Jill Hubley prepared the above detailed interactive map of New York City trees using Drupal,  CartoDB and Mapbox. On her site, you can experiment with her range of maps. This one can be filtered by tree species.

The UK National Center for Coordinating Public Engagement uses mapping to “generate a rich understanding of the connections between people, places, and organizations over space and/or time.” In the past decade participatory mapping has been examined by a range of organizations as a powerful tool for community engagement in problem-solving.

There is growing interest in visualization to stimulate community participation and maps vary widely in style and content, from satellite base maps, such as those shown above, to story-telling maps, such as this example of Participatory Ecosystem Mapping in Kichwa communities of Ecuador under the guidance of Alfredo Vitery, Ecuador, and Wendy Pineda, Perú.

Credit: Alfredo Vitery, Kichwa, Ecuador Particpatory Ecosystem Mapping

Maps are a tool that can be technically annotated and linked to a back end database, or can engage storytellers, not only among indigenous tribes but including school children, such the Collective Sensory Experience Map, New Oak Walking Map assembled by map artist Christian Nold, who works with the local community to creat his maps.

Credit: Christian Nold, New Oak Walking Map

The greatest challenge is to develop a hybrid between the two extremes of “indigenous people tell their stories via maps” and the high-tech for experts-only maps, i.e. maps that tell stories backed up by accurate data that can be filtered and clustered to address different questions. The Climate Data Explorer of the World Resources Institute is a powerful exemplar of that job well done.

The map below of Boston, made by Moody Studio team members Assen Assenov and Massimiliano Roda, is overlaid on satellite imagery, can be seen as the game board at the start of an earthDECKS problem-solving “game,” the canvas on which stakeholders engage to address the challenges of their town.

Assen Assenov holds a Masters in Urban Design from Harvard GSD and B. Arch. from the University of Rome. His design skills in urban design and architecture are complemented by technical skills in systems management and GIS, e.g. for Apple Inc. HQ in Cupertino and ESRI ArcView for the Macintosh.