Community Mapping with Google Maps

Harnessing a Powerful Tool

Satish Babu1 and Dr. CNR Nair2

“The notion of a group of amateurs creating a

complex map of Malaysia could even have been
thought as preposterous when not many devel-
oped countries around the world have detailed
community maps.”
­—Jason W.Y LEE, Department of Multimedia Communica-

tions, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, on the Malsingmaps

Community Mapping project of Malaysia

“Maps are more than pieces of paper. They are

stories, conversations, lives and songs lived out in
a place and are inseparable from the political and
cultural contexts in which they are used.”
­—A. Warren, International Forum on Indigeneous Mapping

for Indigenous Advocacy and Empowerment

L
ocal-level maps were inaccessible for most
communities until a few years back in most
parts of the world. In fact, local-level maps
were unavailable in many regions, whereas in
others, security and other governmental concerns
kept maps out of reach of most communities. In
some countries, geopolitical considerations—es-
sentially regarding disputed territories—imposed
constraints on free access to maps. Maps often
represented the points-of-view of the State, and
often became an instrument of State control.
The last decade has seen a revolutionary develop-
ment, wherein many services providers—includ-
ing, most notably, Google—have started provid-
ing global and local maps. In some cases, service
providers have gone a step further, whereby maps
can be worked on by individuals, collectives and
communities, enabling them to place information
on base maps and utilize the power of mapping
technologies for analysis and presentation. For
instance, the Google Maps API is a way to orga-
nize information on maps, both manually and
programmatically.
Why maps?
Maps are unique instruments in many ways.
• Maps transcend the limitations of space, as
most online maps are nearly scale-free, per-

1
Satish Babu (sb@inapp.com) is the President of InApp Infotech, an IT Services company based out of US and India. He is an
avid mapping enthusiast and an organizer of the Google Mapping Party organized in Trivandrum, India, in February 2010.

2
Dr. CNR Nair (cnrnair@gmail.com) works as Consultant, InApp Infotech

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Figure 1: Manual map of Sothikuppam Village in Cuddalore, Tamil Nadu, India, created by community mapping
mitting vast flexibility in zooming in and out
as well as other forms of storage, transmission
and sharing
• Maps reveal patterns of information in ways
that textual representation cannot reveal
• Maps transcend language and literary/com-
munication skills
• Once map-reading skills are provided, maps
are instinctively understood, even by the un-
educated and the illiterate
• Modern on-line maps render themselves use-
ful for a multitude of applications, including
transportation, resource planning, and infor-
mation presentation
• Maps can be used in participatory and demo-
cratic ways to capture information
• Maps are extremely important in the context
of disaster management as well as disaster
preparedness. The existence of maps and
2
mapping tools provide a spatial presentation
of the impact of disasters as well as informa-
tion on safe areas, access/evacuation routes
There are also some concerns raised about map-
ping. Primarily these include concerns on na-
tional security as well as the ownership of the
data generated through a crowdsourcing model
(crowdsourcing refers to co-opting the public in
creating online content). Of these, national secu-
rity concerns have to be addressed at higher levels
than at the community level.
Community mapping
Mapping was ‘set free’ in the last decade when it
came outside the control of cartographers, much
like Wikipedia transferred the locus of control
of textual information from technical editors to
‘The Crowd’. For the first time, mapping could be
carried out by individual or groups of mapping
Figure 2: The same village in Google Maps (Lat: 11.689229 N; Long: 79.770570 E)
enthusiasts. The vast majority of these enthusiasts
contributed to mapping out of their passion for
mapping and not for any other considerations.
Tools such as Google Map Maker have document-
ed a mind-boggling mass of overlay information
on the base maps today.
In this note, we take a closer look at community
mapping through Google Map Maker within the
context of the Google Mapping Party that was
held in Trivandrum, India, in February 2010. This
programme, supported by Google, was attended
by close to 80 mapping enthusiasts, including
several professional cartographers, academics,
mapping afficionados and students.
The need for maps was forcefully articulated in
the post-tsunami humanitarian response in early
2005, when many government and civil society
organizations in several tsunami-hit nations
struggled to provide humanitarian services in
the absence of maps. This was also true of most
parts of India, including the worst-affected south
Indian district of Nagapattinam.
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Subequent interventions by NGOs resulted in
maps being created manually for use in the tsu-
nami rehabilitation and reconstruction phases.
An example is given in Figure 1, which depicts the
highly vulnerable Sothikuppam village in Naga-
pattinam District of Tamil Nadu, which is sand-
wiched between the sea and the Uppanar River.
Even when the process of creating such a map is
undertaken by a group of NGO workers and vil-
lagers, it is a daunting job, with multiple revisions
before a version acceptable/understandable by
the local community can be produced. It involves
extensive visualization and scaling which requires
training and effort. The map is also somewhat un-
wieldy, making it difficult to use, reuse and share.
Yet, this exercise has been done for many villages
in the region and NGOs and communities have
found utility in such a form of documentation.
An electronic version of this map is very much
feasible today (see Figure 2). It would be rela-
tively easier to create, far more convenient to use
and more flexible for different purposes. Since
Figure 3: A mapping session in progress in Nagapattinam, India
NGOs and civil society institutions work through
communities, information that is pertinent and
useful for communities will eventually find its way
online if this path is pursued.
In summary, community mapping initiatives are
good enablers of a variety of uses, and should
be promoted for both planning purposes and for
disaster-proofing of communities. Even though
community mapping is frequently carried out in
the absence of locative tools (such as GPS units),
and often carries only information important to
communities (as opposed all natural/geographi-
cal features), the outcome is still very useful
from the community perspective. Of course,
GPS-based, lat-long calibrated community maps
provide an even more accurate portrayal of the
geography. This is being done in some initiatives
such as Malsingmaps, Malaysia.
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Participatory Mapping in Nagapattinam
As mentioned earlier, participatory mapping was
popularized in Nagapattinam-Cuddalore region in
the post-tsunami context.
Some of the areas that community mapping can
be of use to communities, civil society organiza-
tions, and Governments are listed below:
• Disaster Risk Reduction:
* Mapping historical knowledge about
Disasters (location, frequency, intensity
etc of floods, landslides, storm surges,
volcanic events, extreme weather, military
hazards such as landmines)
* Environmental hazards (air pollution, wa-
ter contamination, waste water influx)
* Slow onset hazards (drought, sea-level
rise, salt water intrusion, pest & disease
diffusion, movement of vectors such as
 mosquitos, climate change indicators,
shoreline changes)
* Hazard reduction through vulnerability
mapping
• Flood inundation and watershed modeling
• Infectious disease spread tracking
• Forest cover tracking
• Land use tracking
• Urban Hazards (crime hotspots, accident-
prone areas, unsafe areas for women, unsafe
areas for children, recommended routes to
school)
• Amenities (hospitals, police stations, bus and
train stations, public restrooms, walking &
trekking routes)

Conclusion
Community mapping, especially in its online
form, has significant utility for civil society. The
nascent domain of neogeography is set to impact
the lives of more people, including the rural poor.

While there are concerns about the accuracy of

the community mapping process, especially in
the absence of locative technologies, the collec-
tive utility of the information generated through a
participatory, democratic, community process has
its own value.

For Google maps, it is important to demonstrate

the utility of such mapping through some success-
ful case studies. For this to happen, the mapping
technologies and competencies have to reach civil
society organizations.

In India, the post-tsunami response and the

consequent longer-term development discourse
engendered by it have revived interest in commu-
nity mapping. A few joint programmes, where the
mapping enthusiasts meet civil society users, may
trigger off much more widespread use of these
technologies. v
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