A Challenge to Students and Faculty at COGS

This week, I stopped at the COGS library. I found ‘Canadians who Innovate’. The last entry, #60 was Fraser Taylor, Ottawa, Ontario. Fraser Taylor’s contribution includes the Cyber-cartography Atlas of Arctic Bay.

This led me to ‘AI and the Geography of Annapolis County: a proposal for students and faculty at the Centre of Geographic Sciences.

I have been writing a blog ‘Ernest Blair Experiment’ since 2013. Some times, it was posted to GoGeomatics. Since 2017, it was posted under Ernest Blair Experiment. The title comes from Ernest Buckler, author of ‘The Mountain and the Valley’. Eric Blair aka George Orwell. Experiment because using changing technology is always an experiment. Volume 9 includes all the blogs for 2024.

After attending Wayne Rouse’s talk on AI. I had this idea.

Could we use AI to link GIS to local Geography ?

Is this a project that might appeal to current GIS/AI students at COGS ?

Could this provide a model for other groups in other parts of the country to link local geographic knowledge and share it with the world ?

Here is my thinking. Each blog has date and contains reference to the local geography. In my case, Annapolis County or the Annapolis Valley.

Using AI could we take the total collection of blogs, identify themes and topics and produce a series of online maps ? We could use AI to identify the locations. We could use ArcGIS to map these locations.

Topics could include walking trails, canoe routes, mountain bike adventures. They could include types of retail outlets – restaurants, book stores, tourist services.

From a literary perspective, it could include geographic references in the writing of Ernest Buckler, David Whitman (e.g. Roxbury).

A recent blog feedback from Celes Davar showed me the technology for mapping bird calls. I can imagine something similar for mapping plant observations e.g. Agalinis neoscotica.

The fundamental challenge is to use current technology to extract local knowledge (in an electronic database) and to ensure it is taken into account when making resource management decisions about our ‘collective geography’. The tools exist; there are individuals who possess detailed experiential knowledge of our environment.

Let’s bring them together. Create a prototype at COGS; then share world-wide.

Reference

Roseann O’Reilly Runt. 2024. Canadians who Innovate. The Trailblazers and Ideas that are changing the World. Simon and Schuster. Part 9. Social Innovation for a better world.#60 Fraser Taylor, Ottawa, Ontario. p.300.