches-last-48-hours/">local news sites</a>, they have inspired <a href="https://twitter.com/Feargal_Sharkey/status/1559806907359035392">viral tweets</a> and they make for awkward viewing for the water companies themselves.</p>
<p>This is not the first time maps have been used to hold private water companies to account. Some of the most famous maps of mid-19th century London, when it was gripped by successive outbreaks of cholera, helped reveal the cause of the deadly illness and identify the water companies responsible.</p>
<h2>Deadly supply</h2>
<p>John Snow was a <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2813%2960830-2/fulltext">renowned physician</a> who walked the streets of London during the 1854 cholera epidemic, recording the deaths in grim detail. He mapped the cases, revealing clusters around a communal water pump in Broad Street, Soho, which confirmed his theory that cholera came from dirty water. He duly <a href="https://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/snow/removal.html">removed the pump handle</a>, the outbreak in that area stopped and the rest – as they say – is history. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480087/original/file-20220819-24-rofdj1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="annotated map of Soho" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480087/original/file-20220819-24-rofdj1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480087/original/file-20220819-24-rofdj1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480087/original/file-20220819-24-rofdj1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480087/original/file-20220819-24-rofdj1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480087/original/file-20220819-24-rofdj1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480087/original/file-20220819-24-rofdj1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480087/original/file-20220819-24-rofdj1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Snow’s map showed cholera cases were clustered around a water pump.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://wellcomecollection.org/works/uxgfjt62/items">John Snow / Wellcome Collection</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At least, that’s the simple version many people are already familiar with. In fact, the story is much more complex because Snow’s theory that the cholera pathogen was waterborne was not accepted by most scientists or policymakers at the time. He needed more proof. Snow therefore devised a “<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2413309/#:%7E:text=In%20Snow's%20%E2%80%9Cgrand%20experiment%2C%E2%80%9D,a%20relatively%20unpolluted%20area%20upstream.">grand experiment</a>”, which hinged on the way different areas of London were served by different water companies. This meant he could compare one supplier against another in a kind of natural experiment. Snow knew that cases of cholera were not randomly distributed across the city. As he showed in Soho, they tended to be grouped together. So what if some water companies had more cases than others?</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480088/original/file-20220819-1510-176vis.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Shaded map of London" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480088/original/file-20220819-1510-176vis.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480088/original/file-20220819-1510-176vis.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480088/original/file-20220819-1510-176vis.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480088/original/file-20220819-1510-176vis.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480088/original/file-20220819-1510-176vis.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480088/original/file-20220819-1510-176vis.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480088/original/file-20220819-1510-176vis.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Snow’s map showed some water companies were safer than others.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://wellcomecollection.org/works/uqa27qrt/images?id=eh993559">'On the mode of communication of cholera', John Snow / Wellcome Collection</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Snow mapped out where Londoners were being supplied by the Southwark & Vauxhall Company (blue-green) and by the Lambeth Company (red, while brown areas are a mixture of both) during the same epidemic. Lambeth had recently stopped drawing its water from the Thames, which was hugely polluted at the time as it was the <a href="https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/archive/collections/photographs/the-great-stink/">main route for sewage</a> to leave London. Its customers were dying from cholera at a rate of 37 per 10,000. Meanwhile, Southwark & Vauxhall was still extracting the polluted water, and their customers were dying at a rate of 317 per 10,000. </p>
<p>This should have proved once and for all that cholera was spreading thanks to foul water supplied into Londoners’ homes. But it wasn’t emphatic enough to trigger decisive change. Worse, a <a href="https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/pdf/b24399474">government report</a> in 1856 commended the “considerable improvement which had taken place in the … supply of the water to the Metropolis”.</p>
<p>A decade later, and eight years after Snow’s death, London was suffering another cholera outbreak. The man charged with finding its cause during the summer of 1866 was <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Farr">William Farr</a>, a statistician who had criticised Snow’s ideas. Even so, Farr was struck by how concentrated the cases appeared to be in East London and his mind must have turned to Snow’s grand experiment.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480086/original/file-20220819-24-x8epqa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Annotated map of London" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480086/original/file-20220819-24-x8epqa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480086/original/file-20220819-24-x8epqa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480086/original/file-20220819-24-x8epqa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480086/original/file-20220819-24-x8epqa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480086/original/file-20220819-24-x8epqa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480086/original/file-20220819-24-x8epqa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480086/original/file-20220819-24-x8epqa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The 1866 deaths were mostly in the area served by East London Waterworks.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">William Farr / Wellcome Collection / additional annotations by James Cheshire</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By mapping the cases, Farr showed that they fitted neatly within the area served by the East London Waterworks Company. Inhabitants of the area were complaining about the quality of their water, with some even <a href="https://wellcomecollection.org/works/n43vz8sh/items?canvas=203">finding eels</a> in their pipes. A representative of the company wrote to the Times newspaper reassuring customers that “not a drop of unfiltered water has been supplied”. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480080/original/file-20220819-1510-z357im.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Old advert with text" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480080/original/file-20220819-1510-z357im.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480080/original/file-20220819-1510-z357im.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=804&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480080/original/file-20220819-1510-z357im.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=804&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480080/original/file-20220819-1510-z357im.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=804&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480080/original/file-20220819-1510-z357im.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1010&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480080/original/file-20220819-1510-z357im.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1010&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480080/original/file-20220819-1510-z357im.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1010&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Farr’s work informed public health campaigns in 1866.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://wellcomecollection.org/works/n2ykxrzm/images?id=t6fq6u6a">Wellcome Collection</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But in <a href="https://wellcomecollection.org/works/n43vz8sh/items?canvas=25">his report</a>, Farr found that in July of 1866 water levels were running low so a sluice was opened to allow homes to be supplied by stagnant water from a reservoir that the company had said was no longer in use (because the water within it had not been filtered). Farr was finally convinced that Snow had been right about the origins of cholera, and his map offered irrefutable evidence that East London Waterworks was guilty of supplying water that had caused the deaths of nearly 6,000 Londoners. It was to be London’s last cholera outbreak. </p>
<h2>The power of maps</h2>
<p>The maps of Snow and Farr were essential for guiding reforms that won better sanitary conditions in the growing city. Today, we live in an era where maps are created from data that they could only dream of, allowing us to see the national picture in real time and pinpoint who is pouring the most effluent into our streams. For the Victorians the fight for safe drinking water was a matter of life and death, but we too can use maps to make the case for a cleaner environment.</p>
<p>As I look at today’s maps of sewage discharges I can’t help but think of a letter the influential scientist Michael Faraday <a href="http://faculty.humanities.uci.edu/bjbecker/plaguesandpeople/week8d.html">wrote to the Times</a> in the summer of 1855, where he sets out his concerns about the dire state of the Thames after a boat trip along it: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I have thought it a duty to record these facts, that they may be brought to the attention of those who exercise power or have responsibility in relation to the condition of our river … If we neglect this subject, we cannot expect to do so with impunity; nor ought we to be surprised if, ‘ere many years are over, a hot season give us sad proof of the folly of our carelessness.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/189013/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Cheshire receives funding from UKRI. </span></em></p>
These maps have gone viral – here’s what they owe to 19th century cholera campaigns.
James Cheshire, Professor of Geographic Information and Cartography, UCL
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/188092
2022-08-03T20:04:11Z
2022-08-03T20:04:11Z
Where are all the ants? World-first ‘treasure map’ reveals hotspots for rare species
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477308/original/file-20220803-14-qtymxo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=20%2C0%2C3464%2C2320&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ajay Narendra</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The American biologist E.O. Wilson famously called invertebrates “the little things that run the world”. Despite their great importance, we still know very little about the worms, insects and other small creatures that make up the majority of animal species. </p>
<p>Working with researchers from around the world, we have made an important step to improve this knowledge: a high-resolution map of ant species across the globe. </p>
<p>Published today in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abp9908">Science Advances</a>, this world-first map of ant diversity also acts as a “treasure map”, highlighting likely regions rich in undiscovered species.</p>
<h2>A big part of our world</h2>
<p>Invertebrates constitute the majority of animal species and are critical for ecosystem functioning and services. Nonetheless, global invertebrate biodiversity patterns and how they relate to vertebrate biodiversity remain largely unknown.</p>
<p>Like other invertebrates, ants are important for the functioning of ecosystems. They aerate soil, disperse seeds and nutrients, scavenge, and prey on other species. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477328/original/file-20220803-1926-f1t6qf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477328/original/file-20220803-1926-f1t6qf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477328/original/file-20220803-1926-f1t6qf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477328/original/file-20220803-1926-f1t6qf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477328/original/file-20220803-1926-f1t6qf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477328/original/file-20220803-1926-f1t6qf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477328/original/file-20220803-1926-f1t6qf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477328/original/file-20220803-1926-f1t6qf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ants comprise a significant fraction of the animal biomass in most terrestrial ecosystems.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/L-1hBbNj4Ug">Prince Patel / Unsplash</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ants are hunters, farmers, harvesters, gliders, herders, weavers and carpenters. They are a big part of our world: there are more than 14,000 known species of ants, and they comprise a significant fraction of the animal biomass in most terrestrial ecosystems. </p>
<p>They are globally widespread and abundant, and their known species’ richness is comparable to birds and mammals combined. Yet we still lack a global view of their biodiversity. </p>
<h2>World-first high-resolution global diversity map of ants</h2>
<p>We used existing knowledge about biodiversity along with range modelling and machine learning to create a high-resolution (~20 km) map of the global diversity of ants and predict where undiscovered diversity is likely to exist.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477319/original/file-20220803-24-6ql8mv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477319/original/file-20220803-24-6ql8mv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477319/original/file-20220803-24-6ql8mv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477319/original/file-20220803-24-6ql8mv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477319/original/file-20220803-24-6ql8mv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477319/original/file-20220803-24-6ql8mv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477319/original/file-20220803-24-6ql8mv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477319/original/file-20220803-24-6ql8mv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mapping the diversity of ant species alongside diversity of vertebrates can help to discover and conserve precious ants.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abp9908">Kass et al., Sci Adv (2021)</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Biodiversity among ants and other invertebrates is still poorly understood. We do not have good answers to basic questions such as which areas have the most species, which areas harbour concentrations of highly localised species, and even whether a major global decline in insect biomass is under way.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-change-is-killing-off-earths-little-creatures-109719">Climate change is killing off Earth’s little creatures</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Through our research we found that, while the richness and rarity patterns of ants and vertebrate groups can show congruence, each has distinct features. This finding underscores the need to consider a diversity of taxa in conservation.</p>
<h2>The research</h2>
<p>This project began a decade ago with Benoit Guénard (then at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, now at the University of Hong Kong) and Evan Economo (currently at Harvard). They set out to create a database of occurrence records for different ant species from online repositories, museum collections and around 10,000 scientific publications. </p>
<p>Researchers around the world contributed and helped identify errors. More than 14,000 species were considered.</p>
<p>However, the vast majority of these records, while containing a description of the sampled location, did not have the precise co-ordinates needed for mapping. To address this, Kenneth Dudley from the <a href="https://groups.oist.jp/edss">Environmental Informatics Section</a> at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology created a way to estimate the co-ordinates from the available data and also check the data for errors.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477312/original/file-20220803-19-xnc0jr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A map of the world with some areas shaded." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477312/original/file-20220803-19-xnc0jr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477312/original/file-20220803-19-xnc0jr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=288&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477312/original/file-20220803-19-xnc0jr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=288&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477312/original/file-20220803-19-xnc0jr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=288&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477312/original/file-20220803-19-xnc0jr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477312/original/file-20220803-19-xnc0jr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477312/original/file-20220803-19-xnc0jr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The top 10% of areas for rare ant species around the world. Areas shaded with diagonal lines are also centres of rare vertebrates.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abp9908">Kass et al., Sci Adv (2021)</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Then Jamie Kass and research technician Fumika Azuma, also at at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, made different range estimates for each species of ant depending on how much data was available. </p>
<p>For species with less data, they constructed shapes surrounding the data points. For species with more data, the researchers predicted the distribution of each species using statistical models.</p>
<p>The researchers brought these estimates together to form a global map, divided into a grid of 20km by 20km squares. It shows an estimate of the number of ant species living in each square (called the species richness). </p>
<p>They also created a map showing the number of ant species with very small ranges in each square (called the species rarity). In general, species with small ranges are particularly vulnerable to environmental changes.</p>
<h2>Unsampled territory</h2>
<p>However, there was another problem to overcome: sampling bias.</p>
<p>Some parts of the world that we expected to have high levels of diversity were not showing up on our map, but ants in these regions were not well studied.</p>
<p>Other areas were extremely well sampled, for example, parts of the USA and Europe. This difference in sampling can impact our estimates of global diversity.</p>
<p>So, we used machine learning to predict how the diversity would change if we sampled all areas around the world equally. In this process, we identified areas where we think many unknown, unsampled species exist.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-change-triggering-global-collapse-in-insect-numbers-stressed-farmland-shows-63-decline-new-research-170738">Climate change triggering global collapse in insect numbers: stressed farmland shows 63% decline – new research</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This gives us a kind of “treasure map”, which can guide us to where we should explore next and look for new species with restricted ranges. Within Australia, high levels of ant biodiversity are found along the east, north-western and south-western coasts.</p>
<p>Finally, we looked at how well-protected these areas of high ant diversity are.</p>
<p>We found it was a low percentage – only 15% of the top 10% of ant rarity centres had some sort of legal protection, such as a national park or reserve, which is less than existing protection for vertebrates.</p>
<p>Clearly, we have a lot of work to do to protect these critical areas.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188092/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon Robson receives funding from The Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>
A new map of more than 14,000 ant species around the world will guide efforts for discovery and conservation.
Simon KA Robson, Professor, CQUniversity Australia
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/179069
2022-03-21T12:13:04Z
2022-03-21T12:13:04Z
Maps show – and hide – key information about Ukraine war
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452890/original/file-20220317-13-hh77h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1533%2C463%2C1682%2C1451&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Maps contain useful information, but that means leaving out other information that is also useful.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Russia-Ukraine-Invasion/3aff5f26d9704dd7be89fc2c174c6b4b/photo">Associated Press</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>“All maps are lies,” my colleague, <a href="https://geography.richmond.edu/faculty/dsalisbu/">geographer David Salisbury</a>, says.</p>
<p>He’s right. All maps are inherently incomplete, focusing on certain subjects and areas to the exclusion of others. These are crucial aspects of rhetoric, the field I study. Every map distorts the world, whether it’s of a local area or the whole Earth. No map can do otherwise, except a map exactly as large as the territory it depicts – though as the author Jorge Luis Borges famously pointed out, <a href="https://genius.com/Jorge-luis-borges-on-exactitude-in-science-annotated">that map would be useless</a>.</p>
<p>But maps’ lies can be productive. Maps can simplify the world and make it more easily comprehensible.</p>
<p>Geographers often speak in terms of what they call the “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1151014">silences</a>” of maps – what’s missing and unseen, hidden in the margins. Those silences are just as meaningful as what’s on the page. It’s important to ask what has been left out.</p>
<p>That’s certainly true when looking at maps depicting aspects of Russia’s war on Ukraine. News organizations around the world have published many maps of the crisis, but their standard views are not the only way maps can help people understand what is happening in Ukraine.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452887/original/file-20220317-13-tpsvmi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A map of Ukraine with arrows showing Russian forces' advances" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452887/original/file-20220317-13-tpsvmi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452887/original/file-20220317-13-tpsvmi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452887/original/file-20220317-13-tpsvmi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452887/original/file-20220317-13-tpsvmi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452887/original/file-20220317-13-tpsvmi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452887/original/file-20220317-13-tpsvmi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452887/original/file-20220317-13-tpsvmi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Maps like this one from The Washington Post can signal an inevitability of Russian advancement and make a chaotic conflict seem orderly and organized.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/03/02/ukraine-russia-war-timeline-photos-videos-maps/#feb-26">Washington Post</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Surrounded</h2>
<p>Most typical news maps show Ukraine as an encircled and embattled nation.</p>
<p>Even without other markings, Ukraine appears small, with <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60506682">Russia looming over it</a> from the north and east. Once <a href="https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2022/03/15/the-war-in-ukraine-explained-in-maps">annotated with arrows</a> showing the general directions of invasion forces, icons showing specific attacks, and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/24/europe/ukraine-visual-explainer-maps/index.html">dots highlighting Ukrainian nuclear plants and other strategic targets</a>, these maps can signal an inevitability of Russian advancement. They also tend to exaggerate the idea that it’s a coordinated, controlled assault – when, of course, war is famously chaotic.</p>
<p>These maps don’t show the topography of Ukraine or its road network. They mostly show political borders crossed by lines and arrows representing the movements of Russian soldiers, part of the <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/ukraine-russia-military-comparison-1.6365115">second-most-powerful military</a> in the world.</p>
<p>Ukraine appears on these maps as a puzzle piece amid the rest of the puzzle of Europe, a shape at the center surrounded by small pieces of surrounding nations. It could be an open container waiting to be filled with chaos, or one that is spilling chaos into the rest of Europe.</p>
<p>These maps do not often show the location or strength of <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-weapons-get-to-ukraine-and-whats-needed-to-protect-vulnerable-supply-chains-179285">Ukrainian resistance</a>. Nor do they depict the <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukrainian-refugees-are-welcomed-with-open-arms-not-so-with-people-fleeing-other-war-torn-countries-178491">complex flow of refugees</a> fleeing the fighting, which is usually either simplified or left out altogether.</p>
<p>The everyday experiences of civilians on the ground in this war remain elusive in these maps. The maps appear to be authoritative and absolute, but the reality is much messier and uncertain.</p>
<p>This is not a critique of mapmakers who are depicting the war on Ukraine. Their work has often been productive and insightful, helpfully simplifying an incredibly complicated situation into one or two clear statements. They use a familiar mapping style, one that came into its own during World War II. Maps in the media were portrayed as documents that could help everyday citizens connect with the war. President Franklin Roosevelt even asked Americans to “<a href="https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/fireside-chat-6">look at your map</a>” as he spoke over the radio about fighting in Europe and the Pacific. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453102/original/file-20220318-10592-16vu46x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black-and-white map of the world with key locations marked, such as Berlin and Japan." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453102/original/file-20220318-10592-16vu46x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453102/original/file-20220318-10592-16vu46x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453102/original/file-20220318-10592-16vu46x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453102/original/file-20220318-10592-16vu46x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453102/original/file-20220318-10592-16vu46x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453102/original/file-20220318-10592-16vu46x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453102/original/file-20220318-10592-16vu46x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Newspapers in the U.S. printed this map for readers to refer to when listening to President Franklin D. Roosevelt on the radio.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.incendiarytraces.org/articles/2015/9/10/imagining-global-war-popular-cartography-during-world-war-ii">Los Angeles Times, Feb. 23, 1942.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The <a href="https://scholarship.richmond.edu/rhetoric-faculty-publications/16/">news maps</a> of that time projected the anxiety and vulnerability of strategic areas for the United States and their allies. They signaled directly that U.S. involvement was necessary. As the Cold War emerged, and maps shifted their anxiety toward the Soviet Union, the simplicity and directness of many maps sought to sound the alarm about Soviet encroachment into the heart of Europe, and communist threats in Asia and Africa.</p>
<p>The maps of the war in Ukraine are often more sophisticated and sometimes interactive, but they still carry the alarm of inevitable Russian advancement and project the familiar concept of the battle between East and West.</p>
<h2>Multiple perspectives</h2>
<p>There are, of course, other ways to map this war. Some global news outlets are presenting a series of maps, rather than just one. <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/24/mapping-russian-attacks-across-ukraine-interactive">Al Jazeera</a>, <a href="https://graphics.reuters.com/UKRAINE-CRISIS/zdpxokdxzvx/">Reuters’ graphics division</a> and the <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/4351d5b0-0888-4b47-9368-6bc4dfbccbf5">Financial Times</a> offer prime examples of putting a series of maps into conversation with one another and creating a kind of narrative of the war – for example, putting maps of NATO members alongside maps of oil and gas resources, while still portraying the essential military advancements.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452889/original/file-20220317-23-uwe70q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two maps showing various aspects of Ukraine" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452889/original/file-20220317-23-uwe70q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452889/original/file-20220317-23-uwe70q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452889/original/file-20220317-23-uwe70q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452889/original/file-20220317-23-uwe70q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452889/original/file-20220317-23-uwe70q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452889/original/file-20220317-23-uwe70q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452889/original/file-20220317-23-uwe70q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Showing more than one map can help people understand different aspects of the issues at hand.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/24/mapping-russian-attacks-across-ukraine-interactive">Al Jazeera</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Specific approaches</h2>
<p>Groups other than news outlets are showing additional ways to use maps. The Centre for Information Resilience, a U.K. nonprofit seeking to expose human rights abuses, is using <a href="https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2022/02/27/follow-the-russia-ukraine-monitor-map/">crowdsourcing technologies to populate maps</a> of Russia’s war on Ukraine with civilian casualties, incidents of gunfire and explosions, and evidence of damage to infrastructure. That method gives readers themselves a chance to choose where and what they want to see of the invasion.</p>
<iframe width="100%" height="576" src="https://maphub.net/embed/176607?panel=1&panel_closed=1" frameborder="0" scrolling="yes" class="iframe-class"></iframe>
<figure><figcaption><span class="caption">Maps like this “Russia-Ukraine Monitor Map” from the Centre for Information Resilience offer alternative and interactive ways to understand the war.</span></figcaption></figure>
<p>The <a href="https://liveuamap.com">Live Universal Awareness Map</a> is an independent journalism site that draws on news stories and social media from all over the world and connects them to an interactive online map. Its Ukraine map shows where reported incidents occur, with colored icons showing who is reportedly involved at each location. The icons represent many types of events, including speeches and rallies, refugees and hostage situations, and even computer hacking.</p>
<p>These alternatives to the more standard news maps of war also have their benefits and drawbacks. Maps like the Live Universal Awareness Map rely on crowdsourced data that might be tricky to verify. But more importantly, they point out that mapmaking is a political and cultural effort that creates compelling and useful stories – even if not necessarily unvarnished truth. A critical eye and a sense of context can go a long way toward keeping the lies of maps productive.</p>
<p>[<em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/179069/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Timothy Barney does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Geographers often talk about the ‘silences’ of maps – what’s missing and unseen. Those silences can be as meaningful as what’s shown.
Timothy Barney, Associate Professor of Rhetoric & Communication Studies, University of Richmond
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/177069
2022-03-02T19:07:23Z
2022-03-02T19:07:23Z
A tale of subterfuge, rivalry, Napoleon and snakes: how the NSW State Library came to own the map of Abel Tasman’s voyages
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447446/original/file-20220221-25-1d630v3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=44%2C0%2C9940%2C7694&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">State Library New South Wales</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Every year, tens of thousands of New South Wales State Library patrons walk past a stunning mosaic replica of the Tasman Map on the floor of the Mitchell library vestibule. The original Tasman map, <a href="https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/stories/tasman-map/conserving-tasman-map">recently restored</a>, charts the two voyages of the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman in 1642 and 1644.</p>
<p>The map is perhaps the Mitchell Library’s greatest treasure, though we know little about the time, place, or artist responsible for it. </p>
<p>Yet as we discuss in a new paper, its acquisition by the Mitchell library is a story of subterfuge, intrigue, personal animosities and state-versus-commonwealth rivalries.</p>
<p>The Tasman Map was probably made in the mid- to late-1600s in Batavia (now known as Jakarta), home of the Dutch East India Company, on Japanese paper. </p>
<p>It was most likely compiled by <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Tasman_s_kaart_van_zijn_Australische_ont.html?id=-eepzQEACAAJ&redir_esc=y">a team of draftsmen</a> from a range of charts from Tasman’s two voyages. One of the artists was almost certainly Isaack Gilsemans, draftsman on the voyage. </p>
<p>Mystery shrouds the map’s whereabouts from the 17th century until 1843, when Amsterdam mapmaker Jacob Swart <a href="https://www.raremaps.com/gallery/detail/22391/kaart-van-de-reizen-van-abel-jansz-tasman-gedaan-in-1642-en-van-keulen">described and reproduced it</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447454/original/file-20220221-20-1dam5x2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447454/original/file-20220221-20-1dam5x2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447454/original/file-20220221-20-1dam5x2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447454/original/file-20220221-20-1dam5x2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447454/original/file-20220221-20-1dam5x2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447454/original/file-20220221-20-1dam5x2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447454/original/file-20220221-20-1dam5x2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447454/original/file-20220221-20-1dam5x2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jacob Swart’s reproduction of the Tasman Map, c.1860.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1891 the original 17th century map was <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=LZBJAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA67&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=2#v=onepage&q=tasman&f=false">listed for sale</a> by Frederick Muller & Co. An interested group headed by historian George Collingridge tried unsuccessfully to persuade the NSW government to purchase it. </p>
<p>Instead, the map was purchased by Prince Roland Bonaparte, great-nephew of Napoleon, and an anthropologist with a great interest in Australia. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-early-australian-settlers-drew-maps-to-erase-indigenous-people-and-push-ideas-of-colonial-superiority-161097">How early Australian settlers drew maps to erase Indigenous people and push ideas of colonial superiority</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The princely promise</h2>
<p>In March 1899, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Vere_Barclay">Henry Vere Barclay</a> – a failed pastoralist, explorer and raconteur – gave a talk at the Imperial Institute in London where he announced Prince Roland had promised the Tasman map would be bequeathed to the Australian Commonwealth Government. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447455/original/file-20220221-14-rlskx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Newspaper reads: Tasman's map of Australia to be given to the Australian Commonwealth." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447455/original/file-20220221-14-rlskx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447455/original/file-20220221-14-rlskx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=869&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447455/original/file-20220221-14-rlskx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=869&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447455/original/file-20220221-14-rlskx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=869&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447455/original/file-20220221-14-rlskx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1092&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447455/original/file-20220221-14-rlskx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1092&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447455/original/file-20220221-14-rlskx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1092&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">News of the map, reported in the Argus.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Library of Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Within days, headlines declaring Prince Roland’s intended gift of the map to the Commonwealth of Australia had appeared in <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/search/advanced/category/newspapers?keyword=tasman%20map&l-decade=189&l-artType=newspapers&l-year=1899&l-month=3">at least 44</a> Australian and New Zealand newspapers. </p>
<p>The prince’s intention to bequeath the map was confirmed in 1904 by James Park Thomson, president of the Royal Geographical Society of Queensland. </p>
<p>After viewing the map in Paris, Thomson wrote in his memoir, Round the World, of how the prince believed the map would be “of the greatest interest and use to the Commonwealth.” </p>
<p>Also reported by Thomson was how the prince wanted to hand the map to the Commonwealth government in person – but he was terrified of snakes and disliked rabbits which “seemed to overrun the place”. </p>
<p>Murmurings about the Tasman map fell silent for two decades and only emerged again after the prince’s death in 1924.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/putting-australia-on-the-map-29816">Putting 'Australia' on the map </a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>A clandestine operation</h2>
<p>In 1926, anthropologist <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daisy_Bates_(author)">Daisy Bates</a> read Thomson’s book, noting the reference to Prince Roland’s intended bequest. </p>
<p>Knowing the prince had recently died, she wrote to an acquaintance, William Ifould, asking him to enquire of the prince’s estate and the status of the map. </p>
<p>As chief librarian of the NSW Public Library, Ifould immediately began a clandestine operation to bring the Tasman Map to Australia. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447459/original/file-20220221-19-16v0olm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447459/original/file-20220221-19-16v0olm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447459/original/file-20220221-19-16v0olm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447459/original/file-20220221-19-16v0olm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447459/original/file-20220221-19-16v0olm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447459/original/file-20220221-19-16v0olm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447459/original/file-20220221-19-16v0olm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447459/original/file-20220221-19-16v0olm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Mitchell Library photographed in 1923.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">State Library New South Wales</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is clear from his earliest communications, when he warned his agent not to let the map come to the attention of Prime Minister Stanley Bruce, that Ifould was consumed by a singular goal: to acquire the map for NSW before anyone from the Commonwealth government remembered the prince’s promise. </p>
<p>Ifould’s chief personal nemesis was Kenneth Binns, librarian of the Commonwealth National Library, but Ifould also held an abiding antipathy for the Commonwealth itself. </p>
<p>In the earliest days of the scramble for the map, the Commonwealth Library’s collection was yet to have a permanent home, with the national capital of Canberra still in the early planning stages. Binns was based in Melbourne, then the seat of the national parliament, and this played into a rivalry between Sydney and Melbourne.</p>
<p>The Tasman Map was in the possession of Princess Marie Bonaparte, who was aware of her father’s desire to bestow it upon the Australian nation. Her husband Prince George wanted to travel to Australia and present the map himself. </p>
<p>This created concern for Ifould and the Mitchell Library, who were worried they might accidentally present it to the prime minister instead of the Mitchell Library. </p>
<p>Princess Marie clearly considered the map belonged to the Australian Commonwealth. </p>
<p>Ifould and his conspirators – including a succession of British ambassadors and NSW agents-general – ignored this. As one agent-general advised the NSW premier: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>it is probable that she does not mean to say the Map will go to the Commonwealth Government, and that the use of the words ‘Government of Australia’ has no particular significance.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In May 1932 came the breakthrough Ifould had been waiting for: Prince George postponed his trip again, and Princess Marie agreed to hand the map to the Paris-based Australian Trade Commissioner. </p>
<p>Ifould’s seven-year clandestine operation, came to fruition when the map, now known as the Bonaparte-Tasman Map, arrived in Australia to <a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article17003798">great fanfare</a> in September 1933.</p>
<h2>A global map; a local rivalry</h2>
<p>Absent from any version of the story over the past 90 years is admission of knowledge of Prince Roland’s wish, expressed multiple times, for the map to go to the Commonwealth. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447457/original/file-20220221-25-192j46l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447457/original/file-20220221-25-192j46l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447457/original/file-20220221-25-192j46l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447457/original/file-20220221-25-192j46l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447457/original/file-20220221-25-192j46l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447457/original/file-20220221-25-192j46l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447457/original/file-20220221-25-192j46l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447457/original/file-20220221-25-192j46l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The mosaic reproduction of the Tasman Map, photographed in 1934.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">State Library of New South Wales</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The role of Barclay’s 1899 anecdote, and its publication around the country, was eradicated. This allowed the map falling into the Mitchell’s hands to be characterised as a happy coincidence, and not the result of scheming and subterfuge.</p>
<p>The Tasman Map, as it is commonly viewed today, is a mosaic reproduction by Italian artisans, of a Dutch map, on Japanese paper, depicting Antipodean coastlines, representing east Asian dominance, donated by a French aristocrat, intended for the Australian Commonwealth, but wrested by a state institution obsessed with inter-library rivalry. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>This research will be discussed at the NSW State Library’s <a href="https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/events/mapping-pacific-conference-2">Mapping the Pacific conference</a> on March 3 2022.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/177069/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lynette Russell receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Leonie Stevens is employed as a Research Fellow on the Australian Research Council-funded Global Encounters Laureate project.. </span></em></p>
The Tasman map, dating from the 1600s, was promised to the Commonwealth – but NSW got it instead. Here’s how it happened.
Lynette Russell, ARC Laureate Fellow, Monash University, and Deputy Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Monash University
Leonie Stevens, Research Fellow, Monash University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/172106
2021-11-29T16:48:37Z
2021-11-29T16:48:37Z
What maps made by 20th century suffragists can teach us about holding leaders to account on climate change
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434445/original/file-20211129-19-11sily9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1024%2C768&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The women's suffrage movement was one of the most successful political movements in history.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://picryl.com/media/suffragists-protest-woodrow-wilsons-opposition-to-woman-suffrage-october-1916">Picryl</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>I’m a geographer who’s produced <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/01/atlas-of-the-invisible-using-data-reveal-climate-crisis">many maps</a> depicting human effects on the environment – and <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-eye-catching-graphics-are-vital-for-getting-to-grips-with-climate-change-165983">demanded</a> we create more of them. A question I am increasingly asked is: how do you not feel powerless in the face of such depressing data? </p>
<p>With climate anxiety now affecting young people’s <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02582-8">mental health</a>, and widespread doubt about whether limiting global warming to <a href="https://theconversation.com/ipcc-says-earth-will-reach-temperature-rise-of-about-1-5-in-around-a-decade-but-limiting-any-global-warming-is-what-matters-most-165397#">1.5°C</a> is possible, it can be tricky to answer. What I’ve found is that we can use a surprisingly commonplace tool to communicate danger and to bring about positive change: the map.</p>
<p>Throughout history, it has generally been society’s elites who have used maps to exploit, not help, the planet and its people. They’ve used them to <a href="https://collections.leventhalmap.org/search/commonwealth:4m90fc35x">pinpoint oil reserves</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Conference">carve up continents</a> and <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/powells-photos/4/">justify wars</a>. But maps can also be used to empower and defend those who face seemingly insurmountable obstacles. </p>
<p>Over a century ago, the women’s suffrage movement developed one of the largest ever <a href="https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1017&context=geoggeolfacpub">map-based campaigns</a>, spanning decades and continents, as part of its drive to give women the vote. We need to use their principles if we are to persuade leaders not just to deliver but to improve upon the promises made at the recent UN climate conference <a href="https://theconversation.com/glasgow-climate-pact-where-do-all-the-words-and-numbers-we-heard-at-cop26-leave-us-171704">COP26</a>. </p>
<h2>What the Suffragists did</h2>
<p>Suffragists used maps <a href="https://www.loc.gov/resource/rbcmil.scrp4005301/?st=text">to celebrate</a> jurisdictions across the world that had given women the vote – and to shame those that had not. They reasoned that the action of some policymakers would highlight the inaction of others, betraying the most misogynist politicians and their supporters. </p>
<p>American suffrage maps with the headline “<a href="https://www.visitthecapitol.gov/exhibitions/artifact/map-votes-women-success-map-proves-it-ca-1914">Votes for Women a Success</a>” showed the US states that had granted women the right to vote. To challenge those with backward views, some versions of the map were also adorned with provocative statements such as “How long will the republic of the United States lag behind the monarchy of Canada?”</p>
<p>In 1930s Europe, where France was still withholding votes for women, suffrage campaigns <a href="https://bibliotheques-specialisees.paris.fr/ark:/73873/pf0000940475/v0001.simple.selectedTab=record">published maps</a> showing the country’s outdated approach to democracy in contrast to its neighbours such as Belgium, under the banner “French women can’t vote! French women want to vote!”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A map showing states where women had been granted the vote" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434420/original/file-20211129-17-syy0h0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434420/original/file-20211129-17-syy0h0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=833&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434420/original/file-20211129-17-syy0h0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=833&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434420/original/file-20211129-17-syy0h0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=833&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434420/original/file-20211129-17-syy0h0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1047&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434420/original/file-20211129-17-syy0h0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1047&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434420/original/file-20211129-17-syy0h0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1047&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Maps provide a powerful tool for demonstrating inequality.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vculibraries/24941542555">VCULibraries/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Suffrage maps were plastered on walls, hung across streets, paraded on sandwich boards, printed in newspapers and even used to <a href="https://www.archives.gov/files/legislative/resources/education/womens-petitions-to-congress/primary-source-sheets.pdf">petition</a> the US Congress.</p>
<p>Geographer <a href="https://www.unomaha.edu/college-of-arts-and-sciences/geography/about-us/directory/christina-dando.php">Christina E. Dando</a> has pointed out how American suffragists’ work was not just focused on creating maps, but changing them. For example, the map below was submitted by the Nevada Women’s Civic League to the US <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_Committee_on_the_Judiciary">judiciary committee</a>, which was resisting granting women the right to vote nationwide. As the catalogue entry for the map <a href="https://catalog.archives.gov/id/169820371">tells us</a>, “this petition shows that women were not just lobbying Congress in general, but strategically pressuring committees to act”. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="dddd" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434423/original/file-20211129-59855-ng7ejp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434423/original/file-20211129-59855-ng7ejp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=717&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434423/original/file-20211129-59855-ng7ejp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=717&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434423/original/file-20211129-59855-ng7ejp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=717&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434423/original/file-20211129-59855-ng7ejp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434423/original/file-20211129-59855-ng7ejp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434423/original/file-20211129-59855-ng7ejp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Maps were central to political lobbying.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://catalog.archives.gov/id/169820371">National Archives Catalog</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the US, the <a href="https://www.archives.gov/historical-docs/19th-amendment#:%7E:text=Passed%20by%20Congress%20June%204,decades%20of%20agitation%20and%20protest.">19th amendment</a> guaranteeing all women the right to vote <a href="https://www.archives.gov/historical-docs/19th-amendment">was ratified</a> in August 1920. But the fight for equal access to the ballot box was far from over. </p>
<p>Racist voter suppression policies were enacted in many states against women of colour, who were themselves <a href="https://catalog.archives.gov/id/149268727">creating maps</a> to campaign against the horrors of lynching. It was only after the <a href="https://naacp.org/find-resources/history-explained/legislative-milestones/voting-rights-act-1965">Voting Rights Act</a> was passed nearly 50 years later, on August 6 1965, that such policies were outlawed. Even today, maps <a href="https://www.aclu.org/news/voting-rights/alabamas-new-electoral-lines-are-racially-gerrymandered-heres-why">remain a weapon</a> in the continuing fight to achieve fair racial representation in some US states.</p>
<h2>Modern maps</h2>
<p>In the past, creating maps to counter the status quo – or indeed creating pretty much any map at all – would have required significant design expertise, a lot of manual effort and the financial means to print and promote it. </p>
<p>Today, these challenges can be overcome more easily. The majority of sites and social media platforms are free, do not conform to national borders, and are out of government reach. That means that images that hold those in power to account can spread more freely. So it’s time to use maps to challenge the greatest social and political crisis of our time: the destruction of our planet’s environment.</p>
<p>Take a look at this map of nitrogen dioxide – a gas released into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels – from a hot July day across Europe in 2019 (click to make it bigger). High levels <a href="https://www.lung.org/clean-air/outdoors/what-makes-air-unhealthy/nitrogen-dioxide">can damage</a> health, create <a href="https://www.epa.gov/acidrain/what-acid-rain">acid rain</a> and contribute to the <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24234471/">greenhouse effect</a>. Although the map shows gas moving around, it’s clearly concentrated in certain areas. There’s a big cloud caused by shipping in Marseille and spots marking industrial plants around Dusseldorf.</p>
<p><strong>Map of nitrogen dioxide concentration</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434417/original/file-20211129-17-11869dc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="AAA" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434417/original/file-20211129-17-11869dc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434417/original/file-20211129-17-11869dc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434417/original/file-20211129-17-11869dc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434417/original/file-20211129-17-11869dc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434417/original/file-20211129-17-11869dc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434417/original/file-20211129-17-11869dc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434417/original/file-20211129-17-11869dc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">High nitrogen dioxide concentration is shown in yellow and red colours.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.atlasoftheinvisible.com/">Atlas Of The Invisible</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Rather than view this as purely an image of scientific interest, we should see it as a call to action. Living beneath the swirls of nitrogen dioxide are policymakers who can design tougher legislation, such as introducing <a href="https://theconversation.com/londons-ultra-low-emission-zone-will-it-make-the-city-healthier-114942">low emission zones</a>, to erase the yellow marks from this map.</p>
<p>The battle for women’s equality is clearly not over, but the idea that at least half the adult population should be legally deprived of a vote is now unconscionable in all but the most extreme jurisdictions. Maps created for women, by women, helped make this so. Now, let’s unleash the political power of maps to ensure that a failure to act on the environment becomes unconscionable too.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/172106/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Cheshire receives funding from the ESRC. </span></em></p>
Women’s rights activists used maps to highlight which regions hadn’t given women the vote: we can use the same tactics to push climate action.
James Cheshire, Professor of Geographic Information and Cartography, UCL
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/170004
2021-10-18T17:59:48Z
2021-10-18T17:59:48Z
Cellphone data shows that people navigate by keeping their destinations in front of them – even when that’s not the most efficient route
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426999/original/file-20211018-15-f3h7ln.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C1768%2C3264%2C2047&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">People navigate cities in much the same way animals navigate their environments.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/Gi-3tv4fiiM">Max Böhme/Unsplash</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Think of your morning walk to work, school or your favorite coffee shop. Are you taking the shortest possible route to your destination? According to big data research that my colleagues and I conducted, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s43588-021-00130-y">the answer is no</a>: People’s brains are not wired for optimal navigation. </p>
<p>Instead of calculating the shortest path, people try to point straight toward their destinations – we call it the “pointiest path” – even if it is not the most efficient way to walk. </p>
<p>As a researcher who <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=UF2gBtMAAAAJ&hl=en">studies urban environments and human behavior</a>, I have always been interested in how people experience cities, and how studying this can tell researchers something about human nature and how we’ve evolved.</p>
<h2>Chasing down a hunch</h2>
<p>Long before I could run an experiment, I had a hunch. Twenty years ago, I was a student at the University of Cambridge, and I realized that the path I followed between my bedroom at Darwin College and my department on Chaucer Road was, in fact, two different paths. On the way to Chaucer, I would take one set of turns. On the way back home, another. </p>
<p>Surely one route was more efficient than the other, but I had drifted into adapting two, one for each direction. I was consistently inconsistent, a small but frustrating realization for a student devoting his life to rational thinking. Was it just me or were my fellow classmates – and my fellow humans – doing the same?</p>
<p>Around 10 years ago, I found tools that could help answer my question. At the <a href="https://senseable.mit.edu/">Senseable City Lab</a> at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, we were pioneering the science of understanding cities by analyzing big data, and in particular digital traces from cellphones. Studying human mobility, we noticed that, on the whole, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.4304/jait.2.4.239-249">people’s routes were not conservative</a>, meaning they did not preserve the same path from A to B as the opposite direction, from B to A.</p>
<p>However, the technology and analytical methods of that time prevented us from learning more – in 2011, we could not reliably tell a pedestrian apart from a car. We were close, but still a few technological steps short of tackling the enigma of human navigation in cities.</p>
<h2>Big cities, big data</h2>
<p>Today, thanks to access to data sets of unparalleled size and accuracy, we can go further. Every day, everyone’s smartphones and apps collect thousands of data points. Collaborating with colleagues at the MIT Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and other international scholars, we <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s43588-021-00130-y">analyzed a massive database of anonymized pedestrian movement patterns</a> in San Francisco and Boston. Our results consider questions that my young self at Cambridge didn’t know to ask.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426973/original/file-20211018-17-jh8hje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two city maps stacked vertically with paths along city streets marked in varying levels of intensity" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426973/original/file-20211018-17-jh8hje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426973/original/file-20211018-17-jh8hje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=724&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426973/original/file-20211018-17-jh8hje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=724&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426973/original/file-20211018-17-jh8hje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=724&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426973/original/file-20211018-17-jh8hje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=910&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426973/original/file-20211018-17-jh8hje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=910&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426973/original/file-20211018-17-jh8hje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=910&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The paths people take are recorded by their cellphones. Anonymous data from thousands of phones shows the paths people take in Boston (above) and San Francisco (below).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Carlo Ratti</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After we analyzed pedestrian movement, it became clear that I am not the only one who navigates this way: Human beings are not optimal navigators. After accounting for possible interference from people letting Google Maps choose their path for them, our analysis of our big data sets fueled several interconnected discoveries.</p>
<p>First, human beings consistently deviate from the shortest possible path, and our deviations increase over longer distances. This finding probably seems intuitive. Previous research has already shown how <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2015.01.006">people rely on landmarks and miscalculate the lengths of streets</a>. </p>
<p>Our study was able to go a step further by developing a model with the capability to accurately predict the slightly irrational paths that we found in our data. We discovered that the most predictive model – representing the most common mode of city navigation – was not the quickest path, but instead one that tried to minimize the angle between the direction a person is moving and the line from the person to their destination.</p>
<p>This finding appears to be consistent across different cities. We found evidence of walkers attempting to minimize this angle in both the famously convoluted streets of Boston and the orderly grid of San Francisco. Scientists have recorded <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2017.01.061">similar behaviors in animals</a>, which are described in the research literature as vector-based navigation. Perhaps the entire animal kingdom shares the idiosyncratic tendencies that confused me on my walk to work.</p>
<h2>Evolution: From savannas to smartphones</h2>
<p>Why might everyone travel this way? It’s possible that the desire to point in the right direction is a legacy of evolution. In the savanna, calculating the shortest route and pointing straight at the target would have led to very similar outcomes. It is only today that the strictures of urban life – traffic, crowds and looping streets – have made it more obvious that people’s shorthand is not quite optimal. </p>
<p>Still, vector-based navigation may have its charms. Evolution is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1217405">a story of trade-offs</a>, not optimizations, and the cognitive load of calculating a perfect path rather than relying on the simpler pointing method might not be worth a few saved minutes. After all, early humans had to preserve brain power for dodging stampeding elephants, just like people today might need to focus on avoiding aggressive SUVs. This imperfect system has been good enough for untold generations.</p>
<p>However, people are no longer walking, or even thinking, alone. They are increasingly wedded to digital technologies, to the point that phones represent extensions of their bodies. Some have argued that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-3803-7_4">humans are becoming cyborgs</a>. </p>
<p>This experiment reminds us of the catch: Technological prostheses do not think like their creators. Computers are perfectly rational. They do exactly what code tells them to do. Brains, on the other hand, achieve a “<a href="https://dictionary.apa.org/bounded-rationality">bounded rationality</a>” of “good enoughs” and necessary compromises. As these two distinct entities become increasingly entangled and collide – on Google Maps, Facebook or a self-driving car – it’s important to remember how they are different from each other.</p>
<p>Looking back on my university days, it is a sobering thought that humanity’s biological source code remains much more similar to that of a rat in the street than that of the computers in our pockets. The more people become wedded to technology, the more important it becomes to make technologies that accommodate human irrationalities and idiosyncrasies.</p>
<p>[<em>The Conversation’s science, health and technology editors pick their favorite stories.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/science-editors-picks-71/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=science-favorite">Weekly on Wednesdays</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/170004/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carlo Ratti receives funding from various public and private organizations as detailed on the MIT Senseable City Lab website. He is a co-chair of the World Economic Forum Global Future Council on Cities and contributes regularly to other non-profit institutions.</span></em></p>
As you’re walking through city streets on your way to work, school or appointments, you probably feel like you’re taking the most efficient route. Thanks to evolution, you’re probably not.
Carlo Ratti, Professor of Urban Technologies and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/157658
2021-05-27T12:05:47Z
2021-05-27T12:05:47Z
Teachers in South Central LA who had personal ties to the neighborhood made better connections with students
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401406/original/file-20210518-15-f70603.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C7%2C4692%2C2914&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A demonstrator writes a message in chalk at the corner of Florence and Normandy avenues in Los Angeles.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/demonstrator-writes-a-message-in-chalk-as-fellow-news-photo/1232436702">Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/research-brief-83231">Research Brief</a> is a short take about interesting academic work.</em></p>
<h2>The big idea</h2>
<p>One way to examine a teacher’s personal connection to their students’ community is to ask them to create a hand-drawn map, based on memory, of the neighborhood where they teach. My study found that teachers whose maps represented personal ties to the community, including local businesses or cultural spaces, were observed to be more skilled at making connections to the everyday experiences of their students. </p>
<p>This supports previous research that shows the more connected teachers are to their students’ neighborhoods, the more authentically they can <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00405849209543534">incorporate local resources, history and concerns</a> into their classroom teaching. For example, they might incorporate interviews with students’ families into an English unit on immigration stories, or have geometry students design a ramp for elders with wheelchairs.</p>
<p>As a Ph.D. candidate studying <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=A91gWN0AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">how racism and inequality impact schools</a>, I examined how a teacher’s connection to their school’s neighborhood influences their teaching. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085921995235">My research</a> at a public high school in South Central Los Angeles combined classroom observations and interviews with teachers with the aforementioned maps.</p>
<p>All teachers in the study were dedicated to their craft and integrated best practices of a teaching approach known as “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/15210960.2013.75428">culturally relevant education</a>,” which emphasizes social justice values and respect for student cultures. For example, culturally relevant education might involve encouraging students to discuss the changing community immigration patterns in class or having students <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1090198118769357">conduct their own research</a> on why particular groups were drawn to live in their community. </p>
<p>Still, I observed that teachers who were “in the know” made stronger links to students’ communities in their lessons. </p>
<p>For example, a teacher I’ll call Nicole created a detailed map with purple hearts representing places she felt at home – such as her elementary school and the home of extended family – and red drops where shootings had occurred.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397651/original/file-20210428-23-12wawhv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397651/original/file-20210428-23-12wawhv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397651/original/file-20210428-23-12wawhv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397651/original/file-20210428-23-12wawhv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397651/original/file-20210428-23-12wawhv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397651/original/file-20210428-23-12wawhv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397651/original/file-20210428-23-12wawhv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nicole’s mental map of South Central Los Angeles.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I often observed Nicole’s intimate understanding of the community seep into her English lessons. For example, while teaching “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,” <a href="https://www.littlebrownlibrary.com/books/the-absolutely-true-diary-of-a-part-time-indian/">a novel</a> by Sherman Alexie, Nicole pushed her students to personally connect with the text. “Many [Indigenous folks] don’t leave their reservation, the community,” she said. “For us that would be South LA.” </p>
<p>Nicole’s impact on her students was evident in the quality of classroom discussions and student writing that I observed.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, another teacher I observed, whose map revealed much less familiarity and engagement with the community, was unaware of <a href="https://www.kcet.org/history-society/the-name-game-south-l-a-or-sola-its-still-south-central">the controversy</a> around attempts to rebrand South Central as SOLA, short for South Los Angeles – a move deemed by local residents as furthering the area’s gentrification. Therefore her lessons on racism in urban communities failed to make this local connection.</p>
<h2>Why it matters</h2>
<p>Due to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11256-020-00565-z">teacher shortages</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0031721720909593">systemic underfunding</a> of classroom and school-wide resources, urban schools often struggle to provide the quality of culturally relevant education present in Nicole’s classroom. </p>
<p>Culturally relevant education has been linked to many <a href="https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654315582066">positive academic outcomes</a>, including gains in literacy, math and English language test scores. The same research has also shown that when youth feel engaged in classroom lessons, they score higher on tests and other assignments.</p>
<h2>What still isn’t known</h2>
<p>Given that culturally relevant education seeks to empower students to think critically about the assets and challenges present in their communities, its effectiveness is not easily captured on standardized tests. More research is needed to examine its long-term impacts. Without this evidence, schools and districts <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085911431472">may not fully invest</a> in implementing it. </p>
<p>More research is also needed on teacher preparation programs that cultivate community connectedness in future teachers. Ball State University’s <a href="https://www.bsu.edu/about/rankings/tc">Schools Within the Context of Community</a> program, for example, matches prospective teachers with community mentors as part of their training. At the <a href="https://www.colorado.edu/aquetza/about-aquetza">Aquetza Academic Summer Program</a> at the University of Colorado Boulder, teachers in training regularly reflect on their practice while working to serve their mostly Latino students. </p>
<h2>What’s next</h2>
<p>I will return to Nicole’s school in the fall of 2021 to continue to document the relationship between community connectedness and teaching. With schools reopening for in-person instruction, I will also gather the perspectives and experiences of families, staff and returning students.</p>
<p>[<em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklysmart">You can get our highlights each weekend</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/157658/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julio Angel Alicea does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
A sociologist asked public high school teachers to draw maps of the neighborhood where they teach. Those with more detailed maps also made stronger cultural connections with their students.
Julio Angel Alicea, Ph.D. Candidate in Urban Schooling, University of California, Los Angeles
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/161097
2021-05-26T20:10:10Z
2021-05-26T20:10:10Z
How early Australian settlers drew maps to erase Indigenous people and push ideas of colonial superiority
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402798/original/file-20210526-21-1oebc2q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=82%2C112%2C4910%2C3308&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-231258061">National Library of Australia: 31258061</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The new Netflix series Shadow and Bone opens with cartographer Alina Starkov crammed into the back of a rumbling wagon, sketching a war-torn landscape. A flashback to her childhood in an orphanage shows her looking at a map of a conflict zone. </p>
<p>A guardian tells her, “keep a pencil in your hand, or else someone will put a rifle in it instead”. The cartographers of this fictional world are crucial to the military, just as they are in the real world. But there is also a sense that cartographers played a peaceful role in the army.</p>
<p>In reality, the role of surveyors and cartographers throughout history was often far from peaceful. It was their initial explorations that paved the way for destructive waves of colonising armies and civilians.</p>
<p>At each stage of mapping an area, clues are preserved about the priorities and prejudices of the person wielding the pencil, and those instructing them. Today, researchers can spot these clues and draw out the contextual history of the time.</p>
<h2>Exploring the land</h2>
<p>Maps made it easier for the government back home to imagine the territory of a new colony, to claim to “know” and thus own it. Therefore, surveying expeditions into unknown lands were prioritised.</p>
<p>Some expeditions were huge, such as Lewis and Clark’s crossing of the United States. Others were small, such as <a href="https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/meehan-james-2443">James Meehan’s</a> treks around the Derwent River in Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) between October 1803 and March 1804.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402265/original/file-20210524-23-1eyk8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Page of handwritten text" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402265/original/file-20210524-23-1eyk8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402265/original/file-20210524-23-1eyk8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402265/original/file-20210524-23-1eyk8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402265/original/file-20210524-23-1eyk8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402265/original/file-20210524-23-1eyk8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402265/original/file-20210524-23-1eyk8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402265/original/file-20210524-23-1eyk8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A page from Meehan’s journal of his explorations around Pittwater (near today’s Hobart Airport).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tasmanian Archives: LSD355/1/1</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Meehan kept a daily log of measurements and happenings as he explored. Like many, he occasionally included sketches, probably trying to ward off boredom during the long evenings at camp.</p>
<p>We know through journal records that Meehan met some palawa (Tasmanian Aboriginal) people along the different routes, once firing on a group when he felt threatened.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/thirteen-years-after-sorry-too-many-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-children-are-still-being-removed-from-their-homes-159360">Thirteen years after 'Sorry', too many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are still being removed from their homes</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Focused on sought-after utilities</h2>
<p>Meehan’s observations were then produced for their first external audience - the colonial government. It’s here we start to see the colony’s priorities. </p>
<p>Many of the map labels highlight the quality of the land in terms of potential for expansion and European-style agriculture. Meehan’s map of the Hobart area emphasises whether the land encountered was hilly or flat, covered with vegetation, or cleared pasture.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402264/original/file-20210524-23-74aw61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="rough looking map showing Derwent River and surrounding terrain" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402264/original/file-20210524-23-74aw61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402264/original/file-20210524-23-74aw61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402264/original/file-20210524-23-74aw61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402264/original/file-20210524-23-74aw61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402264/original/file-20210524-23-74aw61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402264/original/file-20210524-23-74aw61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402264/original/file-20210524-23-74aw61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Plan of the Settlement at the River Derwent. Map by James Meehan, 1804.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tasmanian Archives: AF396/1/206</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By the time Meehan drafted his “Plan of the Settlement at the River Derwent”, pictured above, the Europeans had moved from their initial camp at Risdon Cove to today’s site of Hobart. The Risdon settlement was <a href="https://gsp.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/200409420.pdf">considered a failure</a> as the fresh water ran out and soldiers threatened mutiny, so Meehan omitted any reference to it beyond a small name label.</p>
<p>More importantly, he excluded any reference to any Indigenous people, despite having encountered them on more than one occasion. </p>
<p>Meehan was playing his part in cultivating the narrative of Van Diemen’s Land as a successful colony on an “empty” island that had been (supposedly) waiting for the Europeans to arrive. This was the same as the <a href="https://australianstogether.org.au/discover/australian-history/mabo-native-title/"><em>terra nullius</em></a> narrative perpetuated by the British government regarding the mainland.</p>
<h2>Propaganda in map form</h2>
<p>Sometimes the map would be destined for wider circulation and would be refined with simple decorative features such as a key, north arrow, coloured inks and detailed illustrations of ships or gardens. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402286/original/file-20210524-21-1hmm3ya.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402286/original/file-20210524-21-1hmm3ya.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402286/original/file-20210524-21-1hmm3ya.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=213&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402286/original/file-20210524-21-1hmm3ya.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=213&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402286/original/file-20210524-21-1hmm3ya.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=213&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402286/original/file-20210524-21-1hmm3ya.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=268&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402286/original/file-20210524-21-1hmm3ya.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=268&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402286/original/file-20210524-21-1hmm3ya.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=268&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Route from the US city of Albany to the Fort Osswego (New York State), c.1750s. Note the ship in the harbour, and the list of distances in the bottom right.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Library of Congress Geography and Map Division: ar108000z</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Within these more attractive maps, hidden clues became even more nuanced.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402780/original/file-20210526-17-8i8ito.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Map of land grants in Van Diemen's Land" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402780/original/file-20210526-17-8i8ito.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402780/original/file-20210526-17-8i8ito.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=659&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402780/original/file-20210526-17-8i8ito.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=659&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402780/original/file-20210526-17-8i8ito.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=659&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402780/original/file-20210526-17-8i8ito.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402780/original/file-20210526-17-8i8ito.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402780/original/file-20210526-17-8i8ito.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This well-worn map of an area in central Tasmania shows updated landholder names and a conversation between members of the Survey Office about the map’s origins (bottom left).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tasmanian Archives: AF396/1/951</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Aspirational elements were introduced, giving the viewer a sense of what the cartographer, landholder or government perceived as a desirable landscape. Phrases such as “unexplored country” would be used, or an area of blank space sparked the imagination with some promise of undiscovered wealth.</p>
<p>Both sketch maps and their more refined siblings were used by the ruling powers as working maps to track their increasing expansion over the land. By reading the scribbled annotations carefully, stories of changing land ownership, population growth and acts of violence become apparent.</p>
<h2>Republishing and distribution</h2>
<p>Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, geographers, engravers and others combined data from maps and reports to print single sheets and atlases they could sell at a range of prices.</p>
<p>These maps transported the reading public to remote locations and made them sound educated at the dinner table. Accuracy was not required for this, so mistakes were copied from one chart to another, and outdated information often circulated for decades.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402299/original/file-20210524-13-6eqlwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Map of Van Diemen's Land/Tasmania. Macquarie Harbour on the west coast is enormous." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402299/original/file-20210524-13-6eqlwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402299/original/file-20210524-13-6eqlwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=744&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402299/original/file-20210524-13-6eqlwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=744&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402299/original/file-20210524-13-6eqlwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=744&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402299/original/file-20210524-13-6eqlwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=935&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402299/original/file-20210524-13-6eqlwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=935&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402299/original/file-20210524-13-6eqlwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=935&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Macquarie Harbour on the west coast on this map of Van Diemen’s Land is shown about three times the size of the real harbour. Where this error originated is unknown, but it is found on at least one other map of the same time, suggesting it was based on a dodgy report of the colony. Map by Sidney Hall, 1828.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Libraries Tasmania: 746063</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, explorers’ maps and reports sometimes included references to First Nations peoples or their significant sites. Abel Tasman observed the presence of palawa people in southern Tasmania. A century later, explorers in America named “<a href="https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/s/r23w20">native guides</a>” in recognition of their invaluable assistance during cross-country expeditions.</p>
<p>But by the end of the 18th century, changing attitudes towards First Nations peoples started to see references to them disappear from maps of European colonies around the globe.</p>
<p>In 1804, Meehan omitted all mention of Tasmania’s palawa people from his Derwent River map. This is a reflection of emerging ideas of colonial superiority. The Europeans were increasingly reluctant to admit to needing help from Indigenous people, or even to admit there were other people already living on the lands. </p>
<p>So the next time you find yourself in front of a historic map, make sure you ask what details have been included, which have been excluded and — most importantly — why? </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/we-mapped-the-super-highways-the-first-australians-used-to-cross-the-ancient-land-154263">We mapped the 'super-highways' the First Australians used to cross the ancient land</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/161097/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Imogen Wegman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
In many cases, colonial maps would portray conquered land as having been ‘empty’ and available when settlers arrived — even if it wasn’t.
Imogen Wegman, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/160374
2021-05-20T15:07:32Z
2021-05-20T15:07:32Z
Maps can bridge gaps between citizens, scientists and policymakers
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401205/original/file-20210518-13-n4iq60.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Understanding how different bodies of water connect across South Africa may drive improved conservation and awareness.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jaco van Rensburg/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Maps can be many things: colourful, or dull; complex, or very simple; helpful, or very difficult to read. They also have the potential to support the public’s knowledge of environmental and social issues, and to lay out paths towards behavioural changes and conservation consciousness.</p>
<p>This potential is already being explored in some parts of the world. For example, the <a href="https://greatlakesconnectivity.org/fishApp">FishWerks App</a> uses maps to highlight the barriers to fish movement in the Great Lakes region of the United States. Based on the ongoing work with <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-we-learned-when-our-map-of-southern-africas-rivers-went-viral-110735">a map of southern African rivers</a> that went viral two years ago, the same potential exists to drive conservation awareness and action in the southern African region.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-we-learned-when-our-map-of-southern-africas-rivers-went-viral-110735">What we learned when our map of southern Africa's rivers went viral</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Two years on, people are still engaging with <a href="https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https://roddythefox.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Rivers-of-South-Africa-Annotated-Final-Low-Res-1.jpg&imgrefurl=https://roddythefox.co.za/?product%3Drivers-of-south-africa-annotated&tbnid=zAOYqXseW0F19M&vet=1&docid=i2luGm_1oiQpoM&w=988&h=1181&source=sh/x/im">that map</a> through the survey that goes with it. There were between three and 147 downloads a month during 2019 and 2020. As a <a href="https://www.ru.ac.za/iwr/people/smantel/">water researcher</a>, I wanted to understand how people’s interest in the map might be turned into action around conservation and a better awareness of South Africa’s many water issues. These issues include <a href="https://theconversation.com/river-of-bacteria-a-south-african-study-pinpoints-whats-polluting-the-water-150551">water pollution</a>, which affects the quality of river water, <a href="https://theconversation.com/does-south-africa-have-a-microplastics-problem-our-research-says-yes-102995">microplastics</a> and their impacts on plants and animals, and invasive <a href="https://theconversation.com/invasive-plants-have-a-much-bigger-impact-than-we-imagine-82181">alien plants</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/freshwater-crayfish-the-forgotten-invaders-wreaking-havoc-across-africa-58450">animals</a> that negatively affect water availability and biodiversity.</p>
<p>In the previous article, three themes emerged from the initial responses to the map. These themes parallel the <a href="https://theconversation.com/memetics-and-the-science-of-going-viral-64416">characteristics of popular internet memes</a>. First, the data in the map was genuinely useful to people. Second, it was aesthetically pleasing. Third, it interested people.</p>
<p>Now, based on learnings from the 2,593 responses to <a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf7l9qtmmhFV3O0rNVbzFCi3GgNjd87QLMHQLavKoD_-pBR_Q/viewform?c=0&w=1">the survey</a> that accompanies the map, I have gained a deeper understanding of public interest and how public driven science – specifically around the use and content of maps – might bridge the gap between policymakers, citizens and scientists.</p>
<h2>Respondents’ insights</h2>
<p>In the survey, over 82% of people (from 66 countries across six continents) stated that they were downloading the map for personal use. This was followed by “educational purposes” (27%). Only 8% of respondents wanted it for professional use. </p>
<p>Overwhelmingly, respondents found the map aesthetically pleasing. They were struck by the colourful representation of just how expansive southern Africa’s river systems are, as well as how many there are. People felt that the visuals helped them better understand geographic relationships – how rivers and catchments fit together. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A person wearing a white hat and a red and white shirt, with white headphones, looks at a computer screen." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401631/original/file-20210519-23-1uw2w1f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401631/original/file-20210519-23-1uw2w1f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401631/original/file-20210519-23-1uw2w1f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401631/original/file-20210519-23-1uw2w1f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401631/original/file-20210519-23-1uw2w1f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401631/original/file-20210519-23-1uw2w1f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401631/original/file-20210519-23-1uw2w1f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Examining the map gave respondents a better sense of how various water bodies fit together.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sukh Mantel</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One respondent said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It has made me realise how the river system is so vast and interconnected. All previous maps have shown one blue line saying “this is the Orange river” and then saying “it is a vast, important river” but only this map shows why that is the case … It made me think of the rivers as a system, rather than just lines on maps, that looked like a living, breathing structure like coral. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This greater understanding of interconnectedness could influence people to become more engaged with conserving river systems.</p>
<h2>Bringing the public on board</h2>
<p>Another important learning that comes out of the survey is the potential for publicly driven mapping. Science communications expert Dr Marina Joubert has <a href="https://theconversation.com/new-policy-commits-south-africas-scientists-to-public-engagement-are-they-ready-114832">highlighted</a> the communications gap between scientists and public, and the new South African policy that expects scientists to engage with the public. Publicly driven mapping could allow easier or greater public engagement with scientific findings as scientists can gain insights into public interests. </p>
<p>Some of the respondents queried whether additional data – river names, towns, aquifers, mountain ranges – could be plotted on the map, which would increase their understanding. </p>
<p>Respondents suggested, among other things, that the map could visually represent the degree of contamination and sustainable flow for each river, or that the map could be colour coded from “most stressed” to “least stressed”. </p>
<p>More than one respondent indicated an interest in a map of river permanence. One wrote: “I was surprised to see how much of South Africa is covered by rivers, it would be interesting to add a layer to indicate perennial and non perennial rivers”. Another respondent said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The other maps I have seen didn’t show as much detail and left the impression that there wasn’t as much drainage and yet I know from hiking that there is usually a perennial river everywhere you go. So this map matches my experience of Cape Town instead of my basic high school geography which didn’t match my personal experience. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Following these suggestions, I have created a map of perennial rivers in South Africa using data available from the <a href="http://www.wrc.org.za/wp-content/uploads/mdocs/WaterSA_2007_01_1908.pdf">Department of Water and Sanitation</a>. Although the perenniality map is an estimation derived from the probability of groundwater contributing to river flows, it gives useful information for citizens who are interested in understanding river ecology instead of just seeing it as a line on a map. A river’s perenniality indicates the natural state of a river and its seasonaility, which can be disrupted by human development, including <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/aqc.2739">small dams</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/culverts-the-major-threat-to-fish-youve-probably-never-heard-of-143629">culverts</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Lines of various colours, among them red, green and yellow, run along a black background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401630/original/file-20210519-17-uqqxvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401630/original/file-20210519-17-uqqxvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401630/original/file-20210519-17-uqqxvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401630/original/file-20210519-17-uqqxvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401630/original/file-20210519-17-uqqxvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401630/original/file-20210519-17-uqqxvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401630/original/file-20210519-17-uqqxvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A map of South Africa’s perennial rivers. Non-perennial rivers are indicated by red dashed lines.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sukh Mantel</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Creating such maps, and others based on the public’s input, is possible. Many of the datasets that would form the basis of the maps suggested by the survey respondents already exist, since the South African government funds research which generates <a href="https://www.sanbi.org/biodiversity/science-into-policy-action/biodiversity-information-management/biodiversitygis-bgis/">open source data</a>, such as the recent <a href="https://www.sanbi.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/NBA-front-cover.jpg">National Biodiversity Assessment</a>. </p>
<h2>The power of maps</h2>
<p>With the power of digital technology, maps with a 3D effect can further promote greater understanding of land and water connections. I recently took a class in digital storytelling and created a video that shows a local river’s journey to the sea using a flyover created with a couple of clicks in Google Earth. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0Z3CvxTk_RQ/](https://youtu.be/0Z3CvxTk_RQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The author’s video explaining river connections.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>My hope is that the story of the rivers map, combined with digital technology and storytelling, can inspire others to use their potential to raise the public’s environmental awareness and to create bridges between government agencies, citizens, and scientists.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/160374/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sukhmani Mantel receives funding from Water Research Commission, a government funding body. The data used for the maps is from the Department of Water and Sanitation. </span></em></p>
A greater understanding of interconnectedness created by river maps could influence people to become more engaged with conserving river systems.
Sukhmani Mantel, Senior Research Officer Institute for water research, Rhodes University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/160342
2021-05-05T20:07:04Z
2021-05-05T20:07:04Z
A Belgian farmer moved a rock and accidentally annexed France: the weird and wonderful history of man-made borders
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398836/original/file-20210505-17-1lucd9i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C8%2C6000%2C3979&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>This week, a <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56978344">farmer in the Belgian town of Erquelinnes</a> caused an international ruckus when he moved a stone standing in his tractor’s path. </p>
<p>This stone marked the boundary between Belgium and France. By moving it 2.29 metres, he expanded Belgium’s territory. </p>
<p>We must assume he had driven around it before — the stone was placed on this site in 1819, as part of the proceedings that established the Franco-Belgian border in 1820 after Napoleon’s defeat. </p>
<p>For the farmer, it stood in the way of his tractor. For the governments of France and Belgium, it was an active international border.</p>
<p>This story suggests a fragility to borders that contradicts their apparent solidity in an atlas or on Google Maps. Human history is, however, full of arguments about where the edges of property lie. </p>
<h2>‘Beating the bounds’</h2>
<p>Nations establish their borders through treaties. Rivers are sometimes relied on to set boundaries, but even here tensions rise when there are disputes about interpretation. Is the boundary on the river banks, the deepest part of the river, or the very centre of the flow? </p>
<p>The fact these measurements can even be calculated is remarkable. Expecting high levels of accuracy in a map is a recent development. </p>
<p>The first attempts at consistent accuracy were in 19th century military maps, such as <a href="https://maps.nls.uk/os/">Britain’s Ordnance Survey</a>.</p>
<p>Later development saw the topographical charts used by bushwalkers and mountain climbers. But only with the arrival of digital mapping did it became normal to pin-point our location on a map in everyday situations. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398806/original/file-20210505-17-hpi5p0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Historic Ordnance Survey (topographical) survey map" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398806/original/file-20210505-17-hpi5p0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398806/original/file-20210505-17-hpi5p0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398806/original/file-20210505-17-hpi5p0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398806/original/file-20210505-17-hpi5p0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398806/original/file-20210505-17-hpi5p0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398806/original/file-20210505-17-hpi5p0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398806/original/file-20210505-17-hpi5p0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An early Ordnance Survey sheet, showing the County of Kent and part of the County of Essex. William Mudge, 1801.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Rumsey Historical Map Collection: 8534002</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The precise location of boundaries was usually part of local knowledge, kept and maintained by members of the community. For centuries a practice known as “<a href="https://daily.jstor.org/beating-the-bounds/">beating the bounds</a>” was followed in parts of Great Britain, Hungary, Germany and the United States. </p>
<p>Members of the parish or community would walk around the edge of their lands every few years, perhaps singing or performing specific actions to help the route stick in the participants’ minds. By including new generations each time, the knowledge was passed through the community and remained active. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398808/original/file-20210505-23-yk3e8h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Map of property with corrected boundary line" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398808/original/file-20210505-23-yk3e8h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398808/original/file-20210505-23-yk3e8h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=891&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398808/original/file-20210505-23-yk3e8h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=891&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398808/original/file-20210505-23-yk3e8h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=891&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398808/original/file-20210505-23-yk3e8h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1119&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398808/original/file-20210505-23-yk3e8h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1119&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398808/original/file-20210505-23-yk3e8h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1119&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kemp’s property in the Tasmanian Midlands, showing the original boundary line of trees as in the incorrect location.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tasmanian Archives: AF396/1/264</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Beating the bounds was a tradition of spatial knowledge that carried weight — it was accepted as evidence in cases of disputed boundaries. It was also part of a larger tradition maintaining borders through physical symbolism, whether for good or bad. </p>
<p>Britain has a long history of using enclosure (the fencing or hedging of land) as a means to excluding the poor from accessing common resources. In contrast, in colonial Australia, the first fences were built to protect essential garden crops from scavenging livestock.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-and-why-google-is-transforming-the-map-35238">How – and why – Google is transforming the map</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Sometimes the importance of the border was demonstrated with an elaborate marker. The Franco-Belgian stone was carved with a date and compass points, representing not only a boundary but also the end of Napoleon’s destructive wars. </p>
<p>Likewise, the <a href="https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/sydneys_boundary_markers">boundary markers of Sydney</a> from the same period included the name of the Governor, Richard Bourke.</p>
<h2>Manipulation … and incompetence</h2>
<p>Formality was not always required. At a local level in the Australian colonies, boundaries were often marked by painting, slashing or burning a mark into a tree. These were easy to ignore, and frustrated landholders placed public notices in the newspapers cautioning against trespassing. People constantly took timber from private properties, or grazed their livestock without hesitation wherever was convenient to them. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398814/original/file-20210505-13-1mob0z8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Newspaper text: notice about trespass" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398814/original/file-20210505-13-1mob0z8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398814/original/file-20210505-13-1mob0z8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398814/original/file-20210505-13-1mob0z8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398814/original/file-20210505-13-1mob0z8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398814/original/file-20210505-13-1mob0z8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=712&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398814/original/file-20210505-13-1mob0z8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=712&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398814/original/file-20210505-13-1mob0z8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=712&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Notice cautioning against trespass, with the surveyor’s description of the property included to help readers identify the property. 25 December 1819.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hobart Town Gazette/Trove</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Landholders included descriptions of their properties — detailing landmarks and neighbouring properties — in their notices, so there could be no doubt about which land was taken.</p>
<p>But these descriptions formed a circular argument: the potential trespasser needed to know who held each property in order to establish whose property they were about to enter. How effective they were at actually preventing trespass remains unclear.</p>
<p>Rivers were an obvious boundary marker, although European settlers quickly learned how to manipulate them to suit their own needs. By quietly blocking a section of river with trees and other rubbish, they could <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/203145789/22311643">divert its route</a> to suit their own wishes. By the time the surveyor came to verify or reassess boundaries, the landholder had been using their stolen acres for several years. </p>
<p>Throughout the 19th century, Australian survey departments devoted huge resources to undoing the confusion created by manipulation and incompetence in earlier years.</p>
<h2>Markers of time</h2>
<p>When the Belgian farmer this week got fed up with going around the stone and decided to move it, he was participating in a time-honoured tradition of manipulating impermanent boundary markers. But if he was able to move it, then who is to say it had not been moved before? </p>
<p>Historic boundary markers like this one have a habit of being in <a href="https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/four-corners-monument">technically the wrong place</a>, even if they are in precisely the right place to commemorate a moment in time. </p>
<p>Perhaps that is where their true significance sits.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/160342/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Imogen Wegman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Boundaries aren’t just treaties. They’ve been built from rivers, oral history and newspaper notices — and rocks in the way of farmers.
Imogen Wegman, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/154263
2021-04-29T20:09:35Z
2021-04-29T20:09:35Z
We mapped the ‘super-highways’ the First Australians used to cross the ancient land
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397750/original/file-20210429-14-ymshqj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=646%2C0%2C2658%2C2000&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided/The Conversation</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There are many hypotheses about where the Indigenous ancestors first settled in Australia tens of thousands of years ago, but evidence is scarce. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/fifty-years-ago-at-lake-mungo-the-true-scale-of-aboriginal-australians-epic-story-was-revealed-98851">Few archaeological sites</a> date to these early times. Sea levels were much lower and Australia was connected to New Guinea and Tasmania in a land known as Sahul that was 30% bigger than Australia is today.</p>
<p>Our <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-021-01106-8">latest research</a> advances our knowledge about the most likely routes those early Australians travelled as they peopled this giant continent.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-first-australians-grew-to-a-population-of-millions-much-more-than-previous-estimates-142371">The First Australians grew to a population of millions, much more than previous estimates</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>We are beginning to get a picture not only of <a href="https://theconversation.com/an-incredible-journey-the-first-people-to-arrive-in-australia-came-in-large-numbers-and-on-purpose-114074">where those first people landed in Sahul</a>, but how they moved throughout the continent.</p>
<h2>Navigating the landscape</h2>
<p>Modelling human movement requires understanding how people navigate new terrain. Computers facilitate building models, but they are still far from easy. We reasoned we needed four pieces of information: (1) topography; (2) the visibility of tall landscape features; (3) the presence of freshwater; and (4) demographics of the travellers. </p>
<p>We think people navigated in new territories — much as people do today — by focusing on prominent land features protruding above the relative flatness of the Australian continent.</p>
<p>To map these features, we built the most complete digital elevation model for Sahul ever constructed, including areas now underwater.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384382/original/file-20210216-16-1gyswkf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A map showing the landmass of Australia connected to New Guinea and Tasmania" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384382/original/file-20210216-16-1gyswkf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384382/original/file-20210216-16-1gyswkf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=642&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384382/original/file-20210216-16-1gyswkf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=642&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384382/original/file-20210216-16-1gyswkf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=642&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384382/original/file-20210216-16-1gyswkf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=807&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384382/original/file-20210216-16-1gyswkf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=807&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384382/original/file-20210216-16-1gyswkf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=807&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">How the Sahul landmass would have looked more than 50,000 years ago.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We used this digital elevation model to understand what was visible to early travellers. Essentially, from each point in the continent we asked “what can you see from here?” This moving window calculates the largest “viewshed” map ever created. When our virtual travellers move, they reorient based on visible terrain everywhere they go. The figure above shows the prominence of features across the continent as increasingly yellow shades against the blue background.</p>
<p>You can clearly make out features such as the the New Guinea Highlands, the Flinders Ranges in South Australia, the Great Dividing Range in the east, and the Hamersley Range in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.</p>
<p>But navigation using prominent landscape features isn’t enough to tell us where the most commonly travelled routes were. </p>
<p>For this we also need to take into account other factors, such as the physiological capacity of people travelling on foot, how difficult the terrain was to traverse, and the distribution of available freshwater sources in a largely arid continent.</p>
<h2>Billions and billions of routes</h2>
<p>We put all these different bits of information together into a mega-model, known as From Everywhere To Everywhere (<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440312001379" title="Geospatial modeling of pedestrian transportation networks: a case study from precolumbian Oaxaca, Mexico">FETE</a>), and created more than 125 billion possible pathways from everywhere on the continent to everywhere else. Each route represents the most efficient way to move from one location to another. This was the largest movement simulation of its kind ever attempted.</p>
<p>This gives us an idea of the relative ease or difficulty of walking across all of Sahul.</p>
<p>We cannot possibly examine every metre of the 125 billion pathways we created, so we needed a way to weight the relative importance of likely pathways. To do this, we compared all plausible pathways with the distribution of the oldest known archaeological sites in Sahul, providing weighted probabilities for each path.</p>
<p>This provided a scale going from the “most likely” to the “least likely” chosen paths.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2zLcYePhCW4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Super-highways of the initial peopling of Sahul, with known archaeological sites older than 35,000 years indicated by the grey dots. Megan Hotchkiss Davidson, Sandia National Laboratories (map) and Cian McCue, Moogie Down Productions (animation).</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The most likely pathways in the map above are what we are calling the “super-highways” of Indigenous movement. The next most likely paths are marked by dotted lines.</p>
<p>This allows us to discard many of the billions of paths as less likely to be chosen, helping us focus on those that were the most probable.</p>
<p>We now have a first glimpse into where Indigenous Australians likely travelled tens of thousands of years ago.</p>
<h2>Pathways well trodden</h2>
<p>These super-highways might have been more than just routes used for the initial peopling of Sahul.</p>
<p>Several of the super-highways our models identified echo well-documented Aboriginal trade routes criss-crossing the country. This includes Cape York to South Australia via Birdsville in the trade of <a href="http://entheology.com/plants/duboisia-hopwoodii-pituri-bush/">pituri</a> native tobacco, and the trade of Kimberley <a href="https://www.dpaw.wa.gov.au/management/marine/marine-parks-wa/fun-facts/402-baler-shell">baler shell</a> into central Australia.</p>
<p>There are also striking similarities between our map of super-highways and the most common trading and stock routes used by early Europeans. They followed already well-known routes established by Aboriginal peoples.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384384/original/file-20210216-22-izoenn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An old map showing routes across Australia." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384384/original/file-20210216-22-izoenn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384384/original/file-20210216-22-izoenn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384384/original/file-20210216-22-izoenn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384384/original/file-20210216-22-izoenn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384384/original/file-20210216-22-izoenn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384384/original/file-20210216-22-izoenn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384384/original/file-20210216-22-izoenn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Early routes of European explorers in Australia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of Universal Publishers Pty Ltd</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These Aboriginal exchange routes and the relatively recent trade routes of early Europeans cannot be used directly to validate a map from tens of thousands of years ago. But there are strong similarities that might suggest an extraordinary persistence of routes across the entire time period of human occupation of Australia.</p>
<p>Our findings also point to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-a-first-discovery-of-its-kind-researchers-have-uncovered-an-ancient-aboriginal-archaeological-site-preserved-on-the-seabed-138108">now-submerged continental shelves</a> of Sahul as important conduits for human movement.</p>
<p>We infer that early populations spread across the broad plains on the western and eastern margins of the continent (now under water) and through the region that now forms the Gulf of Carpentaria, which connected Australia to New Guinea.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-ancient-aboriginal-star-maps-have-shaped-australias-highway-network-55952">How ancient Aboriginal star maps have shaped Australia's highway network</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>It is worth noting these early people traversed and lived in all environments of Australia, ranging from the tropics to the arid zone. The ease of adaptation to all ecosystems is remarkable and one of the reasons for the success of the human species across the globe today.</p>
<p>Professor <a href="https://research.monash.edu/en/persons/lynette-russell">Lynette Russell</a> (Deputy Director of the ARC <a href="http://EpicAustralia.org.au">Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage</a> and Co-Chair of its Indigenous Advisory Committee), who was not involved directly in the study, noted:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[This] modelling establishes the infrastructure for detailed local and regional studies to engage respectfully with Indigenous knowledges, ethnographies, historical records, oral histories, and archives.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The fundamental rules we described apply even to questions about how the first migrations of people out of Africa might have occurred, and how people ultimately proceeded to inhabit the rest of the planet. </p>
<p>This work might even have implications for humanity’s future, if climate scenarios require large-scale migrations. Learning from those who have been present in Sahul from more than 60,000 years ago could help us anticipate migration patterns in the future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/154263/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alan N Williams is an associate director for EMM Consulting Pty Ltd, an Australian employee-owned environmental consulting firm. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Corey J. A. Bradshaw receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Frédérik Saltré receives funding from the Australian Research Council</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sean Ulm receives funding from the Australian Research Council.
</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Devin White and Stefani Crabtree do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
We now have a glimpse into where early Indigenous Australians likely travelled all those tens of thousands of years ago.
Stefani Crabtree, Assistant Professor for Social-Environmental Modeling @ Utah State University and Associate Investigator ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage and ASU-SFI Biosocial Complex Systems Fellow, Santa Fe Institute
Alan N Williams, Associate Investigator, ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, UNSW Sydney
Corey J. A. Bradshaw, Matthew Flinders Professor of Global Ecology and Models Theme Leader for the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Flinders University
Devin White, R&D Manager for Autonomous Sensing & Perception (Sandia National Laboratories) and Research Assistant Professor of Anthropology (UTK), University of Tennessee
Frédérik Saltré, Research Fellow in Ecology for the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Flinders University
Sean Ulm, Deputy Director, ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, James Cook University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/157040
2021-03-18T18:28:46Z
2021-03-18T18:28:46Z
Closed borders, travel bans and halted immigration: 5 ways COVID-19 changed how – and where – people move around the world
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390211/original/file-20210317-13-1bei0eo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=444%2C257%2C3164%2C1404&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Most countries closed their borders, at least partially, at some point last year. But the world is starting to reopen</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://covidborderaccountability.org">COVID Border Accountability Project</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Trips canceled: <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/564717/airline-industry-passenger-traffic-globally/?fbclid=IwAR2OPkzgjfcJPbixNSCjnhRaQ5_s2fSsdrNhcEeFlD_Lfq8qJSp0WTj88aA">2.93 billion</a>. <a href="https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataverse/COVIDBorderAccountabilityProjectCOBAP">International border closures</a>: 1,299. Lives interrupted: Countless. </p>
<p>After the World Health Organization <a href="https://www.who.int/director-general/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-media-briefing-on-covid-19---11-march-2020">declared COVID-19 a pandemic</a>, most countries in the world closed their borders – though public health experts initially <a href="https://www.who.int/news-room/articles-detail/updated-who-recommendations-for-international-traffic-in-relation-to-covid-19-outbreak">questioned this strategy for controlling the spread of disease</a>. </p>
<p>I study <a href="https://politicalscience.nd.edu/people/students/mary-a-shiraef/">migration</a>, so I began tracking the enormous changes in how and where people could move around the world. The <a href="https://covidborderaccountability.org/">COVID Border Accountability Project</a>, founded in May 2020, maps travel and immigration restrictions introduced by countries in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. </p>
<p>Here is how our world shuttered – and how it’s starting to reopen.</p>
<h2>1. March 11: It begins</h2>
<p>Travel restrictions peaked right after the <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/11/who-declares-the-coronavirus-outbreak-a-pandemic/">World Health Organization declared a pandemic</a> on March 11. That week, our data shows a total of 348 countries closing their borders, completely or partially. </p>
<p>Complete closures restrict access to all noncitizens at international borders. Partial closures – a category encompassing border closures and travel bans – restrict access at some borders, or bar people from some, but not all, countries.</p>
<p><iframe id="WjrvS" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/WjrvS/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>2. Fully closed borders</h2>
<p>Most countries stopped all foreign travelers from entering at some point last year.</p>
<p>From Finland to Sri Lanka to Tonga, 189 countries – home to roughly 65% of the world’s <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth">7.7 billion people</a> – put a complete border closure in place in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to <a href="https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataverse/COVIDBorderAccountabilityProjectCOBAP">our database</a>. The first to isolate itself from the world was North Korea, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200313010930/pandemic.internationalsos.com/2019-ncov/ncov-travel-restrictions-flight-operations-and-screening">on Jan. 22, 2020</a>. The last was Bahrain, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200624022559/https://www.iatatravelcentre.com/international-travel-document-news/1580226297.htm">on June 4, 2020</a>.</p>
<p><iframe id="ObAoE" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/ObAoE/6/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Most countries eventually eased border restrictions, and many opened their borders only to close them again as COVID-19 cases spread globally. By the end of 2020, roughly half of all countries remained completely closed to noncitizens and non-visa holders except for <a href="https://github.com/COBAPteam/COBAP/blob/main/README.md">essential travel</a> related to health emergencies, humanitarian or diplomatic missions, commerce or family reunification. </p>
<h2>3. Targeted bans and partial closures</h2>
<p>Last year 193 countries closed down partially, restricting access to people from specific countries or closing some – but not all – of their land and sea borders. </p>
<p>Among these, 98 countries introduced targeted bans, which restricted entry to specific groups of people based on their recent travel or nationality. The first travel bans targeted China, followed soon by other countries that experienced the earliest known outbreaks of the novel coronavirus.</p>
<p>For instance, the United States was quick to pass <a href="https://covidborderaccountability.org/usareport.html">a string of targeted travel bans</a>, barring travelers from <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200609193251/https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/proclamation-suspension-entry-immigrants-nonimmigrants-persons-pose-risk-transmitting-2019-novel-coronavirus/">China first</a>, then <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200610075601/https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/proclamation-suspension-entry-immigrants-nonimmigrants-certain-additional-persons-pose-risk-transmitting-coronavirus/">Iran</a>, and then <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200609190905/https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/proclamation-suspension-entry-immigrants-nonimmigrants-certain-additional-persons-pose-risk-transmitting-2019-novel-coronavirus/">26 European countries</a>. </p>
<p><iframe id="O7lfw" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/O7lfw/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Most countries added land border closures to air travel bans, including the United States. In March the Trump administration closed its borders with <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210313053828/https://www.dhs.gov/news/2020/10/19/fact-sheet-dhs-measures-border-limit-further-spread-coronavirus">Canada and Mexico</a>.</p>
<p><iframe id="SAZuc" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/SAZuc/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>4. Restrictions on US residents</h2>
<p>Americans faced serious restrictions on their movement last year, too. People in the U.S., with its high COVID-19 spread, were barred from 190 countries either specifically – via a travel ban – or generally, due to closed borders. </p>
<p>The U.S. passport, usually one of the world’s most powerful for travel access to other countries, ranked <a href="https://www.passportindex.org/passport-power-rank-2020-covid19.php">18th place in 2020</a>. Regions newly off-limits to Americans include most of Europe and nearly all South America.</p>
<p><iframe id="thcvA" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/thcvA/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>5. Visa seekers and immigrants</h2>
<p>Of the 98 countries that implemented targeted bans, 42 specifically restricted all visa seekers from entering the country. The week following the U.S. <a href="https://www.uscis.gov/news/alerts/uscis-offices-preparing-to-reopen-on-june-4#:%7E:text=On%20March%2018%2C%20U.S.%20Citizenship,on%20or%20after%20June%204.">closure of immigration offices</a> worldwide, 20 countries, including the <a href="https://dfa.gov.ph/dfa-news/statements-and-advisoriesupdate/26385-public-advisory-on-the-temporary-suspension-of-visa-issuance-and-visa-free-privilege">Philippines</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20201204201141/https://www.gouv.bj/actualite/556/coronavirus-les-11-mesures-prises-par-le-conseil-extraordinaire-des-ministres-au-benin/">Benin</a> and <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200618222951/http://www.nepalimmigration.gov.np/post/notice-regarding-temporary-shutdown-of-visa-services">Nepal</a>, stopped issuing all visas. More than 100 visa bans barred visa seekers from specific countries or groups.</p>
<p><iframe id="O9ohk" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/O9ohk/7/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>In September, the Trump administration halted the U.S. asylum program, barring refugees from seeking asylum. The only other country that explicitly targeted immigrants and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-migration-hungary-ruling/hungary-tightens-asylum-rules-as-it-ends-migrant-detention-zones-idUSKBN22X12X">asylum seekers</a> with a COVID-19 travel ban was <a href="http://abouthungary.hu/news-in-brief/hungary-shuts-border-due-to-link-between-the-coronavirus-and-migration/">Hungary</a>. </p>
<h2>The world today</h2>
<p><a href="https://immigrationlab.org/2020/06/26/will-covid-19-harden-worlds-borders/">I initially wondered</a> whether international travel restrictions would stay in place after the pandemic ended, leading to more permanent restrictions on freedom of movement. </p>
<p>[<em>Get facts about coronavirus and the latest research.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=coronavirus-facts">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter.</a>]</p>
<p>But, by and large, the world is reopening. By the end of last year, 137 of the world’s 189 complete closures had been lifted, and 66 of the 98 targeted bans had ended. </p>
<p>In addition to the staggering numbers of closures and the occasional international spats, I’ve been struck by the level of cooperation between countries, especially within the European Union. <a href="https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=doi:10.7910/DVN/U6DJAC">Virtually every EU country</a> complied with the bloc’s travel recommendations – a testament to its ability to manage crisis as a unified region. </p>
<p>Travel restrictions will continue to emerge, end and evolve, dependent on context. As wealthier countries <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00316-4">vaccinate their populations</a> at rapid speed, less equipped countries continue to suffer <a href="https://brazilian.report/coronavirus-brazil-live-blog/">severe outbreaks</a>. International travel may soon require a COVID-19 “<a href="https://theconversation.com/vaccine-passports-may-be-on-the-way-but-are-they-a-reason-for-hope-or-a-cause-for-concern-156534">vaccination card</a>.” New targeted travel bans could emerge.</p>
<p>“Normal” is a long way away. </p>
<p><em>Nikolas Lazar, Thuy Nguyen and the <a href="https://covidborderaccountability.org/team.html">COBAP Team</a> assisted with this story.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/157040/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mary A Shiraef received funding from the Nanovic Institute at the University of Notre Dame when launching the COVID Border Accountability Project in April 2020. </span></em></p>
Last year, 189 countries – home to roughly 65% of the global population – cut themselves off from the world at some point. Borders are now reopening and travel resuming, but normal is a ways off.
Mary A. Shiraef, Ph.D. Student in Political Science, University of Notre Dame
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/155081
2021-02-23T13:29:06Z
2021-02-23T13:29:06Z
How Black cartographers put racism on the map of America
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385359/original/file-20210219-13-1glotvj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C2%2C1630%2C1101&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An early 20th-century NAACP map showing lynchings between 1909 and 1918. The maps were sent to politicians and newspapers in an effort to spur legislation protecting Black Americans.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/static/classroom-materials/naacp-a-century-in-the-fight-for-freedom/documents/lynching.pdf">Library of Congress</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>How can maps fight racism and inequality?</p>
<p>The work of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-a-shootout-between-black-panthers-and-law-enforcement-50-years-ago-matters-today-153632">Black Panther Party</a>, a 1960s- and 1970s-era Black political group featured in a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/feb/01/judas-and-the-black-messiah-review-electric-black-panthers-drama">new movie</a> and a <a href="https://crosscut.com/2020/02/new-documentary-gives-voice-women-seattles-black-panther-party">documentary</a>, helps illustrate how cartography – the practice of making and using maps – can illuminate injustice. </p>
<p>As these films show, the Black Panthers focused on African American empowerment and <a href="https://nmaahc.si.edu/blog-post/black-panther-party-challenging-police-and-promoting-social-change#">community survival</a>, running a diverse array of programming that ranged from <a href="https://www.history.com/news/free-school-breakfast-black-panther-party">free school breakfasts</a> to armed self-defense. </p>
<p>Cartography is a less documented aspect of the Panthers’ activism, but the group used maps to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8306.2006.00501.x">reimagine the cities where African Americans lived and struggled</a>.</p>
<p>In 1971 the Panthers collected 15,000 signatures on a petition to create new <a href="http://www.cielodrive.com/archive/berkeley-to-vote-on-splitting-police-department-radical-groups-support-plan/">police districts in Berkeley, California</a> – districts that would be governed by local citizen commissions and require officers to live in the neighborhoods they served. The proposal made it onto the ballot but was defeated. </p>
<p>In a similar effort to make law enforcement more responsive to communities of color, the Panthers in the late 1960s also created a map proposing to divide up <a href="https://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=Black_Panthers">police districts</a> within San Francisco, largely along racial lines. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385155/original/file-20210218-20-108v3xf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Black-and-white drawing of San Francisco with designated districts around certain neighborhoods" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385155/original/file-20210218-20-108v3xf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385155/original/file-20210218-20-108v3xf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385155/original/file-20210218-20-108v3xf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385155/original/file-20210218-20-108v3xf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385155/original/file-20210218-20-108v3xf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=705&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385155/original/file-20210218-20-108v3xf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=705&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385155/original/file-20210218-20-108v3xf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=705&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Black Panthers’ proposed police districts for the city of San Francisco, created in 1966 or 1967.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.foundsf.org/images/b/bf/Panthpol.jpg">Ccarolson/FoundSF</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Black Panthers are just one chapter in a long history of “counter-mapping” by African Americans, which our <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2021.01.022">research in geography</a> explores. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2018/mar/06/counter-mapping-cartography-that-lets-the-powerless-speak">Counter-mapping</a> refers to how groups normally excluded from political decision-making deploy maps and other geographic data to communicate complex information about inequality in an easy-to-understand visual format. </p>
<h2>The power of maps</h2>
<p>Maps are <a href="https://www.acme-journal.org/index.php/acme/article/view/723">not ideologically neutral</a> location guides. Mapmakers choose what to include and exclude, and how to display information to users.</p>
<p>These decisions can have far-reaching consequences. When the Home Owners Loan Corporation in the 1930s set out to map the risk associated for banks loaning money to individuals for homes in different neighborhoods, for example, they rated minority neighborhoods as high risk and color-coded them as red. </p>
<p>The result, known as “<a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/10/19/498536077/interactive-redlining-map-zooms-in-on-americas-history-of-discrimination">redlining</a>,” contributed to housing discrimination for three decades, until federal law banned such maps in 1968. Redlining’s legacy is still evident in many American cities’ <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/03/28/redlining-was-banned-50-years-ago-its-still-hurting-minorities-today/">patterns of segregation</a>.</p>
<p>Colonial explorers charting their journeys and city planners and developers pursuing urban renewal, too, have used cartography to represent the world in ways that further their own priorities. Often, the resulting maps exclude, misrepresent or <a href="https://acme-journal.org/index.php/acme/article/view/1036">harm minority groups</a>. Academics and government officials do this, too. </p>
<p>Counter-maps produce an alternative public understanding of the facts by highlighting the experiences of oppressed people. </p>
<p>Black people aren’t the only marginalized group to do this. <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-amazonian-forest-peoples-are-counter-mapping-their-ancestral-lands-84474">Indigenous communities</a>, <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Women-and-Cartography-in-the-Progressive-Era/Dando/p/book/9780367245306">women</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-story-maps-redraw-the-world-using-peoples-real-life-experiences-98051">refugees and LGBTQ communities</a> have also redrawn maps to account for their existence and rights. </p>
<p>But Black Americans were among the earliest purveyors of counter-mapping, deploying this alternative cartography to serve a variety of needs a century ago.</p>
<h2>Black counter-mapping</h2>
<p>Mapping is part of the <a href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/demonic-grounds">broader Black creative tradition and political struggle</a>. </p>
<p>Over the centuries, African Americans developed “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37569-0_4">way-finding</a>” aids, including a <a href="https://theconversation.com/green-book-highlights-the-problems-of-driving-while-black-both-then-and-now-111561">Jim Crow-era travel guide</a>, to help them navigate a racially hostile landscape and created visual works that affirmed the value of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.12679">Black life</a>. </p>
<p>The Black sociologist and civil rights leader <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/first-time-together-and-color-book-displays-web-du-bois-visionary-infographics-180970826/">W.E.B. Du Bois</a> produced maps for the 1900 Paris Exposition to inform international society about the gains African Americans had made in income, education and land ownership since slavery and in face of continuing racism. </p>
<p>Similarly, in 1946, Friendship Press cartographer and illustrator Louise Jefferson published a <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-25/the-women-cartographers-who-mapped-art-and-science-in-the-20th-century">pictorial map</a> celebrating the contributions of African Americans – from famous writers and athletes to unnamed Black workers – in building the United States.</p>
<p>In the early 20th century, anti-lynching crusaders at the NAACP and Tuskegee Institute stirred public outcry by producing <a href="https://archive.org/details/thirtyyearsoflyn00nati">statistical reports</a> that informed <a href="https://www.loc.gov/resource/g3701e.ct002012/">original hand-drawn maps</a> showing the location and frequency of African Americans murdered by white lynch mobs. </p>
<p>One map, published in 1922 in the NAACP’s magazine “<a href="https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/workers/civil-rights/crisis/0200-crisis-v23n04-w136.pdf">Crisis</a>,” placed dots on a standard map to document 3,456 lynchings over 32 years. The Southeast had the largest concentration. But the “blots of shame,” as mapmaker Madeline Allison called them, spanned the country from east to west and well into the north. </p>
<p>These visualizations, along with the underlying data, <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780742552739/African-Americans-Confront-Lynching-Strategies-of-Resistance-from-the-Civil-War-to-the-Civil-Rights-Era">were sent</a> to allied organizations like the citizen-led <a href="https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/commission-interracial-cooperation#">Commission on Interracial Cooperation</a>, to newspapers nationwide and to elected officials of all parties and regions. The activists hoped to spur Congress to pass federal anti-lynching legislation – something that remains to this day <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/05/us/politics/rand-paul-anti-lynching-bill-senate.html">unfinished business</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385157/original/file-20210218-14-12brl7j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Black-and-white image of Rustin at a desk holding a big map and smiling, with papers all over this desk" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385157/original/file-20210218-14-12brl7j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385157/original/file-20210218-14-12brl7j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385157/original/file-20210218-14-12brl7j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385157/original/file-20210218-14-12brl7j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385157/original/file-20210218-14-12brl7j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385157/original/file-20210218-14-12brl7j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385157/original/file-20210218-14-12brl7j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Civil rights activist Bayard Rustin organizing the 1963 March on Washington, an example of how existing maps can also be used in politically disruptive ways.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2013/08/15/ap630824099_custom-9bf942d77b3591a797f1676f5279c69cd12f7e27-s1500-c85.jpg">AP Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Much anti-lynching cartography was inspired by the famed activist and reporter <a href="https://www.vox.com/2015/7/16/8979771/ida-b-wells-lynching-data">Ida B. Wells</a>, who in the early 1880s made some of the first tabulations of the prevalence and geographic distribution of racial terror. Her work refuted prevailing white claims that lynched Black men had sexually assaulted white women. </p>
<h2>Modern maps</h2>
<p>The precariousness of Black life – and the exclusion of Black stories from American history – remains an unresolved issue today.</p>
<p>Working alone and with white allies, Black activists and scholars continue using cartography to tell a fuller <a href="https://www.blackinappalachia.org/bristol">story about the United States</a>, to <a href="https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/chicago-folded-map-project">challenge racial segregation</a> and to <a href="https://www.racialviolencearchive.com/research.html">combat violence</a>. </p>
<p>Today, the maps they create are often digital. </p>
<p>For example, the Equal Justice Initiative, the Alabama-based legal defense group run by Bryan Stevenson, has produced a modern map of <a href="https://lynchinginamerica.eji.org/explore">historical lynching</a>. It’s an interactive update of the anti-lynching cartography made 100 years ago – although a full reconstruction of lynching terror remains impossible because of incomplete data and the veil of silence that persists around these murders.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385153/original/file-20210218-18-139x4y4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Red-tinged map of the US with a plot point in Illionois highlighted to show that there were 56 murders there between 1877 and 1950" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385153/original/file-20210218-18-139x4y4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385153/original/file-20210218-18-139x4y4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=291&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385153/original/file-20210218-18-139x4y4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=291&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385153/original/file-20210218-18-139x4y4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=291&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385153/original/file-20210218-18-139x4y4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385153/original/file-20210218-18-139x4y4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385153/original/file-20210218-18-139x4y4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Equal Justice Initiative’s map tells stories of people who were lynched.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://lynchinginamerica.eji.org/explore">Screenshot, Equal Justice Initiative</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Another modern mapping project, called Mapping Police Violence, was launched by <a href="https://www.orlandoweekly.com/orlando/how-an-orlando-data-scientist-is-helping-the-blacklivesmatter-movement-make-the-case-against-police-violence/Content?oid=2478826">data activists</a> after Michael Brown’s murder in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014. <a href="https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/">It tracks</a> police use of force using a time-series animated map. Deaths and injuries flash across the screen and accumulate on the map of the United States, visually communicating the national scale and urgency of this problem.</p>
<p>Counter-mapping operates on the theory that communities and governments cannot fix problems that they do not understand. When Black counter-mapping exposes the how-and-where of racism, in accessible visual form, that information gains new power to spur social change.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/155081/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Derek H. Alderman receives funding from National Science Foundation and National Endowment for the Humanities. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joshua F.J. Inwood receives funding from the National Science Foundation. </span></em></p>
Mapping is one way African Americans fight for equality and help each other navigate a racially hostile landscape.
Derek H. Alderman, Professor of Geography, University of Tennessee
Joshua F.J. Inwood, Associate Professor of Geography and Senior Research Associate in the Rock Ethics Institute, Penn State
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/142451
2020-07-28T12:16:34Z
2020-07-28T12:16:34Z
Marie Tharp pioneered mapping the bottom of the ocean 6 decades ago – scientists are still learning about Earth’s last frontier
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349770/original/file-20200727-35-1udrgwj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C17%2C1198%2C883&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tharp with an undersea map at her desk. Rolled sonar profiles of the ocean floor are on the shelf behind her.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/news-events/join-us-celebrating-marietharp100">Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and the estate of Marie Tharp</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Despite all the deep-sea expeditions and samples taken from the seabed over the past 100 years, humans still know very little about the ocean’s deepest reaches. And there are good reasons to learn more. </p>
<p>Most <a href="https://www.noaa.gov/education/resource-collections/ocean-coasts/tsunamis">tsunamis</a> start with earthquakes under or near the ocean floor. The seafloor provides habitat for fish, corals and <a href="https://ocean.si.edu/ocean-life/invertebrates/hydrothermal-vent-creatures">complex communities</a> of microbes, crustaceans and other organisms. Its topography controls currents that <a href="https://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/facts/climate.html#:%7E:text=Ocean%20currents%20act%20as%20conveyer,influencing%20both%20weather%20and%20climate.&text=The%20ocean%20doesn't%20just,distribute%20heat%20around%20the%20globe.">distribute heat</a>, helping to regulate Earth’s climate.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349478/original/file-20200726-29-189de0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=31%2C4%2C2968%2C1715&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Map showing geographic features of world's oceans" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349478/original/file-20200726-29-189de0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=31%2C4%2C2968%2C1715&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349478/original/file-20200726-29-189de0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349478/original/file-20200726-29-189de0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349478/original/file-20200726-29-189de0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349478/original/file-20200726-29-189de0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349478/original/file-20200726-29-189de0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349478/original/file-20200726-29-189de0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hand-painted rendition of Heezen-Tharp 1977 ‘World ocean floor’ map, by Heinrich Berann.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/resource/g9096c.ct003148/">Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/news-events/remembered-marie-tharp-pioneering-mapmaker-ocean-floor">Marie Tharp</a>, born in 1920, was a geologist and oceanographer who created maps that changed the way people imagine two-thirds of the world. Beginning in 1957, Tharp and her research partner, Bruce Heezen, began publishing the first comprehensive maps that showed the main features of the ocean bottom – mountains, valleys and trenches. </p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ruUF3z4AAAAJ&hl=en">As a geoscientist</a>, I believe Tharp should be as famous as Jane Goodall or Neil Armstrong. Here’s why.</p>
<h2>Traversing the Atlantic</h2>
<p>Well into the 1950s, many scientists assumed the seabed was featureless. Tharp showed that it contained rugged terrain, and that much of it was laid out in a systematic way. </p>
<p>Her images were critical to the development of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/plate-tectonics">plate tectonic theory</a> – the idea that plates, or large sections of Earth’s crust, interact to generate the planet’s seismic and volcanic activity. Earlier researchers – <a href="https://www.livescience.com/37529-continental-drift.html">particularly Alfred Wegener</a> – noticed how well the coastlines of Africa and South America fit together and proposed the continents had once been connected; Tharp identified mountains and a rift valley in the center of the Atlantic Ocean where the two continents could have been ripped apart.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349739/original/file-20200727-63428-1lb6xwh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="sketch of undersea profile" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349739/original/file-20200727-63428-1lb6xwh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349739/original/file-20200727-63428-1lb6xwh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=296&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349739/original/file-20200727-63428-1lb6xwh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=296&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349739/original/file-20200727-63428-1lb6xwh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=296&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349739/original/file-20200727-63428-1lb6xwh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349739/original/file-20200727-63428-1lb6xwh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349739/original/file-20200727-63428-1lb6xwh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tharp’s East-West profiles across the North Atlantic.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://doi.org/10.1130/SPE65-p1">The Floors of the Ocean, 1959</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Thanks to Tharp’s hand-drawn renditions of the ocean floor, I can imagine a walk across the Atlantic Ocean bottom from New York City to Lisbon. The journey would take me out along the continental shelf. Then downward towards the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Sohm-Abyssal-Plain">Sohm Abyssal Plain</a>. I’d need to detour around underwater mountains, called <a href="https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/seamounts.html">seamounts</a>. Then I’d start a slow climb up the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Mid-Atlantic-Ridge">Mid-Atlantic Ridge</a>, a submerged north-south mountain range. </p>
<p>After ascending to 8,200 feet (2,500 meters) below sea level to the ridge’s peak, I would descend several hundred feet, cross the ridge’s central rift valley and proceed up over the ridge’s eastern edge. Then back down to the ocean floor, until I began trekking up the European continental slope to Lisbon. The total walk would be about 3,800 miles (6,000 kilometers) – almost twice the length of the Appalachian Trail.</p>
<h2>Mapping the unseen</h2>
<p>Born in Ypsilanti, Michigan, Tharp studied English and music in college. But then in 1943 she enrolled in a University of Michigan master’s degree program designed to train women to be petroleum geologists during World War II. “Girls were needed to fill the jobs left open because the guys were off fighting,” <a href="https://www.whoi.edu/news-insights/content/marie-tharp/">Tharp later recalled</a>.</p>
<p>After working for an oil company in Oklahoma, Tharp sought a geology job at Columbia University in 1948. Women couldn’t go on research ships, but Tharp could draft, and was hired to assist male graduate students.</p>
<p>Tharp worked with Bruce Heezen, a grad student who gave her seafloor profiles to draft. These are long paper rolls that show the depth of the seafloor along a linear path, measured from a ship using sonar.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349741/original/file-20200727-15-69lzu4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="sketches of undersea features based on sonar" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349741/original/file-20200727-15-69lzu4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349741/original/file-20200727-15-69lzu4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=967&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349741/original/file-20200727-15-69lzu4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=967&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349741/original/file-20200727-15-69lzu4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=967&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349741/original/file-20200727-15-69lzu4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1216&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349741/original/file-20200727-15-69lzu4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1216&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349741/original/file-20200727-15-69lzu4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1216&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An illustration of Marie Tharp’s mapping process. (a) shows the position of two ship tracks (A, B) moving across the surface. (b) plots depth recordings as profiles, exaggerating their height to make features easier to visualize. (c) sketches features shown on the profiles.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://mirrorservice.org/sites/gutenberg.org/4/9/0/6/49069/49069-h/49069-h.htm">The Floors of the Ocean, 1959, Fig. 1</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Starting with a large blank sheet of paper, Tharp marked lines of latitude and longitude. Then she’d carefully mark where the ship had traveled. Next she’d read the depth at each location off the sonar profile, mark it on the ship’s track and create her own condensed profile, showing the depth to the ocean floor versus the distance the ship had traveled. </p>
<p>One of her important innovations was creating sketches depicting what the seafloor would look like. These views made it easier to visualize the ocean floor’s topography and create a physiographic map.</p>
<p>Tharp’s careful plotting of six east-to-west profiles across the North Atlantic revealed something no one had ever described before: a cleft in the center of the ocean, miles wide and hundreds of feet deep. Tharp suggested that it was a rift valley – a type of long trough that was known to exist on land.</p>
<p>Heezen <a href="https://www.whoi.edu/news-insights/content/marie-tharp/">called this idea “girl talk</a>” and told Tharp to recalculate and redraft. When she did, the rift valley was still there. </p>
<p>Another research assistant was plotting locations of earthquake epicenters on a map of the same size and scale. Comparing the two maps, Heezen and Tharp realized that the earthquake epicenters fell inside the rift valley. This discovery was critical to the development of plate tectonic theory: It suggested that movement was occurring in the rift valley, and that the continents might actually be drifting apart.</p>
<p>This insight was revolutionary. When Heezen, as a newly-minted Ph.D., gave a talk at Princeton in 1957 and showed the rift valley and epicenters, geology department chair <a href="https://www.whoi.edu/news-insights/content/marie-tharp/">Harry Hess replied</a>, “You have shaken the foundations of geology.” </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bGye6vlOpbY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Exploring mid-ocean ridges provides vast amounts of information about life on Earth.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Tectonic resistance</h2>
<p>In 1959 the Geological Society of America published “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1130/SPE65-p1">The Floors of the Oceans: I. The North Atlantic</a>” by Heezen, Tharp and “Doc” Ewing, director of the Lamont Observatory, where they worked. It contained Tharp’s ocean profiles, ideas and access to Tharp’s physiographic maps. </p>
<p>Some scientists thought the work was brilliant, but most didn’t believe it. French undersea explorer Jacques Cousteau was determined to prove Tharp wrong. Sailing aboard his research vessel, the Calypso, he purposely crossed the mid-Atlantic Ridge and lowered an underwater movie camera. To Cousteau’s surprise, the film showed that a rift valley existed.</p>
<p>“There’s truth to the old cliché that a picture is worth a thousand words and that seeing is believing,” Tharp observed in a <a href="https://www.whoi.edu/news-insights/content/marie-tharp/">1999 retrospective essay</a>.</p>
<p>What could have created the rift? Princeton’s Hess proposed some ideas <a href="http://scilib.ucsd.edu/sio/hist_oceanogr/hess-history-of-ocean-basins.pdf">in a 1962 paper</a>. It postulated that hot magma rose from inside the Earth at the rift, expanded as it cooled and pushed two adjoining plates further apart. This idea was a key contribution to plate tectonic theory, but Hess failed to reference the critical work presented in “The Floors of the Oceans” – one of the few publications that included Tharp as a co-author. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349691/original/file-20200727-25-1kaavmd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Portrait of Marie Tharp in 2001" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349691/original/file-20200727-25-1kaavmd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349691/original/file-20200727-25-1kaavmd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349691/original/file-20200727-25-1kaavmd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349691/original/file-20200727-25-1kaavmd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349691/original/file-20200727-25-1kaavmd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349691/original/file-20200727-25-1kaavmd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349691/original/file-20200727-25-1kaavmd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Marie Tharp in July 2001.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bruce Gilbert, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Still surveying</h2>
<p>Tharp continued working with Heezen to bring the ocean floor to life. Their collaboration included an <a href="https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/collex/exhibits/marie-tharp-pioneering-oceanographer/1967-indian-ocean-map/">Indian Ocean map</a>, published by National Geographic in 1967, and a 1977 <a href="https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/collex/exhibits/marie-tharp-pioneering-oceanographer/1977-world-ocean-floor-map/">World Ocean Floor map</a> that is now held at the Library of Congress. </p>
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<p>After Heezen died in 1977, Tharp continued her work until her death in 2006. In October 1978, Heezen (posthumously) and Tharp were awarded the <a href="https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.6.6.20180730a/full/">Hubbard Medal</a>, the National Geographic Society’s highest honor, joining the ranks of explorers and discoverers such as Ernest Shackleton, Louis and Mary Leakey and Jane Goodall.</p>
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<p>Today ships use a <a href="https://youtu.be/8ijaPa-9MDs">method called swath mapping</a>, which measures depth over a ribbon-like path rather than along a single line. The ribbons can be stitched together to create an accurate seafloor map.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349692/original/file-20200727-33-wfsk35.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349692/original/file-20200727-33-wfsk35.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349692/original/file-20200727-33-wfsk35.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=249&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349692/original/file-20200727-33-wfsk35.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=249&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349692/original/file-20200727-33-wfsk35.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=249&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349692/original/file-20200727-33-wfsk35.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349692/original/file-20200727-33-wfsk35.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349692/original/file-20200727-33-wfsk35.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Left. Detail of Canary Islands from Marie Tharp’s physiographic map of the North Atlantic. Right. Modern swath mapping depiction of the same area. Colors indicate depth.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Vicki Ferrini, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But because ships move slowly, it would take one ship 200 years to completely map the seafloor. An international effort to map the entire ocean floor in detail by 2030 is under way, using multiple ships, led by the <a href="https://www.nippon-foundation.or.jp/en/">Nippon Foundation</a> and the <a href="https://www.gebco.net/">General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans</a>. </p>
<p>This information is critical to beginning to understand what the seafloor looks like on a neighborhood scale. Marie Tharp was the first person to show the rich topography of the ocean floor and its different neighborhoods.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/142451/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Suzanne OConnell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Born on July 30, 1920, geologist and cartographer Tharp changed scientific thinking about what lay at the bottom of the ocean – not a featureless flat, but rugged and varied terrain.
Suzanne OConnell, Harold T. Stearns Professor of Earth Science, Wesleyan University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/141348
2020-07-24T12:22:49Z
2020-07-24T12:22:49Z
3 questions to ask yourself next time you see a graph, chart or map
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349233/original/file-20200723-23-1c9tv31.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=167%2C5%2C3464%2C2454&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">White House Coronavirus Task Force members reference a misleading chart in a press briefing.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Virus-Outbreak-Trump/f2c5f8d116a24062b563a32cea88235e/1/0">AP Photo/Alex Brandon</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since the days of painting on cave walls, people have been representing information through figures and images. Nowadays, data visualization experts know that <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/evamurray/2019/01/28/how-data-visualization-supports-communication">presenting information visually</a> <a href="https://ed.ted.com/lessons/david-mccandless-the-beauty-of-data-visualization">helps people better understand</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsoft.2010.12.006">complicated data</a>. The problem is that data visualizations can also leave you with the wrong idea – whether the images are sloppily made or intentionally misleading. </p>
<p>Take for example the bar graph presented at an <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?470990-1/president-trump-coronavirus-task-force-briefing">April 6 press briefing</a> by members of the White House Coronavirus Task Force. It’s titled “COVID-19 testing in the U.S.” and illustrates almost 2 million coronavirus tests completed up to that point. President Trump used the graph to support his assertion that testing was “<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-vice-president-pence-members-coronavirus-task-force-press-briefing-21/">going up at a rapid rate</a>.” Based on this graphic many viewers likely took away the same conclusion – but it is incorrect.</p>
<p>The graph shows the total cumulative number of tests performed over months, not the number of new tests each day.</p>
<p><iframe id="pG025" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/pG025/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>When you graph the number of new tests by date, you can see the number of COVID-19 tests performed between March and April did increase through time, but not rapidly. This instance is one of many when important information was not properly understood or well communicated.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=T7vRKkQAAAAJ&hl=en">researcher of hazard and risk communication</a>, I think a lot about how people interpret the charts, graphs <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2020.101487">and maps</a> they encounter daily.</p>
<p>Whether they show COVID-19 cases, global warming trends, high-risk tsunami zones, or utility usage, being able to correctly assess and interpret figures allows you to make informed decisions. Unfortunately, not all figures are created equal.</p>
<p>If you can spot a figure’s pitfalls you can avoid the bad ones. Consider the following three key questions the next time you see a graph, map or other data visual so you can confidently decide what to do with that new nugget of information.</p>
<h2>What is this figure trying to tell me?</h2>
<p>Start by reading the title, looking at the labels and checking the caption. If these are not available – be very wary. Labels will be on the horizontal and vertical axes on graphs or in a legend on maps. People often overlook them, but this information is crucial for putting everything you see in the visualization into context.</p>
<p>Look at the units of measure – are they in days or years, Celsius or Fahrenheit, counts, age, or what? Are they evenly spaced along the axis? Many of the recent COVID-19 cumulative case graphs use a logarithmic scale, where the the intervals along the vertical axis are not equally spaced. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-3Mlj3MQ_Q">This creates confusion for people</a> unfamiliar with this format.</p>
<iframe width="100%" height="315" src="https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/embedded-video/mmvo80534597724" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figure><figcaption><span class="caption">A March 12 broadcast of ‘The Rachel Maddow Show’ included a graph with unlabeled numbers and a tricky horizontal axis.</span></figcaption></figure>
<p>For instance, a graph from “<a href="https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/u-s-unprepared-for-expected-explosion-in-coronavirus-cases-80534597724?cid=sm_fb_maddow">The Rachel Maddow Show” on MSNBC</a>, showed coronavirus cases in the United States between Jan. 21 and March 11. The x-axis units on the horizontal are time (in a month-day format) and the y-axis units on the vertical are presumably cumulative case counts, though it does not specify.</p>
<p>The main issue with this graph is that the time periods between consecutive dates are uneven.</p>
<p><iframe id="yzUp1" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/yzUp1/5/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>In a revised graph, with dates properly spaced through time, and coronavirus diagnoses plotted as a line graph, you can see more clearly what <a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-cases-are-growing-exponentially-heres-what-that-means-135181">exponential growth</a> in the rate of infection really looks like. It took the first 30 days to add 33 cases, but only the last four to add 584 cases.</p>
<p>What may seem like a slight difference could help people understand how quickly exponential growth can go sky high and maybe change how they perceive the importance of curbing it.</p>
<h2>How are color, shape, size and perspective used?</h2>
<p><a href="https://eos.org/features/visualizing-science-how-color-determines-what-we-see">Color plays an important role</a> in how people interpret information. Color choices can make you notice particular patterns or draw your eye to certain aspects of a graphic.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349252/original/file-20200723-23-wgpj48.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349252/original/file-20200723-23-wgpj48.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=196&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349252/original/file-20200723-23-wgpj48.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=196&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349252/original/file-20200723-23-wgpj48.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=196&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349252/original/file-20200723-23-wgpj48.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=246&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349252/original/file-20200723-23-wgpj48.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=246&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/349252/original/file-20200723-23-wgpj48.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=246&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Oregon landslide susceptibility.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Consider two maps depicting landslide susceptibility, which are exactly the same except for reversed color schemes. Your eye may be be drawn to darker shades, intuitively seeing those areas as at higher risk. After looking at the legend, which color order do you think best represents the information? By paying attention to <a href="https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/hass-storytelling/storytelling-pixar-in-a-box/ah-piab-visual-language/v/color-visual">how color is used</a>, you can better understand how it influences what stands out to you and what you perceive.</p>
<p>Shape, size and orientation of features can also influence <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1756-8765.2011.01150.x">how you interpret a figure</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348978/original/file-20200722-32-o99maq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="confusing pie chart of employment data" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348978/original/file-20200722-32-o99maq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348978/original/file-20200722-32-o99maq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348978/original/file-20200722-32-o99maq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348978/original/file-20200722-32-o99maq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348978/original/file-20200722-32-o99maq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=764&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348978/original/file-20200722-32-o99maq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=764&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348978/original/file-20200722-32-o99maq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=764&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">What industries employ Coloradans?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://dossier.ink-live.com/html5/reader/production/default.aspx?pubname=&edid=5f3a495a-fdef-463f-b826-6b92609f04c5">Hemispheres</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Pie charts, like this one showing employment breakdown for a region, are notoriously difficult to parse. Notice how hard it is to pull out which employment category is highest or how they rank. The pie chart’s wedges are not organized by size, there are too many categories (11!), the 3D perspective distorts the wedge sizes, and some wedges are separate from others making size comparisons almost impossible.</p>
<p><iframe id="yCDTo" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/yCDTo/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>A bar chart is a better option for an informative display and helps show which industries people are employed in.</p>
<h2>Where do the data come from?</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345601/original/file-20200703-33935-elrvg1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="screen shot of Twitter poll about Trump's performance" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345601/original/file-20200703-33935-elrvg1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345601/original/file-20200703-33935-elrvg1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=361&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345601/original/file-20200703-33935-elrvg1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=361&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345601/original/file-20200703-33935-elrvg1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=361&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345601/original/file-20200703-33935-elrvg1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345601/original/file-20200703-33935-elrvg1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345601/original/file-20200703-33935-elrvg1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Survey posted on ‘Lou Dobbs Tonight,’ requesting viewers vote on Twitter about Trump’s performance.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.mediaite.com/tv/lou-dobbs-invites-viewers-to-vote-on-trumps-coronavirus-leadership-superb-great-or-very-good/">Fox Business Network</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The source of data matters in terms of quality and reliability. This is especially true for partisan or politicized data. If the data are collected from a group that isn’t a good approximation of the population as a whole, then it may be biased.</p>
<p>For example, on March 18, Fox Business Network host Lou Dobbs polled his audience with the question “How would you grade President Trump’s leadership in the nation’s fight against the Wuhan Virus?” </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1240421216692961284"}"></div></p>
<p>Imagine if only Republicans were asked this question and how the results would compare if only Democrats were asked. In this case, respondents were part of a self-selecting group who already chose to watch Dobbs’ show. The poll can only tell you about that group’s opinions, not people in the U.S. generally, for instance.</p>
<p>[<em>Get facts about coronavirus and the latest research.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=coronavirus-facts">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter.</a>]</p>
<p>Then consider that Dobbs provided only positive responses in his multiple choice options – “superb, great or very good” – and it is clear that this data has a bias.</p>
<p>Spotting bias and improper data collection methods allows you to decide which information is trustworthy. </p>
<h2>Think through what you see</h2>
<p>During this pandemic, information is emerging hour by hour. Media consumers are inundated with facts, charts, graphs and maps every day. If you can take a moment to ask yourself a few questions about what you see in these data visualizations, you may walk away with a completely different conclusion than you might have had at first glance.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/141348/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carson MacPherson-Krutsky receives funding from The National Science Foundation. She is the co-owner of HazardReady, LLC. </span></em></p>
Visualizations can help you understand data better – but they can also confuse or mislead. Here, some tips on what to watch out for.
Carson MacPherson-Krutsky, PhD Candidate in Geosciences, Boise State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/141131
2020-06-28T20:10:45Z
2020-06-28T20:10:45Z
Can I trust this map? 4 questions to ask when you see a map of the coronavirus pandemic
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342938/original/file-20200619-70371-jtv8ue.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C8%2C5499%2C3647&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Maps have shown us how the events of this disastrous year have played out around the globe, from the Australian bushfires to the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. But there are good reasons to question the maps we see. </p>
<p>Some of these reasons have been explored recently through <a href="https://theconversation.com/6-things-to-ask-yourself-before-you-share-a-bushfire-map-on-social-media-129557">maps of the bushfires</a> or those created from <a href="https://theconversation.com/satellite-imagery-is-revolutionizing-the-world-but-should-we-always-trust-what-we-see-95201">satellite images</a>. </p>
<p>Maps often inform our actions, but how do we know which ones are trustworthy? <a href="http://josis.org/index.php/josis/article/view/654">My research</a> shows that answering this question may be critically important for the world’s most urgent challenge: the COVID-19 pandemic.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/satellite-imagery-is-revolutionizing-the-world-but-should-we-always-trust-what-we-see-95201">Satellite imagery is revolutionizing the world. But should we always trust what we see?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Why are trustworthy maps important?</h2>
<p>Maps guide decisions, including those made by governments, private companies, and individual citizens. During the pandemic, government restrictions on activities to protect public health have been strongly informed by maps. </p>
<p>Governments rely on public cooperation with the restrictions, and they have used maps to explain the situation and build trust. If people don’t trust information from the government, they may be less likely to comply with the restrictions. </p>
<p>This highlights the importance of trustworthy COVID-19 maps. Maps can be untrustworthy when they don’t show the most relevant or timely information or because they show information in a misleading way. </p>
<p>Below are a few question you should ask yourself to work out whether you should trust a map you read.</p>
<h2>What information is being mapped?</h2>
<p>The number of cases of COVID-19 is an important piece of information. But that number could just reflect how many people are being tested. If you don’t know how much testing is being done, you can misjudge the level of risk. </p>
<p>Low case numbers might mean that there isn’t much testing being done. If the percentage of positive cases (positive test rate) is high, we might be missing cases. So not accounting for the number of tests can be misleading. </p>
<p>The World Health Organization suggests that at least <a href="https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/transcripts/who-audio-emergencies-coronavirus-press-conference-full-30mar2020.pdf?sfvrsn=6b68bc4a_2">ten negative tests to one positive test</a>, a positive test rate of at most 10%, is the lowest rate of testing that is adequate. </p>
<p>In Australia, we have been at the forefront of <a href="https://www.health.gov.au/resources/total-covid-19-tests-conducted-and-results">making sure we are doing enough testing</a> and we are confident that we are identifying most of the cases. Undertesting has been a problem in <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-testing#the-share-of-tests-that-are-positive">some other countries</a>. </p>
<h2>How is the information being mapped?</h2>
<p>It’s not just the numbers that matter. How the numbers are shown is also important so that map readers get an accurate picture of what we know. </p>
<p>The Victorian Government recently advised Melburnians to avoid travel to and from several local council areas because of high case numbers. But their publicly available map does not show this clearly. </p>
<p>Compare the government-produced map with a map of the same data mapped differently. Most people interpret light as few cases and dark as more cases. The government-produced map uses dark colours for both low and high numbers of cases.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/343173/original/file-20200622-54977-x891rk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/343173/original/file-20200622-54977-x891rk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343173/original/file-20200622-54977-x891rk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343173/original/file-20200622-54977-x891rk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343173/original/file-20200622-54977-x891rk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343173/original/file-20200622-54977-x891rk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343173/original/file-20200622-54977-x891rk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Active COVID-19 Cases in Victoria, 22 June 2020, ©State of Victoria 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Victorian Government Department of Health and Human Services</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><iframe id="ZNSFi" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/ZNSFi/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Who made this map and why did they make it?</h2>
<p>Maps can inform, misinform, and disinform, like any other information source. So it is important to pay attention to the map’s context as well as the author. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbfBrWm3CxQ">Viral maps</a> are maps that spread quickly and widely, often via social media. Viral maps cannot always be trusted, even when they come from a reputable source. Maps that are trustworthy in one context may not be in another. </p>
<p>An example from Australian news media in February shows this. Several media outlets showed a map that was tweeted by UK researchers. The tweet announced the publication of their <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.04.20020479v2.full.pdf">new paper about COVID-19</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://perma.cc/8PWT-J7BW">The media reported</a> the map showed locations to which COVID-19 had spread from Wuhan, China, the origin of the outbreak. It actually depicted airline flight routes, and was used in the tweet to illustrate how globally linked the world is. The map was from <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/1476-072X-11-33">a 2012 study</a> not the 2020 study.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/343229/original/file-20200622-55005-fquypp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/343229/original/file-20200622-55005-fquypp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=983&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343229/original/file-20200622-55005-fquypp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=983&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343229/original/file-20200622-55005-fquypp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=983&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343229/original/file-20200622-55005-fquypp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1236&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343229/original/file-20200622-55005-fquypp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1236&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343229/original/file-20200622-55005-fquypp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1236&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Original tweeted map that went viral and was picked up by many news outlets, © WorldPopProject.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">WorldPopProject, archived on the Wayback Machine</span></span>
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<p>Many readers may have trusted that reporting because their justifiable anxiety about COVID-19 was reinforced by the map’s design choices. The mass of overlapping red symbols creates a powerful and alarming impression. </p>
<p>While the lines in the map indicate potential routes for virus spread, it doesn’t provide evidence that the did virus spread along all of these routes. The researchers didn’t claim that it did. But without understanding why the map was made and what it showed, several media outlets reported it inaccurately. </p>
<p>Maps on social media are especially likely to be missing important context and explanation. The airline route map was re-shared many times as in the tweet below, often without any source information, making it hard to check its trustworthiness. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1227420853828116486"}"></div></p>
<p>Limiting the damage done by COVID-19 is a very substantial challenge. Maps can help ordinary citizens to work together with governments to achieve that outcome. But they need to be made and read with care. Ask yourself what is being mapped, how it’s being mapped, who made the map and why they made it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/141131/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amy Griffin is a Commission Co-Chair, Cognitive Issues in Geographic Information Visualization, International Cartographic Association.
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Maps shape our understanding of world events like the COVID-19 pandemic. Here’s how to make sure they don’t mislead you.
Amy Griffin, Senior Lecturer, Geospatial Sciences, RMIT University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.