International Cartography Conference (ICC) 2025 in Vancouver
The Commission of Cartography and Sustainable Development energetically shared ideas and recent work at the International Cartography Conference (ICC) 2025 in Vancouver! The ICC is held every two years and is always fantastic opportunity to meet up with friends and colleagues and visit a beautiful part of the world. The International Cartographic Association (ICA) is a supportive and inspiring community where it is safe to share ideas that are anywhere from just blooming to fully formed. with the theme
’Mapping the future: innovation, inclusion, and sustainability”: see this link for the detailed program. Over 750 participants from all over the world submitted 514 abstracts and 86 full papers.
To learn about our new ideas and friends, please read the summary from the commission led preconference workshop, technical sessions, and business meeting below. Additionally, the chair and vice-chair of the commission attended the ICA commission chair meeting. Below we will share some highlights from the different events where our commission was active.
Canada acted as such a fantastic host for the conference, the hosts shared challenges associated with mapping such a large country covered in vast swaths of nature areas by a small heterogenous population of Canadians. We learned about Indigenous community led mapping programs and more. Particularly impressive was the Smart Ice Project shared by one of the keynote speakers Dr. Katherine Wilson and Renee Semigak https://smartice.org/ Through this mapping initiative, Inuit communities collect and share navigation routes using local knowledge and high tech sensors to avoid traveling on thin ice. This navigation routes need to be continually updated.
President Georg Gartner challenge us all to:
- Listen for a new idea
- Share a new idea
- Make new friend
Our commission was successful in these three goals.
Workshop summary
Our commission together with the Multiscale Commission, Sunday 17 August 2025 before the official start of the conference, commissions had an opportunity to meet for preconference workshops, titled: Multiscale Cartography and Sustainability read full program and CFP here https://generalisation.icaci.org/prevevents/workshop2025.html
Sustainability is a multiscale issue. To achieve sustainability, we need to act at multiple spatial scales, meaning different maps at different scales need different information. In this workshop, we addressed questions like: What data and information need to be on a map at different scales for actors to make the best decisions at each scale? Creative ideas to this wicked challenge were the theme of this workshop. We were particularly happy to see the new ICA members from Senegal in the workshop! As well as members from Hong Kong, government cartography agency from Spain and so many more. About 50 people were in attendance.
After some mingling while enjoying coffee and TimBits (specific array of donut holes that are a Canadian delicacy) we had a mix of ”formal” presentations (See full list and links to abstracts below) and then concluded with a “World Cafe” where we facilitated the opportunity for rich discussions among participants. This was the most exciting part of the workshop – learn from each other’s ideas and experiences.
Participants were divided into three groups. Each group was posed one question. After 15 minutes, each group would move to the next circle to discuss the next question. Questions that were posed included:
- How could/are interactive multi-scale maps useful for mapping SDGs? Share examples or imagine examples.
- What are the specific map generalization problems/challenges raised by SDG (or more generally thematic) maps?
- How to make more sustainable web maps? (think design/communication and energy consumption?)
Formal Presentations that started the workshop included:
- Paul Bourcier and Guillaume Touya. The role of map generalisation in the context of thematic multi-scale cartography. (Download paper)
- Pan scale thematic maps – role of map generalization and cartography from thematic maps versus topographic maps and the techniques for each are not the same
- Britta Ricker. Sustainable development mapping at multiple scales: 360 cameras for spatial data collection and analysis. (Download paper) and link to slides here https://slides.com/d/OrERMnc/live
- Izabela Karsznia, Iga Ajdacka, Bérénice Le Mao and Guillaume Touya. Level of detail matters: machine learning based river selection across Polish and French data. (Download paper)
- Level of details matter in machine learning based river selection – sharing examples from Poland. They invited training data from other countries to test if their ML techniques work in different context.
- Larry Stanislawski, Bethany Walker, Barry Kronenfeld, Barbara P. Buttenfield, Ethan Shavers and Adam Camerer. Assessment of Density Pattern Retention of Generalized Data for 1:100,000-scale United States Topographic Maps. (Download paper)
- Shared his work with quality assessment tools for mapping rivers in the United States. These are classic problems that others certainly face as well.
- Albert Adolf and Izabela Karsznia. Evaluating AI-driven road selection for small-scale maps: graph convolutional networks and visualization strategies. (Download paper)
- Guillaume Touya. Back to the roots – Using map generalization for green cartography. (Download paper)
Technical sessions
The technical sessions were an opportunity for presenters to give formal presentations of peer reviewed abstracts that were accepted to the conference. Our commission led three technical sessions on Monday, Weds and Thursday. The abstracts act as teasers for these presentations, and are highly cited in the cartographic academic literature. The three official cartography and sustainable development technical sessions were full of exciting ideas related to cartography for sustainable development. Below we share a brief summary of each of the papers from the technical sessions, however given the theme of the entire conference was sustainability, there were several talks in various sessions that also highlighted sustainability, for example vice-chair Carolyn Fish’s talk on Tuesday and Cara Flores talk about decoloniality and sustainability in cartography to name a few. To see the full program and read published abstracts see these links
[link to full schedule as a pdf ] and interactive version with links to all published abstracts searchable by day
only SD events https://icc2025.swoogo.com/icc2025/9358545
Session 115 9:30-10:30 Chaired by Anja Hopfstock
9:30 Anna Markowska presented: The cartographic methods of visualising Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) indicators elaborated based on Earth Observation data
In their talk, the shared examples of applying different types of cartograms to visualize SDG based data derived from Earth Observation data.
9:45 Mapping the city’s trajectory for climate change adaptation: mapping territorial evolution, politics will and planning regulations Presenter: Anne Ruas (but due to Air Canada Strike she came a day late so Jean-Fracois Giress presented on their behalf)
Climate change adaptation for cities – need to resist heat. Different cities across France, in different climates, each came up with different solutions. In their talk – they shared their mixed methods approach for community engagement to come up with sustainable planning interventions, from shading structures, to water features and the qualitative criteria for implementation.
Session 335 13:30-14:30 Chaired by Menno Jan Kraak
Session 434 Thursday 13:30-14:30 Carolyn Fish Chaired this session. Find all SD talks for Thursday here.
Business Meeting notes
In the working group business meeting held at the ICC2025 on 20 August 2025, we used this time and space to meet each other and discuss our shared interests and goals. We explained the short history of the commission, discussed recent accomplishments and future plans. All of which can be found in this website. Future Plans – ICC 2027 workshop in Poland! and Join the Cartography and Sustainable development workshop in Aruba https://carto-sd.icaci.org/the-first-cartography-and-sustainable-development-workshop-in-aruba/
We are seeking those interested in leadership opportunities in the commission.
Members in attendance: Anna Markowska, Vassilios Krassanakis, Nianhua Liu, Jon Corbett, Britta Ricker, and Carolyn Fish
In addition to the scientific program the conference included the
Barbara Petchenik Children Map Competition, and the Map Exhibition.
Mapping for a Sustainable World – Hands on Workshop in Harare Zimbabwe
In this two day hands-on workshop held at the Cresta Hotel on the 8-9 of August 2023, participants learned key concepts from the book participants key concepts from the book Mapping for a Sustainable World. Participants were then taught how to use (and clean) official United Nations Sustainable Development Goal indicator data to make a choropleth map and a graduated circle map using QGIS a free open source GIS software. Additionally, there was opportunity to share ideas and experiences through a “World Cafe” and over wonderful meals and coffee breaks.
There were a total of 40 participants were present (while over 180 applied to participate!). These participants had a wide range of professional backgrounds. There were local government employees, local Non-Governmental Organizations such as those from the public health research group CeSHHAR, and students from the University of Zimbabwe and Midlands State University. It was also beneficial to have active members of YouthMappers and Humanitarian OpenStreetMap in attendance.
This event was led by Professor Rob Roth and Britta Ricker. This was a Joint Commission Event hosted together by the UX Commission and the Commission for Cartography and Sustainable Development – the two commission Chairs who are also co-authors of the book Mapping for a Sustainable World.
This event was a great success largely due to the wonderful participants and the local hosts and organizers Tatenda Makanga and Letwin Pondo. We are grateful for funding from the ICA, Utrecht University, and the University of Wisconsin for this event.
We were happy to have been featured on the Youth Mappers website!
