Mapping Baldwin County's Waste Memories

The collective memory of Baldwin County's economic development over 220 years includes many lasting scars of environmental and social injustices.  Our project implemented geographic information science (GISc) technologies to help capture and display locally gathered data about specific sites of interest and their historical records.  We gathered public information to inform a standardized basemap, so that community members could then actively contribute additional details regarding locations where pollution, trash, and social or environmental injustices took place.  Three distinct collection techniques were developed and tested: paper maps on a large round table, a large-format electronic display operated by a trained GISc analyst, and personal hand-held devices using cloud datasets and applications.  We presented our basemap and collection methods to a test group and evaluated the most effective methods for individuals with different skill levels and backgrounds.  The methodologies will be used in a future public participatory event related to the Georgia College Sustainability Symposium.  This project will culminate in a digital history of Baldwin County waste memories, useful to inform and direct local governance and development.

We collected data regarding the waste scars in Milledgeville Ga and Baldwin County. We collected data from members of Baldwin County and Milledgeville to use their knowledge and experience to locate and map the waste scars. We will use open ended questions to provide flexibility in responses and will rely on the community to accurately describe the issues they have seen and the location of those issues.

Public Participatory GIS (PPGIS) refers to methods that collect primary data in an organized manner from individuals with specific knowledge.

For this project, we targeted local community members with information regarding areas in Baldwin County that are known waste areas and illegal dumping sites. Implementing PPGIS methods allowed us to collect useful information about the local people’s understandings and perceptions of their surrounding environment. By furthering analyzing and confirming that the data is reliable, we can then display visualized results on our original basemap to highlight the waste memories of the county.

Ethnography: detailed qualitative description of people in a specific environment.•Spatial Ethnography: contextualize the environment with human stories.

Investigating the problem begins by listening to the local community to form an understanding of local pollution.

Solutions to local issues can come about by learning what actually concerns people about their environment.

The Base Map

Interviews and Surveys

1- Analog Map (T)

2- Digital Display (J)

3- Phone App (S)

Results

Discussion

References