Flood mapping as Public Geography
As partisan action research (Frampton 2006), public geography has a commitment which presents some challenges which are less evident in collaborative research across institutional structures such as the National Weather Service Flood Inundation Mapping project. Commitment, as articulated within the action research paradigm unearths a set of inter-related set of problems concerning truth claims and knowledge production, positionality and reflexivity (Siraj-Blatchford 1995).Smith writes, “all participatory action research partnerships present challenges as the space between community insiders and outsiders is navigated”(Smith et al, 2010:3). In the instance of National Weather Service Flood Inundation Mapping project, there were multiple outsiders, from different agencies, and emergency planners seeking to reduce risk and uncertainty. Clear and understandable maps based on sound science reduced that uncertainty and create the appearance of competence and manageability. However, what are left unaddressed are the questions and concerns of the subaltern or counter publics which might or might not coincide with the concerns and questions of institutional actors.
Flood inundation map libraries as collaborative mapping:
The kinds of hazard mapping required by FEMA, through the NFIP program uses one lens, while the NWS deploys another. The NWS, in partnership with NOAA, FEMA, USGS, and NCFMP created flood inundation map libraries collaboratively for 16 locations in North Carolina based on hydrological forecasting via the NWS AHPS (www.weather.gov/water). In the example of NWS flood inundation mapping, improved communications between a coalition of partners including emergency and floodplain managers, is a process which might be defined as social change in the sense of changing institutional practices in an iterative reflexive cycle of engagement. Triangulating between methods, using multiple research protocols is essential. Either achieving more effective responses to flooding events or compliance with Global Warming mitigation measures requires stakeholder investment at all levels.
The presentation also outlined how the production and dissemination of these maps via the internet, serves to link experts across agencies in ways that enhance trust, addressing both the problem of information silos/stove pipes and relevance of that information to planners. Mapping as a performative practice is a tool for connecting communities of interest, but in this case, the public is not an equal partner. As described in the presentation and brochure, this process does not include the public or publics as full participants but rather as a secondary audience for the mapping products. Action research protocols applied to specific risk areas might be a useful extension to the collaborative approach spearheaded by FEMA, NOAA, USGS, and NCFMP. Focus groups, interviews surveys, and civic engagement projects would facilitate more sharply focused interventions thereby increasing emergency readiness based on a two-way communication flow between publics—including the subaltern—and responsible agencies at the local, state and national scales. Mapping practices could act as a vehicle to create a dialog in the context of public geography as action research, engaging publics and counter publics.
Cartography and public geography:
A tension exists between the expert as knowledge producer and the subaltern (Pain 2003, 2004; Katz 1992; Rose 1997) the subaltern in this case being citizens, voters, taxpayers- publics both included and excluded from discourse in the public sphere. With mapping and mapping practices as a metaphor and object of discussion, this tension can become an engine for re-conceptualizing relationships between actors across agencies and with the subaltern. The 100 year or 50 year hazard mappings and estimation of impact are difficult to understand and give little useful information of what to do in cases of natural disasters (Figure 1 Thematic Hazard map) for either emergency planners or concerned citizens. But as outlined in the presentation by hydrological flood scenario maps provide useful information and effectively respond to the need for actionable intelligence required by policy makers and are likely to address questions and concerns from a segment of the public as well.
Maps are way finding tools, cartography as a subset of geography is by its very nature collaborative and contingent:
…“the important question is not is not what a map is (a spatial representation or performance), nor what a map does (communicates spatial information), but how the map emerges through contingent, relational, context-embedded practices to solve relation problems (their ability to make a difference to the world); to move from essentialist and constructivist cartography to what we term emergent cartography”… (Kitchin, Dodge, 2007:342).
The conversations which focus the work of a cartographer are cyclical, proceeding as a process of discovery along the fault lines and ruptures perceived by the end users of maps and mapping products -- but mediated by the cartographer, “an
Figure 1 (Hurricane casualties 100 year planning horizon) created for FEMA by dcsteveinwuhan.
inscription in a constant state of reinscription” (Kitchin, Dodge 2007:335). The selection of scales, units of analysis, techniques and variables are dependent on point of view and positionality informed by theory. Cartography is performative (Crampton 2009). Inherent in mapping as data visualization are the issues of what kind of maps, what kind of data and how it is represented for what audience (Slocum 2005). Spatial data is inherently skewed, translating observations from a spheroid to a flat surface, symbolizing features and conceptualizing real world entities as discrete polygons, continuous fields or as a distributed network is ultimately a distortion for clarity.
Map making is a subjective process, involving aesthetic choices as well as quantitative analysis. Each choice is informed by sets of assumptions conscious or unconscious. Maps are way finding tools illustrating spatial relationships in a non-linear fashion, meanings include those intended by the map maker and ones emergent in the process of map making or map reading. This dialectical process is a process of discovery as new levels of synthesis evolve. It is the final user who determines the validity of the map, regardless of T tests or confidence intervals or R squared values. Any representation of reality is ultimately a matter of measurement- what gets counted how it gets counted and how the data is manipulated- dependent on the lens through which observations are sieved.
Challenges
On a larger scale, we have seen what can be termed a revolt against reason in the resistance to concerted efforts to mitigate or adapt to ecological limits and constraints on industrial society. Public relations efforts to shift opinion have been successful as voters in the US have reported in opinion polls a reduced concern with climate change. “Thirty-four percent (34%) do not consider climate change a serious problem…A higher percentage of voters have consistently blamed global warming on planetary trends rather than human activity since early February 2009”
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/environment
The NOAA Operational Polar-Orbiting Satellites for Monitoring the Environment and Socioeconomic Activities provides useful advice to farmers and ranchers, fisherman, commodity groups and agribusiness, insurance providers, extension agents, water and forest resource managers, health specialists. Such important issues as global food security, vector-born epidemics, availability of water, energy consumption are addressed in timely manner helping decision makers to mitigate unfavorable consequences of the environment for society (abstract for presentation by Dr. Felix Kogan). In this abstract where does the public beyond farmers and ranchers, fisherman, commodity groups and agribusiness, insurance providers, extension agents, water and forest resource managers, health specialists appear and why should the public or counter publics trust scientists when their main concern is farmers and ranchers, fisherman, commodity groups and agribusiness, insurance providers, extension agents, water and forest resource managers, health specialists and not voters, taxpayers or residents. Why should taxpayers support NOAA Operational Polar-Orbiting Satellites for Monitoring the Environment and Socioeconomic Activities in a period when basic human needs go unmet? One could conclude from this abstract that the public does not matter. The ease by which public opinion could be shifted on the question of climate change suggests a mistrust of government, government institutions and scientists. When voters are faced with the prospect of reductions in social security benefits or the elimination of satellite programs which will be nearer and dearer?
Web based applications (Li2010a, 2010b) such as the GEOSS Clearinghouse are a means to increase the accessibility of geospatial data among users including the public. Virtual globes such as google earth and world wind are mechanisms to disseminate earth science data. Earth science data is becoming more available via the web but what is missing is appropriate science education and popularization strategies to engage and inform the relevant publics who pay for these programs and satellites.
As we see in the less contentious area of flood mitigation and natural disaster responses, a more sensitive approach to the questions the public and emergency response planners have are evident in the flood scenario mappings of hydrological data. This approach might be broadened to more contentious areas of concern like global climate change and by extension Earth Observation data. Current efforts to increase accessibility and transparency of remotely sensed data through digital globes and integrated GEOSS clearinghouses are necessary if the wider public or publics are to be served. Data visualizations such as web based mapping are vital, but through the popular education models of public geography, the kinds of data and the methods of presentation could be made more responsive and engage more people beyond the limited set of interested communities in academia, business, and government whose needs are now addressed. It is these wider publics who ultimately have the power to expand or contract remote sensing and satellite programs. The value of the data and knowledge produced from these programs needs to be widely understood if political support is to continue uninterrupted. In this case, popular understanding of science, scientific method and its relevance to everyday life needs to be enhanced; social scientists could play a pivotal role in making this happen.
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