Search Results (38)

Stylistic neutrality is the basis for the stylistic evaluation of maps. Furthermore, the stylistic neutrality of a map as a cartographic text may be related to objectivity. However, what constitutes stylistic neutrality is not clearly stated in the field of cartography. The problem is complicated by the fact that the stylistically neutral image is a hypothetical image. The aim of this research is to investigate stylistic neutrality by exploring the peculiarities of cartographic language functioning in different fields of social activity. The research combines descriptive analysis, stylistic analysis, cartographic and interpretative methods. Firstly, the research reveals the concept of cartographic stylistic neutrality, in line with the cartographic linguistic paradigm. Secondly, an analysis of the characteristics of cartographic language in different fields of social activity from the point of view of stylistic neutrality is carried out. Thirdly, an example is developed to illustrate stylistic cartographic neutrality. Stylistic neutrality is characterised by the stylistic features of cartographic language: clarity, accuracy, conciseness, calmness, abstractness, temperance, neutrality and moderateness. The style of cartographic production for inventory and research activities is closest to stylistic neutrality, while the style of reflective activity is the most expressive and acts as a source of concreteness for stylistic neutrality. Full article

This article examines the struggles for water justice led by women in the Aconcagua River Basin (Valparaíso, Chile) through a hydrofeminist perspective. Chile’s water crisis, rooted in a colonial extractivist model and exacerbated by neoliberal policies of water privatization, reflects a deeper crisis of socio-environmental injustice. Rather than understanding water merely as a resource, this research adopts a relational epistemology that conceives water as a living entity shaped by and shaping social, cultural, and ecological relations. Drawing on life-history interviews and the construction of a hydrofeminist cartography with women river defenders, this article explores how gendered and racialized bodies experience the crisis, resist extractive practices, and articulate alternative modes of co-existence with water. The hydrofeminist framework offers critical insights into the intersections of capitalism, colonialism, patriarchy, and environmental degradation, emphasizing how women’s embodied experiences are central to envisioning new water governance paradigms. This study reveals how women’s affective, spiritual, and territorial ties to water foster strategies of resilience, recovery, and re-existence that challenge the dominant extractivist logics. By centering these hydrofeminist life histories, this article contributes to broader debates on environmental justice, decolonial feminisms, and the urgent need to rethink human–water relationships within the current climate crisis. Full article

In this research, we have compiled and analysed the organisations and studies that jointly address the issue of land administration, fundamentally in the cartographic aspects related to the cadastre and land registry, in the international environment, and at the Ibero-American level. Through qualitative social research, interviews were conducted with internationally recognised experts on issues of general cartography, cartography and legal security, and related to cadastral valuation, obtaining conclusions that allow a general diagnosis of the situation of the Land Administration System in Ibero-America. In this environment, problems such as the heterogeneity of systems, overlapping of competencies, instability, lack of sustainability, need for standards, lack of transparency, etc., should be highlighted, among others. Finally, based on the compilation of existing data from the Cadastre Data survey conducted in 2011 by the Permanent Committee of Cadastre in Ibero-America, and with information from its members and member organisations of the Pan-American Association of Professional Surveyors, the geoportal Diagnosis of the Situation of the Land Administration System in Ibero-America has been created. This geoportal allows the initial identification of the different organisations and general regional data. Full article

Urban community gardens are spaces where human well-being is improved by generating ecosystem services locally, and the interactions between humans and the environment increase the resilience of social–ecological systems. Their advantages locally have already been demonstrated. Yet, their effects on larger scales are not clear. According to the panarchy principle, a resilient subsystem may improve the resilience of a whole system. The complex interactions between different scales are one of the challenges in the search for resilience in urban systems. With this research, we provide conceptual interscalar leverage points in urban planning to foster resilience. We postulate that strategically located urban community gardens enhance the general resilience of social–ecological systems on an urban scale by applying a qualitative method to approach the general resilience of a place and the cartography of general urban-landscape resilience. We applied these methods in five urban segments of Queretaro, Mexico. The case study of the Mu’ta urban community garden helps us demonstrate the changes in its general resilience with the emergence of a garden. The results confirmed the resilience influences between the scales of locality, neighborhood, and city through the social–ecological overlap, spatial continuity, and heterogeneity in the density of landscape openness to engage socially and ecologically. Full article

The halfway point for the implementation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) was marked in 2023, as set forth in the 2030 Agenda. Geospatial technologies have proven indispensable in assessing and tracking fundamental components of each of the 17 SDGs, including climatological and ecological trends, and changes and humanitarian crises and socio-economic impacts. However, gaps remain in the capacity for geospatial and related digital technologies, like AI, to provide a deeper, more comprehensive understanding of the complex and multi-factorial challenges delineated in the SDGs. Lack of progress toward these goals, and the immense implementation challenges that remain, call for inclusive and holistic approaches, coupled with transformative uses of digital technologies. This paper reviews transdisciplinary, holistic, and participatory approaches to address gaps in ethics and diversity in geospatial and related technologies and to meet the pressing need for bottom-up, community-driven initiatives. Small-scale, community-based initiatives are known to have a systemic and aggregate effect toward macro-economic and global environmental goals. Cybernetic systems thinking approaches are the conceptual framework investigated in this study, as these approaches suggest that a decentralized, polycentric system—for example, each community acting as one node in a larger, global system—has the resilience and capacity to create and sustain positive change, even if it is counter to top-down decisions and mechanisms. Thus, this paper will discuss how holistic systems thinking—societal, political, environmental, and economic choices considered in an interrelated context—may be central to building true resilience to climate change and creating sustainable development pathways. Traditional and Indigenous knowledge (IK) systems around the world hold holistic awareness of human-ecological interactions—practicable, reciprocal relationships developed over time as a cultural approach. This cultural holistic approach is also known as Systemic Literacy, which considers how systems function beyond “mechanical” aspects and include political, philosophical, psychological, emotional, relational, anthropological, and ecological dimensions. When Indigenous-led, these dimensions can be unified into participatory, community-centered conservation practices that support long-term human and environmental well-being. There is a growing recognition of the criticality of Indigenous leadership in sustainability practices, as well as that partnerships with Indigenous peoples and weaving knowledge systems, as a missing link to approaching global ecological crises. This review investigates the inequality in technological systems—the “digital divide” that further inhibits participation by communities and groups that retain knowledge of “place” and may offer the most transformative solutions. Following the review and synthesis, this study presents cybernetics as a bridge of understanding to Indigenous systems thinking. As non-Indigenous scholars, we hope that this study serves to foster informed, productive, and respectful dialogues so that the strength of diverse knowledges might offer whole-systems approaches to decision making that tackle wicked problems. Lastly, we discuss use cases of community-based processes and co-developed geospatial technologies, along with ethical considerations, as avenues toward enhancing equity and making advances in democratizing and decolonizing technology. Full article

Cartographic resources play a crucial role in facilitating communication across various sectors, including research projects focused on low-income communities. Despite this, some researchers still adhere to colonialist and exploitative approaches. This study aims to promote equitable university–community interaction though cartographic resources, aid academic and vulnerable community users in choosing a better platform for their work, and provide insights to developers for improving the platforms to better serve the user profiles of community members. To achieve this, we examined the use of cartographic resources in five projects within low-income communities (commonly referred to as favelas or so-called “slums”) in three Brazilian cities, all guided by equitable principles. The study unfolds in four stages: (i) data collection from documents and interviews; (ii) systematization into seven analytical categories—cartographic resources, data, personnel, processes, equipment, general objectives, and specific objectives; (iii) analysis of eight cartographic resources; and (iv) a critical examination of the outcomes. The synthesis of the collected information identified 65 characteristics/demands, with 17 common to all projects, including vector feature creation, thematic map design, printed map usage, and satellite imagery. We also identified 53 geographic information system (GIS) functionalities required for the projects, predominantly related to vector data generation and editing. The outcomes demonstrate the benefits of project methodologies, contributing to a decolonial university–community praxis. Additionally, they underscore the potential of digital cartographic resources, functioning not solely as data collection tools but also as powerful instruments that empower slum residents to advocate for improvements and foster local development. Full article

Over the past two decades, there has been increasing research on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and geographic information technologies for monitoring and mapping varying phenomena on the Earth’s surface. At the same time, there has been growing attention given to the ethical challenges that these technologies present (both individually and collectively in fields such as critical cartography, ethics of AI and GeoAI). This attention has produced a growing number of critical commentaries and articles as well as guidelines (by academic, governmental, and private institutions) that have been drafted to raise these ethical challenges and suggest potential solutions. This paper presents a review of 16 ethical guidelines of AI and 8 guidelines of geographic information technologies, analysing how these guidelines define and employ a number of ethical values and principles (e.g., autonomy, bias, privacy, and consent). One of the key findings from this review is the asymmetrical mentioning of certain values and principles within the guidelines. The AI guidelines make very clear the potential of AI to negatively impact social and environmental justice, autonomy, fairness and dignity, while far less attention is given to these impacts in the geographic information guidelines. This points to a need for the geo-information guidelines to be more attentive to the role geographic information can play in disempowering individuals and groups. Full article

This paper investigates the application of machine learning in urban and architectural education, with a focus on addressing homelessness in Skid Row, Los Angeles. It presents a case study of an urban design studio utilizing data-driven methods to propose transitional housing solutions, emphasizing the importance of design in the context of social justice. The study explores the use of machine learning and digital cartography for a detailed analysis of Skid Row’s dense homeless population, offering students a thorough insight into urban challenges. The research also identifies the complexities involved in integrating these technologies into educational frameworks, including issues with data accuracy, technical hurdles, and ethical considerations. The paper concludes by advocating for an interdisciplinary, data-informed, and socially conscious approach in architectural and urban design education, highlighting its necessity in preparing students to effectively tackle contemporary urban problems. Full article

The energy crisis and the exacerbation of climate change, along with the associated geopolitical tensions, including the war in Ukraine, are accelerating the energy transition in Europe. A transition from fossil energy sources to renewable energy sources that have a low Energy Return Rate, involves, among many other issues, the use of wide areas to locate the necessary infrastructure for production, transport and storage, altering territories with agricultural, cultural and ecological values. This process is based on the deployment of renewable energy megaprojects in peripheric areas of the continent, mostly in the southern states creating a wide range of social conflicts and resistances. We analyse this process in the case study of the province of Granada, a peripheric territory of south-east Spain considering the category of energy colonialism and the six dimensions that characterise it, arguing that this is a proper approach to address internal colonialism related to the corporate energy transition. We also want to demonstrate the importance of using participatory methodologies for this analysis, so we have developed an online survey, semi-structured interviews and participatory cartography workshops, always focusing on the citizens and stakeholders who are resisting the deployment of renewable energy megaprojects in the province of Granada. The obtained results allow us to confirm the necessity of using participatory methodologies and the colonial aspect of this deployment, including the characteristics of social resistance, the territorial impacts, the land-grabbing process and the inequalities in the production, distribution and use of energy. We conclude with the need to articulate a decolonial energy transition where participatory methods constitute a fundamental tool both to attend the resistances and to build the alternatives. Full article

Despite the growing global interest in promoting rural development as a strategy to guarantee food security, in developing countries there are large gaps to achieve a sustainable countryside, mainly in rural areas. This research work delves into a methodological approach definition to establish the baseline for the public policy implementation and prioritize the intervention needs in the different items considered in an integral rural development public policy. The proposed methodology combines a qualitative characterization of needs and goals, a social cartography, a quantitative characterization of indicators and the use of multicriteria classification for prioritizing development policies. Eight localities with sixteen small rural settlements are taken as a research unit, to apply the proposed methodology and determine the implementation level of a public policy. The results show that a set of priority policies that both meet the authorities’ objectives and the population’s needs can be defined. Moreover, a vector of priority is proposed to define the weakest items, as a guide to local government administrations to focus efforts on interventions to achieve greater impacts on the rural community development under study. Finally, via a double field validity assessment, those strategic lines are hierarchized and analyzed regarding their potential relationships, as a social system. Full article

Landscape restoration activities must be conducted through a transdisciplinary process, integrating social, economic, environmental, and governance aspects. Combining visions from the natural and social sciences is a challenge in highly complex territories, where unique ecosystem characteristics, economic processes, stakeholders of diverse nature, and different normativity converge. The harmonization of multiple techniques, such as multicriteria spatial analysis, expert knowledge elicitation, and social mapping, allows for an approach to defining landscape restoration areas in complex regions. This paper employs multiple techniques to define ecosystem restoration areas in a complex Colombian Andes landscape, integrating ecological and social components for sustainable development. We observed that areas of high and very high feasibility for ecological restoration, encompassing 179.5 hectares (4.84% of the study area), are predominantly located near primary forests. Although some areas have a low feasibility for conservation processes, they should not be disregarded as they still require protection. Landowners prioritize watershed and soil restoration as the most important landscape restoration activity due to their interest in improving water-related ecosystem services. This proposal enables the identification of areas with a higher restoration potential at the property level, facilitating prioritization and investment allocation for future implementation. Full article

This paper demonstrates how historical research is a valuable tool for identifying past geological, geomorphological and climatic hazards and therefore critical for mitigating and reducing future risk. The authors describe the potential of a scientific field that straddles that of the geologist, geographer, historian and archivist. Historical records include a range of materials and sources of information, which can be very diverse; from written documents to cartographies, and from drawings to marble tombstones. They are all useful and convey important data, on the date of the event, the size of the phenomena, sometimes on ground effects, damage or magnitude. The authors discuss how to conduct historical research by providing a list of locations and how important historical documents can be found. Works that mention geological phenomena are listed, starting with the first occasional descriptions by individuals in letters, up to very specific publications in individual fields of interest. With this introduction, the editors of the Special Issue wish to draw attention to the importance of historical documentation, which is too often ignored or considered of low priority by the scientific community, but can contain key information on events, their impacts and social and cultural adaptations. Full article

In recent years, the morbidity and mortality rates caused by stings and bites of poisonous species have been constant in Mexico; such a phenomenon has been emphasized due to the dominance or modification of the natural geosystem. The modification in the availability of water resources has caused changes in the climate, extreme droughts, and floods that influence the distribution of species, generating risks where they did not occur before. With the aforementioned, it is important to identify risky points through the development of new cartography in the country, which allows an analysis from a spatial and geostatistical perspective. Based on the number of victims of stings or bites, there will be a sharp increase in exposure to poisonous animals where the distribution of these species overlaps with areas of high vulnerability as well as social and natural contact in Mexico. The aim of this study is to model the anthropogenic risk of poisonous species in Mexico in a spatial way (data from 2010–2017). The spatial analyses of this study were carried out throughout the Mexican territory and focused on species such as coral snakes, rattlesnakes, scorpions, and centipedes. The variables of vulnerability, danger, and exposure were considered to create a generalized risk model using the core area alternative in the zonation program, allowing a spatial analysis. The methodology consisted of six stages: (1) the identification of threats and records collected from chosen poisonous animals; (2) obtaining risk models by using the Zonation software that summarized all the species distribution modeling (SDM); (3) the development of a general anthropogenic vulnerability indicator; (4) obtaining the general exposure model with the index of accessibility to medical services; (5) obtaining risk models; and (6) the validation of risk models with morbidity and mortality rates by obtaining geostatistical models. The highlighted risk areas are the Pacific Ocean coast from Southern Sinaloa to the border of Michoacán, a corridor from central Veracruz to northern Oaxaca, central Guerrero, northern Michoacán, and northwestern Nuevo León. Full article

U.S. based post-secondary educational institutions usually have violent origin stories that include land theft, genocide, and the participation in slavery. Schools of social work are no exception. In recent years, colleges and universities, including schools of social work, have started to confront their histories of and participation in racial-settler colonialism. The severance of land as kinship, and land theft, have been a significant part of the harms of racial-settler colonialism. Colleges and universities have benefited from land theft, primarily through land-grants. Still, institutional accountability has been minimal, including limited acknowledgment of harm and modest changes in curriculum and staff. This paper expands the terrain of institutional accountability in social work higher education to consider land-based healing initiatives as a critical remedy for the harms of racial settler colonialism. This paper provides a historical review and decolonial analysis of the connection between social work higher education and land-grant institutions. Building on social cartography literature, a mapping framework for decolonizing higher education is examined in relation to questions of institutional accountability by land-grant universities. This framework is offered in conjunction with contemporary examples of struggles for institutional accountability in and outside of higher education. The paper concludes with future recommendations for research related to institutional accountability and the implications of land-based healing as an approach. Full article

Reducing the number of crossings on graph edges can be useful in various applications, including network visualization, circuit design, graph theory, cartography or social choice theory. This paper aims to determine the crossing number of the join product $G^{*}+D_n$, where $G^{*}$ is a connected graph isomorphic to $K_{2,2,2}\setminus \{e_1,e_2\}$ obtained by removing two edges $e_1,e_2$ with a common vertex and a second vertex from the different partitions of the complete tripartite graph $K_{2,2,2}$, and $D_n$ is a discrete graph composed of n isolated vertices. The proofs utilize known exact crossing number values for join products of specific subgraphs $H_k$ of $G^{*}$ with discrete graphs in combination with the separating cycles. Similar approaches can potentially estimate unknown crossing numbers of other six-vertex graphs with a larger number of edges in join products with discrete graphs, paths or cycles. Full article