Welcome to the first newsletter Commission for Cartography and Sustainable Development of the International Cartographic Association where we invite ideas for action, upcoming events, and report of recent activities:

Ideas for action

• On our Commission Website https://carto-sd.icaci.org/ we would like to add a place for members. If you would like your name to be added to the website as a member of this commission, please add your name to the form found here – there is also a place for you to add ideas for commission on this form too. https://forms.gle/CscjKxF5apfwuG698 .

• Spotlight on members – We would like to start a section called “Spotlight on members” If you would like to be featured here, please add a slide with your photo, a bit about yourself and why you are interested in cartography and sustainable development. https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1CSfvXAS5mD5RymN3Cqx31SLZHvo0c6AqIk3wILmajOg/edit?usp=sharing

Upcoming Events

AsiaCarto 2024

• The first AsiaCarto will be held in Hong Kong 8-10 December https://asiacarto.org/2024/ 
• Representing our Commission – PhD Candidate Cara Flores will be presenting work about Participatory Mapping for Sustainable Development titled “Weaving participatory and artistic approaches into generating spatial data in mapping for a sustainable world”.
• If you will be at AsiaCarto please let me (Britta) know so we can advertise your participation!

International Cartographic Conference (ICC) 2025

• The next International Cartographic Conference (ICC) will be held in Vancouver in August 2025 https://icc2025.com/ The theme is Mapping the Future: Innovation, Inclusion, and Sustainability
• Call for papers and abstracts for the Vancouver ICC is out! Read it in English or in French:
• Our commission is planning to do a pre-conference workshop in Vancouver, stay tuned!
• Do you have an idea for a commission-sponsored workshop? Please share your ideas here https://forms.gle/qwMxdYKeVrm7oqyc7

Cartography and Sustainable Development Workshop in Aruba 2026

• We will be hosting a Cartography and Sustainable Development Workshop in Aruba in January 2026 – read more here https://carto-sd.icaci.org/the-first-cartography-and-sustainable-development-workshop-in-aruba/

Recent Activities

EuroCarto – Vienna September 2024

• Together with with the ICA Commission on Integrated Geospatial Information for Cartography and the ICA Commission on Topographic Mapping Anja Hopfstock Markus Jobst Kathryn Arnold David Forest and Lukasz Halik we co-hosted the Workshop “Building the Road to AI; How cartography links data integration, meaning and geospatial knowledge transmission” This workshop fostered rich discussion about experiences trying to reach the goal of mapping for a sustainable world. Speakers included:

• James Norris presented and explained the United Nations Integrated Geospatial Information Framework and his perspective about how it can be useful.
• Gwendolin Seidner shared a presentation titled “Solving the Puzzle: A Country-level Action Plan for Germany – How geospatial supports the UN-IGIF” with examples that countries can learn from while trying to implement geospatial technology for sustainable development. There were some entertaining and exciting examples of using old maps to answer contemporary spatial questions.
• David Forest and Lukasz Halik talked about investigating openly available data to support SDG mapping and topographic mapping which fostered great discussions among the participants about worldwide data availability.
• Mark Jobst led a tutorial about how to make choropleth SDG maps using an online tool.
• I, Britta, presented about what I learned about writing the Book Mapping for a Sustainable World and my current research initiatives – some of the ideas are shared on the Geoholics Podcast.

• During the main conference there was a session on Sustainability and Cartography – see the full program here https://eurocarto2024.org/program/ chaired by Florian Ledermann which included the following presentations:
  • Luca Gaia, Lorenz Hurni, Andreas Neumann, René Sieber: “Cartographic visualization of the effects of climate change: a practical application for the Atlas of Switzerland”
  • Britta Ricker, Maarten Eppinga, Sharona Jurgens, Eric Mijts: “Mapping for Sustainable Development: Comparing different techniques for mapping and monitoring mangroves in Aruba”
  • Yi Zhen Chew, Ekaterina Chuprikova, Holger Kumke, Abraham Mejia-Aguilar, Liqiu Meng, Nikolaus Obojes: “From Leaves to Forests: How to Map Stress in Plants due to Climate Change”
  • Ayako Kagawa: “What’s geographical names got to do with Climate Action?”
  • Zdeněk Stachoň, Petr Kubíček, Lukáš Dolák, Radim Štampach, Jan Řehoř: “Drought, Heatwaves, and Fire Weather and its Cartographic Visualization”

NACIS Tacoma October 2024

• Commission vice-chair Carolyn Fish attended the North American Cartographic Information Society conference in Tacoma this month. There were great presentations and discussion all around. See the full program here: https://nacis2024.sched.com/
• Next year’s NACIS will be in Louisville, KY in October 2025 and typically abstracts are due in May.

Intergeo and the German Cartography Conference – Deutsche Kartographie Kongress (DKK) 

Britta presented commission work related to mapping SDG global to local in the session Kartographie für eine smarte Welt on Sept 25, 2024. It was great to learn about the research and ideas happening in Germany at the cartography conference. At the Intergeo ExpoCenter, it was completely inspiring to see and touch all of the latest mapping hardware and software.

Thank you for reading. Looking forward to hearing from you all.