Impakter
  • News
    • Culture
      • Art
      • Cinema
      • Entertainment
      • Literature
      • Music
      • Photography
    • Style
      • Architecture
      • Design
      • Fashion
      • Foodscape
      • Lifestyle
    • Society
      • Business
      • Foreign Affairs & Politics
      • Health
      • Tech
      • Science
      • Start-up
    • Impact
      • Environment
      • Eco Life
      • Circular Economy
      • COP26
      • CityLife
        • Copenhagen
        • San Francisco
        • Seattle
        • Sydney
      • Sustainability Series
        • SDGs Series
        • Shape Your Future
        • 2030: Dream or Reality
      • Philanthropy
        • United Nations
        • NGO & Charities
        • Essays
  • Business Hub
  • Sustainability Index
  • Partners
  • About
    • Team
    • Contributors
    • Global Leaders
    • Write for Impakter
      • Republishing Content
      • Permissions and Copyright
      • Privacy Policy
    • Contact
No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • Culture
      • Art
      • Cinema
      • Entertainment
      • Literature
      • Music
      • Photography
    • Style
      • Architecture
      • Design
      • Fashion
      • Foodscape
      • Lifestyle
    • Society
      • Business
      • Foreign Affairs & Politics
      • Health
      • Tech
      • Science
      • Start-up
    • Impact
      • Environment
      • Eco Life
      • Circular Economy
      • COP26
      • CityLife
        • Copenhagen
        • San Francisco
        • Seattle
        • Sydney
      • Sustainability Series
        • SDGs Series
        • Shape Your Future
        • 2030: Dream or Reality
      • Philanthropy
        • United Nations
        • NGO & Charities
        • Essays
  • Business Hub
  • Sustainability Index
  • Partners
  • About
    • Team
    • Contributors
    • Global Leaders
    • Write for Impakter
      • Republishing Content
      • Permissions and Copyright
      • Privacy Policy
    • Contact
No Result
View All Result
Impakter
No Result
View All Result
Home Society Climate Change

Mapping Climate Change: The Current Challenges of Cartography Between Art and Science

As glaciers continue to melt, handmade cartography, one of the most undervalued skills of our times, plays a special role in visually portraying climate change

byLeonardo Bartoli
March 20, 2022
in Climate Change, Environment
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Maps are all around us. They follow us at our pace, wherever we go. In the exiguous space of our pockets, we can dispose of the whole world from all scales and angles.

We take maps so much for granted that we don’t realize sometimes how useful they can be to understand climate change and environmental policy. And few know that to be able to analyze accurate and updated maps we still rely on cartographers who make regular changes by hand.

The techniques they use are of course very different from those of the past. The historical map shown as the cover of this article is called “Leo Belgicus”, it illustrates the current Benelux area (with some spots of northern France), drawn in the form of a roaring lion. The first version dates 1583, and the main variations were designed in the 17th century. It is an example of the overlapping of art and science over cartography in its golden age.

Cartography derives from the greek “carthes” (sheet of paper) and “graphein” (write), but cartography is a science (and an art) that  arose much before paper was invented.

The antecedents of modern maps were in fact drawings on prehistoric cave walls, the first example being wall paintings found in the Anatolian city of Catalhoyuk. One of the subjects portrayed represents a nearby volcano, and beside it is a bunch of rectangular patterns signaling the presence of the city itself.

We don’t know the reason for which cavemen felt the need to depict their city on a wall but, witnessing these works, we can safely deduce that humans have an intrinsic tendency to visualize reality in a spatial perspective, through whatever medium they have at their disposal.

After centuries of continuous evolution in spatial representation, humans started to draw their surroundings on paper.  The long era of (proper) cartography began. But technology, fueled by our growing need for efficiency, stimulated progress onwards, and it’s now 17 years since Google maps was first released.

Since then, map reading has been reduced, for the majority of people, to following a GPS navigation arrow.

Modern cartography in the Swiss Alps

However, cartographers still need to update maps every few years, but for a much different reason than that of the exploration age: Climate change.

Zoey Poll, from the New York Times, interviewed a group of Swiss cartographers, whose work mainly consists in updating the layout of the Swiss alps. Apart from changes in infrastructure, the main source of work is melting glaciers.

The update is still carried out by hand, though using digital equipment. This means that these people are the first on earth to recognize the impact of climate change on the Alps:

“It’s sometimes frightening when you see such changes, I get a scary feeling that there’s something happening that we can’t control”

— Swiss cartographer Jurg Gilgen

In the photo: The Aletsch Glacier seen from Eggishorn, Valais, Switzerland Photo Credit: Tobias Alt

The people specialized in map drawing are only a handful, and soon their line of work could disappear. Software programs are already able to carry out three days of human work in three minutes. This is not just a matter of nostalgia for the methods of the past, but it’s also a bit unsettling: We would virtually lose, as a species, the set of skills needed to perform a precise task, and rely on software to do it for us.

Engineers can program and maintain software, but in the absence of means to sustain them, they would not be able to replace the work of cartographers.


Related Articles: Geoscience as a tool in the twenty-first century | Connections That Matter: Climate Change and Gender Equality

Apart from the human factor, technology has only brought upsides. Digital maps can be updated and shared in a much faster and easier way. Moreover, they help policymakers to visualize complex geographical phenomena and to design policies accordingly.

Also the public in general benefits from them, as spatial information that accompanies articles can corroborate and help visualize the validity of verbal arguments aiding the reception of written messages.

There are, however, a few interpretative complications that may be difficult to detect for the average map user, undermining some of the advantages reported above.

Current challenges in map interpretation

The first issue is map generalization. All maps are simplified portraits of reality. If this fact, as a general notion, is known by everyone, its concrete implications elude many.

An example is the relative spatial proportion of countries depending on the proximity to the equator. The Mercator projection, the most widely used map design, represents countries closer to the equator as smaller than their actual entity (an unavoidable flaw derived from the adaption of a spherical structure to a flat one).

In The Image: The Mercator Projection Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Some maps are accompanied by graphs and infographics. These versions are particularly useful for scientific divulgation and for policy-making.

However, these types of maps rely on data, adding another potential factor of bias to their interpretation: one must analyze closely the validity of the underlying data before taking the information received as an extension of reality.

Another final issue can be map literacy, the ability to read maps.

In the Photo: A thematic map displaying GDP per Capita in Europo. Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

If in its basic structure this is a widely possessed skill, developed since elementary school, some more specific aspects can be unknown to many users, reducing again the informational advantages of maps. An example is the difference between a thematic and topographic map. Would you be able to give a precise definition of both?

In the Photo: A topographic map of Scotland. Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

As can be seen from the images, a thematic map displays the geographic pattern of a subject matter, while a topographic map portraits the morphology of a geographic area.

Maps, as witnesses of climate change, can become one of the best allies we have to implement effective environmental policies and help to ease the work of Swiss cartographers (and other cartographers in other countries) before their software-induced pension arrives. Eventually, once we’ll start to dialogue exclusively with machines, it will be even more important to understand in detail how to analyze maps. We just need to learn to listen to them, to “read” their visual language.


Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed here by Impakter.com columnists are their own, not those of Impakter.com.  In the Featured Photo: The Leo Belgicus, by Claes Jansz Visscher. Featured Photo Credit: Public Domain.

Tags: CartographyClimate ChangeEnvironmentGeographyMaps
Previous Post

Scraps to Success: Bringing Small Businesses Toward a Circular Economy

Next Post

World Water Day 2022

Leonardo Bartoli

Leonardo Bartoli

Leonardo studies International Politics and Government at Bocconi University and has recently returned to Milan after completing an exchange program at Sciences Po in Reims. He has developed a passion for journalism looking at how impactful certain stories can be if told in the right way. His interests revolve around humanitarian crises, conflict and migration as in general he is drawn by the human side of political phenomena.

Related Posts

EU ban cars
Climate Change

EU Bans the Sale of CO2-Producing Cars After 2035

March 31, 2023
overturn
Climate Change

The Day After Tomorrow Is Arriving, a New Study Warns

March 31, 2023
Gulf of Mexico oil lease
Environment

US To Allow Oil and Gas Drilling in Gulf of Mexico

March 30, 2023
Next Post
World Water Day 2022

World Water Day 2022

Recent News

A Universal Basic Income pilot program in Ireland is paying 2,000 artists €16,900 a year to focus on creative pursuit.

Basic Income for Artists: The Gateway to a New Economy?

April 1, 2023
Believe Trans People.

Believe Trans People.

March 31, 2023
autism acceptance week

Autism Acceptance Week: A Time to Campaign for Change

March 31, 2023
impakter-logo-light

Impakter informs you through the eco news site and empowers your sustainable lifestyle with its eco products marketplace.

Visit here IMPAKTER ECO for your eco products needs.

Registered Office Address

32 Lots Road, London
SW10 0QJ, United Kingdom


IMPAKTER Limited

Company number: 10806931

Impakter is a publication that is identified by the following International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) is the following 2515-9569 (Printed) and 2515-9577 (online – Website).


Office Hours - Monday to Friday

9.30am - 5.00pm CEST


Email

stories [at] impakter.com

About Us

  • Team
  • Contributors
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact
  • Partners

By Audience

  • Lifestyle
  • Green Finance
  • Culture
  • Society
  • Style
  • Impact

Impakter Platforms

  • Media
  • Index

© 2023 IMPAKTER. All rights reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • Culture
    • Style
    • Society
    • Impact
  • Business Hub
  • Sustainability Index
  • About
    • Team
    • Partners
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy

© 2023 IMPAKTER. All rights reserved.

Impakter.com uses cookies to enhance your experience when visiting the website and to serve you with advertisements that might interest you. By continuing to use this site, you agree to our use of cookies. Visit our Privacy and Cookie Policy.