The First Cartography and Sustainable Development Workshop in Aruba

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Monday Jan 26th- Wed Jan 28th 2026

The First Cartography and Sustainable Development Workshop in Aruba

You are formally invited to the first ICA Workshop on Cartography and Sustainable Development at the University of Aruba, in Oranjestad, Aruba.

Sustainable Development is a global challenge that requires local solutions. The formal definition is “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (Brundtland Report WCED 1987:43). Sustainable Development is inherently interdisciplinary since it tackles both ecology and social issues. Cartography and maps are pivotal for recognizing global trends and for identifying where localized interventions need to take place for sustainable development.

This first workshop hosted by the Commission of Cartography and Sustainable Development will be held on Aruba, a small island in the Caribbean. Small islands face magnified sustainability challenges due to their small size, limited resources, and geographic isolation. These characteristics come together in concepts related to “island metabolism” referring to the visibility and materiality of challenges like resource management associated with Sustainable Development. Cartography can help illuminate these challenges and more, to different people, enabling collaborative solutions and decision making. Yet, collecting and sharing spatial data are a significant challenge and necessary for map making.

The aim of this workshop is to bring cartographers, sustainability experts, and islanders into open dialog about Sustainable Development and cartography; to identify tangible solutions to Sustainable Development, through the use of maps; to identify solutions for making maps to illuminate Sustainable Development challenges and solutions. During this workshop, you are invited to share your expertise and insights about sustainable development and cartography. Moreover, you are offered the valuable opportunity to learn about and tour the beautiful island of Aruba beyond the façade of tourism marketing. Abstracts submitted in this call for presentations, once reviewed and accepted, will be open access and published by the International Cartography Association like those found here Publications International Cartographic Association.

Call for Presentations:

We invite you to submit an abstract for the First ICA Workshop on Cartography and Sustainable Development. The theme of the workshop is Mapping for Sustainable Development. This first workshop is topically intentional, expansive, and inclusive. Since the workshop is held on a small island, we are particularly interested in sustainability topics and cartography challenges that relate to mapping small islands, but any topic related to Sustainable Development is welcome. Extended abstracts will be shared as short oral presentations; lightening talks and posters are also welcome.

We seek three kinds of presentations:

Extended Abstract: Presentations based on extended abstract should be no longer than two pages using the ICA Template. Extended abstracts are allotted a 20-minute oral presentation, with 15 minutes for the presentation and 5 minutes for discussion (subject to change based on submission volume). Extended abstract presentations can cover completed research, existing sustainable policies and practices, and/or community-engaged scholarship, among other topics. Please Use Template found here.

Lightening Talk: Lightening talk presentations based on short abstract should be no longer than 250 words and still submitted using the ICA Template (link above). Extended abstracts are allotted a 10-minute oral presentation, with 5 minutes for the presentation and 5 minutes for discussion. Paper presentations can cover research in progress, prospective sustainable development policies and practices, and/or technical demonstrations, among other topics.

Poster Presentation: Poster presentations are welcome. Poster presentations displaying student work and research are encouraged. A poster hall will be set up to showcase posters.

Please first sign up for the workshop using this online form that requests the following information:

• Name:

• Affiliation:

• Email address:

• Presentation type: (extended abstracts and/or lightening talks)

When you have signed up via the google form above – you will recieve a confirmation email including a link to submit your abstract or lightening talk description.

Please fill in the form below no later than September 12, 2025. You will have until October 18 to submit your abstract. 

More about the Workshop:

Each day will be a mix of formal presentations and outdoor excursions.

This workshop will utilize Sustainable Tourism principles as much as possible and support locally owned restaurants, hotels and tour operators.

In addition to the traditional research talks, Eric Mijts, the Founding Director of the Sustainable Island Solutions through Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (SISSTEM) Program and Director of Research at the University of Aruba, will take us on a curated tour where we will learn about sustainability initiatives across the island. Government officials, including the SDG Task Force and NGOs from the island of Aruba, will share their sustainability and cartography challenges and innovative solutions.

At this workshop we will discuss, document and reflect how we as a commission are thinking about Cartography and Sustainable Development.

Preliminary Schedule (subject to change based on number of participants)

Time BlocksDay 1 Jan 27th MondayDay 2 Jan 28th TuesdayDay 3 Jan 29th Wed.
9-10:15Welcome and Presentations by Aruban SDG Task Force MembersSustaianble Development Island Bus TourSustainable Development Sailing Tour
Coffee Break
10:15-11		Workshop Participants Meet and Greetincludes lunchVisit Coastal island off of Aruba, beautiful mangroves, decomissioned dump
11-12:30Workshop Sessions – PresentationsSneak peak of island tour on day 2 and more! (Extra Fee)
Lunch
12:30-14:00		Tour of the University of Aruba and Lunch
14:00-15:30Workshop Sessions – PresentationsWorkshop Sessions – Lightening TalksWorld Cafe – Organized Discussion -Questions posed to workshop participants to discuss goals moving forward for Cartography and Sustainable Development
Coffee Break
15:30-16		Break!Break!
16-18:00Keynote Speaker TBAWorkshop Sessions – Presentations
(Followed by dinner at Surfside Restaurant)		Closing Dinner (if interest – extra fee)
Preliminary Schedule subject to change slightly

Costs:

The cost of the conference varies based on what activities you plan to attend. Payment for the conference and conference activies will be collected in cash, in person, at the event.

Cost for attending the workshop excluding tours is $30 USD (Includes all coffee breaks). 

Cost for attending all activities on Day One and Day Two is $100 USD (Includes Bus tour and lunch on day two, and all coffee breaks.)

Cost for attending all activities on Day One, Two and Three is $200 USD (includes a boat tour, bus tour and all coffee breaks)

Mangroves and baby Mangroves in Aruba – Mangroves are highly protected ecosystem as they provide erosion control, biodiversity and habitat for many different species, and they are an important carbon sink. Mangoves are linked to SDG 15.1.1 and SDG indicator 6.6.1
One of many beautiful murals in San Nicolas, Aruba which will be viewed on the island tourn on day 2.

Commission work shared at two invited UN presentations – available to view online

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At the United Nations Datathon Training Webinar: Integration of Geospatial Information and Statistics for the SDGs in the context of Big Data held on Oct 4, 2023 Hosted by UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs Statistics Division – ICA Cartography and Sustainable Development Commission Chair, Britta Ricker was invited to present her talk titled  “Understanding, analyzing and visualizing big data: A geospatial approach for the SDGs” you may watch the full presentation here.

The IAEG-SDGs Working Group on Geospatial Information: Rescuing the SDGs with Geospatial Information hosted by the Working Group on Geospatial Information (WGGI) of the Inter-Agency and Expert Group on SDG Indicators (IAEG-SDGs) This event titled: Rescuing the SDGs with Geospatial Information UN55SC was held on February 19, 2024.Britta Ricker was Invited to Present Commission work in her talk titled “How can… or how does academia help with the SDG indicators? Academic research for sustainable development” Watch Dr. Ricker talk here This event was formally hosted by United Nations Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management (UN GGIM), and well organized by Mark Iliffe.

The event was chaired by Ms Mary Smyth, Central Statistics Office, Ireland and is the co-Chair IAEG-SDGs WGGI. Other presenters in this seminar included: Mr Olav Eggers, Agency for Data Supply and Infrastructure, Denmark talk titled: National geospatial information for supporting the SDGs and Mr David Borges, Committee on Earth Observations Satellites (CEOS) and NASA , USA with his talked titled: Global data, national progress, local impact

Read more about the event here The IAEG-SDGs Working Group on Geospatial Information: Rescuing the SDGs with Geospatial Information (un.org)

Call for Papers: International Journal of Cartography

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Special Issue – Cartography and Sustainable Development

Guest Editors: Britta Ricker and Carolyn Fish

The International Cartographic Association’s Commission of Cartography and Sustainable Development invites submissions for a Special Issue of the International Journal of Cartography, published by Taylor and Francis. (http://www.tandfonline.com/tica)

The aim of the Journal is to provide a vehicle for publishing key documents from all areas of the ICA research, teaching and professional community’s expertise, and in so doing, to define contemporary cartography and GIScience. The Journal covers a number of areas of endeavour in cartography and GIScience, both traditional and transitional.

Access to resources necessary to sustain life are not accessible to all. The reasons for this are complex and interwoven. Sustainable Development is the process of meeting the necessities of the present without compromising the opportunities of future generations to meet their own needs. Sustainable Development is an inherently interdisciplinary challenge and addresses issues of environmental, social, and economic justice and equity. It requires changes to current understandings of development to improve human wellbeing through environmental preservation, and social equity, and economic opportunity and development. Cartography can help reduce complexity by illustrating both current realities and future possibilities to reveal spatial patterns that might otherwise go unnoticed. Maps and cartographic visualizations can aid in identifying where to employ local solutions to global challenges, indicating where opportunities could be had, illuminating injustice, and guiding informed decision-making processes more broadly. Well-designed maps employing effective cartographic principles can illuminate strategies to reach a sustainable world.

We invite paper submissions that provide pragmatic, conceptual, theoretical, methodological, and/or empirical basis for supporting and advancing Sustainable Development initiatives through cartography and/or geovisualization. We welcome a wide range of topical issues that address sustainable development including (but are not limited to):

  • The use or modification of maps to advance ecological, social, or economic opportunity, development, and/or justice
  • How cartography is an effective tool to illuminate gaps, where sustainable development initiatives are needed
  • How visualizations can be employed to reify or evaluate challenges associated with Sustainable Development
  • Identifying solutions or challenges faced at different (spatial and administrative) scales (or levels of geography and government) in terms of specific variables related to Sustainable Development
  • Addressing Sustainable Development as it related to cartographic design, production and data management
  • Communicating missing data that could advance Sustainable Development action
  • Exploring issues of scale (either geographic or temporal) in Sustainable Development and cartography
  • Investigating the application of participatory approaches to Sustainable Development and cartography
  • Mapping the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

Timeline:

September 8th, 2023 – Authors Submit Title and short abstract (100-200 words max) (send these expressions of interest to Guest Editors Britta Ricker b.a.ricker@uu.nl and Carolyn Fish cfish11@uoregon.edu) 

September 15th, 2023 – Notification of selected submissions an invitation to submit a full paper

December 15th, 2023 – Full papers due

All submissions and reviewing for papers submitted to the International Journal of Cartography are handled electronically through the Taylor and Francis on-line facility.  This manages the paper-handling process – from submission, to review and revision to publishing.  All papers are double-blind reviewed.

As soon as papers are accepted, typeset, and approved by the author they are published on-line (and article DOI provided).  This speeds-up the time taken from paper acceptance to publishing.  Once all papers for a particular issue are in-hand the print version of the Journal is published. All papers are published with abstracts in English and French.  Additionally, at the authors’ request, and if the author provides the abstract in their mother tongue, it is possible to include a third abstract, in the Authors’ mother tongue.

Contact:

Please contact Britta Ricker b.a.ricker@uu.nl and/or Carolyn Fish cfish11@uoregon.edu  with any questions and with submissions to the Special Issue

Welcome to the Cartography and Sustainable Development (ICA) Commission Website

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Welcome to the International Cartographic Association‘s Commission for Cartography and Sustainable Development website. Here you will find information about our commission, current opportunities, past events, and learning materials.

Please click this link to sign up to be on our mailing list.