Retracing Rivers and drawing swamps: Using a drawing tablet to reconstruct an historical hydroscape from army corps survey maps

Abstract

This article presents a novel geospatial approach to reconstructing and analyzing environmental change over extensive spatial and temporal scales, even in systems such as rivers and streams that are comparatively difficult to digitize. We used a drawing tablet and stylus to digitize features found on historical Army Corps maps across the spatially extensive landscape of the Lower Wabash River’s riparian zone, in Indiana and Illinois, USA. The methodology allows for an efficient reconstruction of sinuous and irregular environmental features, such as sloughs, and demonstrates the utility of digitizing historical maps to understand the evolution of surface water quantity and location across a landscape. We then compared these historical data to contemporary environmental datasets for the same study area to understand what changes have occurred over a 100?year period. This reveals that the hydroscape of the Lower Wabash River has been significantly altered by past human activity, notably through the reduction of swamps, wetlands, and sandbars, and the increase in drainage ditches and overall stream area. Notably, many of these historical alterations are not captured within current environmental datasets.     

Engaging children to voice their sense of place through location-based story making with photo-story maps

ABSTRACT

Sense of place is neither linear nor rooted in time. One way for children to voice their sense of place is through location-based stories with plots structured in space, rather than time. Since mobile devices are already ingrained in the everyday lives of many children in the U.S., a mobile application offers a familiar medium to engage children in location-based story making. Here, we present photo-story maps, our approach to leveraging an existing story-map mobile application as a research tool to collect and analyze children’s stories about sense of place. We found that photo-story maps facilitate the organization of nonlinear location-based stories, promote an inclusive story-making process through a mobile application, support triangulation of varied digital story elements, and provide dynamic interview material. We suggest photo-story maps demonstrate the value of location-based story making and the potential of familiar mobile applications for reducing the barriers to including children in research.