From the category archives:
The Islands Trust, which focuses on preserving island communities in British Columbia, have just launched MapIT as a means to explore island properties and ecosystems for better land-use planning and resource management. The Islands Trust Area covers the islands and waters between the British Columbia mainland and southern Vancouver Island, including Howe Sound and as [...]
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It’s now the eve of the State of the Map (SOTM) and Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial (FOSS4G) events, which take place back-to-back in Denver. The OpenStreetMap and FOSS4G communities will converge to cover open data and open source software, with a focus on development tools, applications, and shared objectives. The combined audience [...]
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On the eve of one of the biggest geospatial developer conferences, FOSS4G in Denver, it’s perhaps fitting that there’s an inspirational story about the lowly start of Google Maps in today’s Startup Smart publication out of Australia. Lars Rasmussen, the co-creator of Google Maps discusses the sometimes difficult path that led to the breakthrough in [...]
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The Association of Brazilian Geographers are among the vocal opponents of the eviction of the 732 residents of Vila Chocolatão, a shantytown in the center of Porto Alegre. The forced eviction was planned in order to make way for a building for the Federal Public Ministry, but it has been suspended due to the outcry. [...]
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Mark Monmonier’s book “How to Lie with Maps,” is a perennial favorite within the mapping community, not because it’s a tutorial for deception, but because it brings to light the inherent bias in most mapping efforts. As with most communication mediums, those in power control the message in the map, and can manipulate outcomes. In [...]
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The United Nations University is holding a workshop this weekend in Tokyo to explore ways to redevelop the region of Tohoku after the devastating earthquake and tsunami. The aim is to harness community input through the creation of social contribution networks and the use of Google’s mapping and modeling tools. Google representatives will be training [...]
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While the World Bank launched the interactive Mapping for Results (M4R) site in October of last year as part of a new open data initiative, today marks the official launch in conjunction with the World Bank Spring Meetings. This portal introduces a new level of transparency on the location of World Bank projects, their progress, [...]
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UN-HABITAT and Shack/Slum Dwellers International have undertaken a pilot project in Uganda to record land occupancy and ownership in GIS that is based on the actual pattern in an urban slum, as opposed to the parcel boundary. The effort tackles the reality that families live on very small footprints and that a thousand families can [...]
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A newly enforced wetland designation and an accompanying wetland predictive layer in the mapping system in the province of New Brunswick, Canada has touched off a politically-charged debate on urban growth and planning. The area that has been designated as wetlands in the province has jumped from 4% to 18% with the new criteria. Critics [...]
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