The new Berkeley Food Institute has released its crop of funded projects from its first seed grant program. Our project Making the Road by Mapping: Informing Food System Transformation through Participatory Mapmaking was selected for seed funding. This project, led by Kathryn DeMaster includes graduate students Adam Calo (ESPM) and Sarah Van Wart (Information), Darin Jensen (Geography), Tapan Parikh (Information), Kaley Grimland-Mendoza (Agriculture and Land-Based Training Association), Amber Sciligo (Post-doc, ESPM), Christy Getz (ESPM), and Jennifer Sowerwine (Jepson Herbaria). We look forward to digging in.
Our participatory mapping research project has four primary purposes: First, we explore participatory mapping as a way to collaboratively generate new food system knowledge with scholars, practitioners, and producers. Second, through a process we term “communitysourcing,” we aim to illuminate overlooked caches of community-based knowledge and engage community members, agricultural producers and scholars in collaborative efforts to map a particular food system supply chain (small-scale organic strawberry production in the Salinas Valley). Third, we aim to integrate the interdisciplinary community-based participatory research with specific understandings of the way that certain agricultural policies either facilitate or restrict sustainable small-scale organic strawberry production in the Salinas Valley (with a particular focus on water quality and food safety policy/regulations). Fourth, we will present our findings in novel, innovative, and visually captivating ways that will: (a) Inform specific policies/regulations and; (b) Provide small-scale producers with easily accessible caches of community generated knowledge to inform their practices.
In a recent article published in the Guardian, Michelle Kilfoyle and Hayley Birch discuss the widespread use of citizen science initiatives. They recently produced a report (pdf) for the Science for Environment Policy news service, in which the authors review a number of citizen science case studies, and explore the potential benefits of citizen science for both science and society, especially given the advent of new mobile technologies that enable remote participation. They also ask interesting questions about who really benefits the most from these developments: the amateurs or the professionals?
- How could new and developing technologies help citizen science projects feed into environmental policy processes?
- Is environmental data produced by citizen scientists as accurate as environmental data produced by professional scientists?
- How can citizen science benefit environmental monitoring and policymaking?
From Greg Brown.
Helsinki, Finland is developing a new city plan for the future (http://www.hel.fi/wps/portal/Kaupunkisuunnitteluvirasto_en). Helsinki becomes possibly the first major world city to use PPGIS to inform its comprehensive city planning process. The PPGIS website was developed by Mapita (http://mapita.eu/), a software company founded by Prof. Marketta Kytta and others at Aalto University. The website launched several days ago and has already had over 5500 participants map places and preferences for the future of Helsinki.
You can visit the website here: https://helsinki.asiatkartalle.fi (There is an option to try out the website without having your map markers or survey responses included in the results…see option below the “Begin” button that says ”Try without saving answers”).
https://helsinki.asiatkartalle.fi/
The California Geoportal, officially launched in March 2013 (see here for related launch press release), augments and in some ways replaces the original Cal-Atlas statewide GIS data download webpage with a more simplified, smooth, and more intuitive website for all GIS related data in the state. You can now search or browse for GIS data by geography and any corresponding metadata using traditional search queries as well as by using a standalone webGIS interface. The portal also provides direct download links to some Oregon and Nevada state GIS datasets. The site acts as a GIS data repository for publicly available GIS data and related documents and maps from state agencies and local and regional governments. Rather than hosting the physical data, the site instead acts as a library of direct download links to datasets that connect directly to the author’s databases. The site also links you to other state GIS applications such as the California Coastal Geoportal and webGIS viewers from various state agencies.
Click on the image left to view a close-up of the new confirmed SOD data (in green) from SOD Blitz and UC Davis.
Explore the new data online here.
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