[ISHMap-List] AAG 2017 CFP: Cartographic reconstruction of environmental histories

[Martin Lukas]

Final Call for Papers, AAG Annual Meeting, Boston, April 5-9, 2017 
(http://www.aag.org/cs/annualmeeting)

*Session Title**:*

*Cartographic reconstruction of environmental histories*

*Organizer**:*

Martin C. Lukas, University of Bremen, Sustainability Research Center 
(artec), MARUM – Center for Marine Environmental Sciences

*Session Description**:*

Historical maps provide significant potential for research into 
environmental histories. They often represent the only source of 
historical spatial information. Yet, most of their potential has not 
been realised. The limited availability and accuracy of early maps and 
intervening periods without cartographic surveys limit the temporal 
scale and resolution of analysis, pose methodological challenges, and 
introduce uncertainty. The further we expand our analysis of 
environmental change into the past, the more our inquiry is constrained 
by the limited accuracy of historical maps. While contemporary satellite 
images and aerial photographs provide very precise and accurate images 
of almost the entire world at resolutions of a few meters or less, 
historical topographic maps from the nineteenth or early twentieth 
century are marked by inaccuracies of tens or hundreds of meters, and 
earlier charts only depict a small range of topographic features and 
include completely uncharted territories. This is a dilemma, because for 
a realistic understanding of environmental changes and their drivers, we 
often want to look back at least a few centuries. Various questions and 
challenges arise in this context:

§How to assess and compare the reliability of different historical maps?

§At minimum, how accurate must historical maps be in order to be used 
for which kind of analysis?

§Where does the extent of map inaccuracy delimit the temporal scale of a 
historical cartographic analysis of environmental change?

§How can analyses of earlier maps with comparably low levels of accuracy 
or completeness be combined with analyses of more recent, more accurate 
maps and satellite images?

§What are the limits and pitfalls of cartographic reconstructions of 
historical environmental change? How can such pitfalls be avoided?

In order to foster scholarship at the intersection between historical 
cartography and environmental history and to advance and share 
knowledge, I seek papers that present any kind of cartographic 
reconstructions of historical environmental change, that analyse 
historical maps quantitatively or qualitatively, that link environmental 
and cartographic histories, or that relate to any of the questions 
raised above. Conceptual, methodological as well as empirical 
contributions are welcome.

Please email your abstract of up to 250 words to Martin Lukas 
(martin.lukas at uni-bremen.de <mailto:martin.lukas at uni-bremen.de>) by 
Wednesday, November 16th. Successful applicants will need to submit 
their abstracts online to the AAG by November 17th.


-- 
Dipl. Geogr. Martin C. Lukas
artec Forschungszentrum Nachhaltigkeit
(Sustainability Research Center)

Associate Scientist
GLOMAR - Bremen International Graduate School for Marine Sciences
MARUM – Center for Marine Environmental Sciences

University of Bremen
Enrique-Schmidt-Str. 7
28359 Bremen

Phone: +49-421-218 61851

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