[appgema] WG activity

Wed Nov 15 00:35:14 PST 2006

Dear Colleagues,

the WG have reached the number of 43 members, spread over 19 countries, as
you can see form the attached map, and I would like to thank all the ones
who expressed their interest in this initiative. 

It has been a real pleasure to welcome Professors Denys Brunsden, Herman T.
Verstappen, Richard Dikau, Bernhard Eitel, Jim Griffiths, among the others.

There are two different issues that I would like to share with you: one
regarding the questionnaire and other institutional issues, and the other
more relate do the activities and funding/sponsorhips of the WG

1) Questionnaire & institutional issues

a) Questionnaire. So far there has been only a little response to the
questionnaire that you can find on the right-hand side of the WG web page
(http://www.geomorph.org/wg/wgagm.html). I guess if this is due to the fact
that most of you agree with the expected activities and outputs or not. 

Among the feedbacks one, in particular (by Denys Brunsden), regards the
activities of the WG and it will be discussed later. 

Another feedback (by Jim McCalpin) strongly suggest to contact the
"International Association for Engineering Geology, which has a Commission
(Commision 1) on a very similar topic, that of Engineering Geological maps.
See http://www.iaeg.info/Default.aspx?tabid=74." This is also important,
according to McCalpin, because "In the USA, most "applied geomorphological
mapping" is performed by consulting engineering geologists as a part of the
services they offer clients. It is NOT generally performed by academics at
universities. Because of that, the Association of Engineering Geologists (
<http://www.aegweb.org/> www.aegweb.org ), would be the key USA organization
to consult with.". 

This is a good suggestion and it goes in the same direction of another one
(Denys Brunsden) that points out the work done by the Engineering Specialty
Group of the Geological Society of London. 

b) Vice-Chair. There has been only one candidature for the vice-chair
position so far: Dr. Mike Smith, from Kingston University, London. 

I guess that, if there will be no other expressions of interest for this
position in the next week (ending Tuesday the 21th) we can welcome Dr Smith
as vice-chair.

2) Activities of the WG

a) Main goals. the only feedback that has been sent (from Prof. Brunsden)
has some very wise suggestions on the goals and general activities of the
WG. From his historical perspective Prof. Brunsden considers that "During
the 1960's, indeed starting earlier, there was a huge interest in
geomorphological mapping and numerous national systems were developed. All
the arguments, discussions about the best symbols, classifications etc were
endlessly given. The journals are packed with, I suspect, everything you
want to know. The first task, therefore, is to do a thorough literature
search and to ask people to empty there files. You will have more papers
than you have yet read. 

... 

Don't waste your time doing it all again. Trust the people of the past -
they were good and have done a lot for you.

Of course it is possible to look at all the legends and to develop an agreed
scheme for modern use. It is a mammoth task to gather it all together but
believe me - all the discussions have already been held and went so far as
the become intellectually sterile and very very boring.

...

The main task is to make it compatible with modern GIS, ARC Info, Map Info
or other systems

Another task is to make it compatible with new imaging systems-Digital
camera, LIDAR, etc"

All these arguments go in the same directions of the ones expressed also by
Gustavvson et al (2006) where they consider that "Activities focusing on
geomorphological mapping as a scientific discipline in its own right have
been relatively modest over the last 20 years. There may be two main reasons
for this: (1) detailed  geomorphological mapping is a time-consuming and
costly activity; and (2) the present focus is on themes and applications
rather than the holistic scientific maps. As a consequence, instead of a
general understanding of an area with its mutual spatial, chronological and
genetic relations between land elements (sensu Lawrance, 1972, cited in
Cooke and Doornkamp, 1990, p. 21, Fig. 2.1; see also Speight, 1974), the
discipline has come to be seen as fossil and not real science and now stands
in the shadow of thematic and applied maps and technical developments
focusing on specific problems. This is somewhat surprising especially
because the decline in geomorphological mapping coincides with a strong
development in GIS; yet the new possibilities that can spring from a
combination of a GIS database and traditional field based geomorphological
maps and legends have been somewhat neglected." (Geomorphology, 77: 90-111).

And they also go in the same direction of the general objectives and outputs
proposed for the WG.

According to these considerations, the only point that could be amended from
the Main Goals of the WG is the first one: Develop and deepen the
theoretical basis of applied geomorphological mapping. We are still in a
sort of preliminary phase of the WG and we could drop this point, according
to the historical perspective explained above. 

What do you think about this possibility?

b) Literature search and collection. The first step to follow is, in any
case, to do the deep literature search and to collect the material published
so far. In order to make this collection already a step toward a useful
product for the community of users, one idea is to produce a DVD that could
contain a sort of "Digital Atlas of applied geomorphological maps", edited
by the experts in this field. The main task to perform, in this case, would
be to translate into English the legends and the notes of the maps published
in languages different than English, in order to let everybody understand
their symbolism and comments. In this way we could already think of a
product that could be: i) used as it is by the both researchers and the
professionals, ii) constitute the base upon which built the new standards
and GIS legend systems, and iii) accomplish with the points number 2 and
partly 1 of the WG. We could also think of adding to the Digital Atlas the
principal and most important papers, book chapters, grey literature and
other material on Applied geomorphological mapping. 

A very good achievement would be the translation of the collected material
also in French and Spanish, allowing thus most of the colleagues from
non-english speaking countries to profit form it.

What do you think about this option?

c) Subgroups. Regarding the objectives and outputs my suggestion is to focus
on the two main groups of mapping types where geomorphology plays a key
role: geomorphological mapping sensu stricto, and land-system or terrain
mapping (Cooke et al., 1983). Both of these types of mapping are used for
applied geomorphological issues, with different aims, techniques, and
scales. This could be easily done by two subgroups of the WG.

What do you think about this option?

d) Free-resources and open-source material. The web site of the WG could be
a real useful resource site, hosting also a free resource section where we
could put links to freeware or open-source software, toolkits, palette of
symbols and colours, etc for mapping. To this regards if there is somebody
willing to collect all these kind of resources from the other members she/he
is very welcome. 

What do you think about this option? Is it there anybody interested in being
the reference point for the collection of the material? 

e) Donors/Sponsors/Funding. As you all may know the activities developed by
the WG are on a voluntary base and the WG has a funding for its development
from the IAG/AIG of 500 ? per year, only. This is the reason why we are
looking for sponsorship for the activities, especially if we would like to
pursue the objective of the Summer School and also of some of the other
activities/outputs. This is a kind invitation to all of you to think about
and suggest to the group a possible sponsor of the WG.

There are still some members who do not have subscribed to the mailing list.
Please do subscribe if you can (just send an email to
appgema at lists.eogeo.org). It would be much more easy to communicate if
everybody could subscribe to the mailing list.

Please do not hesitate to post a reply to this message directly on the
mailing list ( <mailto:appgema at lists-eogeo.org> appgema at lists-eogeo.org ).
It would be extremely important to have a feedback from you at least on the
questions that are underlined.

In order to allow everybody to see the reply, please simply do a "reply to
all" to this message. 

Best regards,

Paolo

:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:
Paolo PARON

email:  <mailto:paoloparon at yahoo.it> paoloparon at yahoo.it  
mobile (untill the 20th of November): +61 435 088 426

POBox 8 - Sarit Centre
00606 Nairobi - Kenya

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