Mapping Hacks

xxx

|

Preface

Wildlife Minister has a habitat map, and the Minister of Natural Resources

has a map of mines. To take advantage of these maps in a broader geospa-

tial web, however, today’s Ugandan government would need to make

another investment in digitizing these maps, allowing them to be integrated

and publicly accessed. Clearly, GIS planners are at a disadvantage in devel-

oping countries where spending development money on digital maps versus

other pressing needs remains a policy decision for local, regional, and

national governments, as well as international development agencies.

—Mike Liebhold

A Geoscope in Every Home

Regardless of how the geoweb ecology evolves over the next 10 years, one

thing is certain: it will demand a new geospatial literacy that today exists

only among a small portion of the most highly educated people.

Geospatial, or locative, literacy might be described as the ability to under-

stand, create, and use spatial information and maps in navigating, in

describing phenomena, in problem-solving, and in artistic expression—ulti-

mately including the ability to create and utilize information, viewable in

place, directly associated with physical reality. There are no programs to

help people develop this kind of literacy, and even in the most developed

countries, those who have achieved a high level of geospatial literacy have

done so largely without a compelling formal curriculum. ...