Mapping Wilderness ― Concepts, Techniques and Applications

Wilderness mapping may sound like a bit of an esoteric topic, but when you think carefully about it, it is a fundamental theme within environmental science and management. Wilderness is in many ways the pristine resource. It is where we as humans have historically derived all of our goods, services and resources, save perhaps for human ingenuity itself - though one might argue that the development of even that has its origins in our distant wild past wherein survival and development as a species depended on intelligence and invention. Even today in our advanced technological society we derive so much from wilderness and wild landscapes that we often take for granted. Clean air and water are the most obvious, but we must not forget the other regulating and supporting services provided by wilder lands including flood retention, carbon storage and sequestration, wildlife habitats and recreational environments. Wilderness also provides us with subjects of scientific study where we can observe natural processes and wildlife free from human interference. We should also acknowledge their importance as a source of not only scientific knowledge but also artistic and personal inspiration.

This book attempts to give a comprehensi

ve overview of the topic area covering the conceptual and philosophical foundations, techniques and methodological approaches, and applications at a variety of spatial scales. In doing so we have brought together a range of contributors who are both experts in their field and cutting-edge thinkers in the wilderness and spatial mapping field. Spatial information technology and mapping science is a rapidly expanding and developing field and so we expect to be able to add to this in the future. For now, the book provides a record of the "state of the art" and will, it is hoped, enable you the reader to follow our lead and map your wilderness.

 

Steve Carver

Steve is a geographer with an interest in application of GIS to wilderness and wild landscapes. He is particularly interested in quality assessment, public participation and visibility analyses. He has worked widely on these topics in the UK, Europe and North America. He is Director of the Wildland Research Institute, and is based in the School of Geography, University of Leeds.

Steffen Fritz

Steffen is Head of the Earth Observation Systems group in the Ecosystems Services and Management Program at IIASA. Steffen is the main driver behind Geo-Wiki and is currently researching different incentive schemes for crowdsourcing of land cover in Kenya, Tanzania and Austria through the European Research Council funded project called CrowdLand. His PhD was on wilderness mapping under the supervision of Steve Carver.